Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

I tried to fight it as hard as I could but *sigh* it cannot be fought I am now irrevocably contaminated with the Alias love. It was an uphill battle I'm telling you, first out of my warped principle of 'no show must be better than Buffy!' And, the bitter: 'Why do they get more publicity than Buffy' (!)

Strangely enough it's not out of love for the main character (Sydney Bristow) which happens to me with all my shows (i.e. Buffy, Angel, John Crichton) but it was out of sheer love for Evil Spy Mom Irina Derevko and Spy Dad Jack. Their love is so smouldering and so warped!

Could anyone not love Jack's devotion to Sydney? It's almost fanatical! Matched only by his hate/love for Irina. Irina though... I love the way she makes everyone nervous! She's already on the other side of a bulletproof wall and Vaughn still jumps at the sound of her voice and man, does she play everyone!

By extension of course I have come to love Sydney, it's a very long extension though, very much unlike how I first came to the Buffy love. First moment on screen I loved all the characters especially Buffy and Angel!

spoliers
I love how JJ Abrams cut 2 years to the future thus shaking up the relationship dynamics of the show and making certain that it's all about the surprising twists! I would thought prefer more Irina!
/spoilers

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I was listening to Joss Whedon's commentary and I realized what went wrong in the series: They got lazy. It's true back in season 1 and 2, even 3 everyone made an effort to check sources, or go to some places that wasn't a studio but as they relied more and more on the studio lots BtVS' background, the people around it became less real and thus it ended-up with the season 7 claustrophobic effect.

At least with Firefly even with its claustrophobic environment they still made an effort to go out. It's necessary even because they need a job so the world building is perfect because the crew gets to interact with people outside of their group! I missed that on Buffy.

Another thing I realize was that Early Season Buffy is far more mature than Season 6 Buffy, maybe it was because she wasn't just confined to her Slayerness and she had a guiding post : her mom and Giles but late season Buffy looks less mature.

This occured to me while watching Prophecy Girl and Xander was asking her out for the prom and she declined Xander's offer because she knew she didn't love Xander that way. As opposed to S7 Buffy where she remained ambivalent towards her relationship with Spike or I could be hard on the girl, since s1 Buffy never had a sexual relationship with Xander and so she's more clear headed in those matters.

But still.

I kept thinking of the way Buffy took Xander's jibes in stride and didn't immediately go 'speechifying' everything. I don't know I may just be a disillusioned fan.

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In other matters I finally, finally signed-up for NaNoWriMo. I have a plot in mind but I'm kind of wibbling on it now since something else is tugging in my mind to be written. *sigh* When Plot Bunnies attack!