Killed by Death

Killed by Death
Written by Robin DesHotel and Dean Batai
Directed by Dorian Sarafain

Original Airdate: February 1998

Plot: A case of the flu puts Buffy in the hospital, where a strange demon is preying on young children. Meanwhile, Xander stands watch to protect the Slayer from Angel while she's in her weakened condition.

Review

Warning: Let there be no doubt that I am not in a fevered sate of mind or deulusional when I say there are major SPOILERS ahead for the latest episode of Buffy, "Killed by Death." If you want to be vacinnated against SPOILERS, I suggest you consider turning back now....

In short: Ugh!

Episodes like this one disturb me--but not in a good way. I am disturbed because Buffy is normally such as consistently good, quality, entertaining show written with a sense of intellignece, wit, and wonder than when a clunker like this comes along, it sticks out even more like a sore thumb.

In this case, a sore thumb that's been beaten repeatedly by a hammer.

And the problem I have is that it could have been so much more. You had some real pontential for character development and maybe a deeper understanding of why Buffy is so driven to hunt down and destroy any form of evil she comes across-vampire or otherwise. Instead, what you had was a page ripped from the cliche book that had flat characters, a dull plot, and some immensely gaping plot holes.

And that's distrubing.

Coming after the major events of Passions, I can understand wanting to take a breather of sort. But, this was not it. In fact, if anything, I am left with a bitter taste in my mouth as we go into a long re-run break. I wish Buffy had just left off with Passions and let this lead off the next set up of new episodes. It might not have come off as badly.

But I doubt it.

Whedon and company open up an interesting can of worms by addressing the flu epidimic that's been ripping through the country. And we have an interesting question--"What if Buffy were too sick to slay?" Unfortantely, once she actually gets to the hospital, we get this question of "What if some really ugly guy who just looks like Fredddy Krueger were running around the hospital, killing kids?" Not nearly as interesting. And it brings up some gaping plotholes. For one thing, everyone is very upest about the possibility Angel will come on down and do Buffy while in her weakened state. This brings up two major inconsitenies--first of all, if he was gonna kill her while she slept, she'd be dead now as we saw last week. And (also from last week) why not perform the ritual on her room. I am assuming her room was a private one and that the ritual could be performed to keep Angel from gaining access.

Seems logical to me.

The other part I didn't like was the whole Freddy Kruger like guy. Sorry, but that's what he reminded me of. And it pretty much remind me why I don't watch those movies--he's not really that interesting or scary. The tension never really mounted nor did I have much concern for the kids. I think if we'd seen Buffy maybe connect with them more early on, the tension to save them would be gone. Yes, I understand the trauma of her cousins death and how that made her feel, but at times it felt like they were looking for a reason for her to slay something. The logic just didn't work on this.

Indeed, this plotline had me so uninterested that I kept checking my watch, seeing when it would end. And that's pretty much something I never do with Buffy. Not even Reptile Boy....

So, overall, it stunk.

But there were some intersting small moments. I loved the scene with Giles and Joyce. A nice, quiet moment about the death of Ms. Calendar. I wonder if we are getting some set-up for a possible relationship between the two.

Also, while Xander seemed really out of character this week, I did like seeing his being overprotective of our Slayer and Cordy's reaction to it. That was a nice touch and something I liked.

Speaking of Cordy, is it just me or his her characterization all over the map? We've seen alot of growth from her this year and yet in the last two weeks, she's been very season one-ish. Ever since she rejected her past life to be with Xander, she's been pretty much like her old self. I just don't see her making that huge a decision to be freinds with these people and then acting like this. She seemed very out of it and I didn't like it.

So, overall, this one pretty much stunk the place up. There were a few small things I liked, but overall, it was pretty bad.

Final Rating: 2.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: A repeat of the instant classic, "Lie to Me." Set those VCRs now!

"Have you ever heard of this thing called tact?"

--Giles