Doomed

Doomed
Written by Marti Noxon, David Fury and Jane Espononsen
Directed by James A. Contner

Original Airdate: January 18, 2000

Plot: Buffy and Riley must deal with what they've learned about each other's identity, while fighting to stop a group of demons from re-opening the Hellmouth.

Review

Warning: If reading SPOILERS for the latest episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, "Doomed" will give you a feeling of doom, I suggest you turn back now. There are major SPOILERS just ahead.

In short: A solid effort.

It's been a long month of waiting since we saw "Hush." Joss left us hanging in the lurch with a knock-out episode that ended on a major cliffhanger.

And to be honest, I wondered if we'd ever see how the conversation between Buffy and Riley went. I figured it would be alluded to but we'd never see it on screen.

I sit here now feeling a bit foolish for not having faith in Joss. Once again, he made the promise and delivered on it.

I loved the fact that this episode picked up exactly where Hush left off. To see Buffy and Riley's conversation about their roles was nicely done. Also, seeing Riley's dismay at Buffy's knowing so much about the group was nicely done, while seeing Buffy's dismay that Riley knew so little about her and her role as slayer. Those sequences worked very well and were well worth the month wait.

This episode was all about the characters and, for the most part, it worked. It was given to us by three different writers and you could feel their influences throughout. The only scene I can pin to one specific writer is the first one, which just had Marti Noxon written all over it. Also, I have a feeling she had a hand in some of the dialogue between Buffy and Riley late in the episode.

For the most part, the Buffy/Riley relationship is growing on me. It certainly had moments that worked here in Doomed. Certainly seeing Riley question what he knows about Buffy and how much about him she should know was nicely done. Also, asking his friends about what the Slayer is was a nice touch. You've got to wonder when Riley's friends will put all the pieces together and figure out why he's asking these questions. I have a feeling we'll see some of this come sweeps time in February.

Also, in the whole Buffy/Riley issue, I loved the references to the past. There were so many nice little one line references to the entire history of the show that it rang absolutely true. I especially enjoyed the comment about the last person who enjoyed the job as much as Riley did ended up in a coma.

Indeed, you wonder how much Faith might have enjoyed being a part of the Initiative based on the fact that they seem to enjoy the demon hunting a bit more than Buffy does.

Maybe we'll see some of that in a future episode.

But, concentrating on the here and now...

What made this episode work were the character moments. I liked getting to see a bit of screen time devoted to Xander and Spike as well as to Willow and her plight. I admit that seeing Spike and Xander as the ultimate form of the odd couple was nicely done and had some absolutely hilarious moments. In fact, if anything, James Marsters once again got the lion's share of the good moments and great lines. I'm also glad to see the development of Spike a bit. His attempts to kill himself were nicely done. Seeing him try to spike himself was an absolute riot and easily one of the better scenes in the show. But now that we've found out that Spike can battle demons it will be interesting to see how this develops. Yes, at times Spike can be all about violence for the sake of violence, but as we've seen before he's got a limit. After all, as he admitted in the Becoming, he's kind of fond of the world. You've got to wonder how long it will be before his conscience begins to bother him at doing just Angel does--and that he's expressed such disdain for in the past. He will be killing vamps, which he always looked down at Angel for doing, as well as helping the Slayer.

If that's not an episode, I think they're missing some great potential there.

As for Willow, she certainly had some good, quiet moments. I love what they've done with the character arc for Willow this year. And it worked in Doomed.

To see Willow facing the fear that she might just be the nerd that everyone thought she was in high school was nicely done and keeping with the pain of the break-up she is going though. After all, she may be questioning herself and her identity, as can often happen in a break-up. And to see her have to face up to being considered a nerd was nicely done and totally in character. I am glad we saw it and I hope that we continue to see Willow go through the break-up process. Hopefully she'll realize she's more than just the perecption that people have of her.

With all of the other character stuff going on, the character who got the short end of the stick, yet again, was Giles. But since the preview for next week seems to indicate the episode will be Giles-centered, I can be a bit more forgiving than usual...;-)

All that said, I found the monster plot to OK, but not overly great. It certainly was far more entertaining than the re-open the Hellmouth plot we saw (or actually didn't see!) in The Zeppo last year. But somehow it lacked the tension it really needed. Part of it may have been that the demon's reasoning for wanting to reopen the Hellmouth wasn't readily apparent. We know why the Master wanted to open it, but the last two times the threat has arrived, we've had no reason for it to be opened. And I can't imagine that demons just want to open it simply becuase it's the Hellmouth. And why open it if not to reap some type of benefit. The demons obviously hadn't thought this through.

Of course, they are demons...

Anyway, overall, I've got to admit it was a good return from repeats.

Certainly stronger than the return from repeats we got last year...

Well, that about wraps it up for now.

My rating: 7.5 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Giles is a demon...