If you thought that vampires were the one threat that lurks in Sunnydale you were much mistaken. Werewolves, ghouls, and even witches... make sure you take care, as we take A Tour of Sunnydale.
Witch is the third episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It marks the first and only appearance of Dana Reston as writer and Stephen Cragg as director. According to The Phi Phenomenon, Witch averages out at 71st most liked episode of Buffy, placing it just above the average (ie the 72nd episode, which for those curious is Season 3's Faith, Hope & Trick).
In a way, one could make the argument that Witch is the first "real" episode of Buffy. After all, Hellmouth and Harvest were both the show's pilot and unusually arc-heavy episodes. The great majority of Buffy, is spent on episodes more akin to Witch than the pilot: episodic monster-of-the-week stories that develop the characters in subtle ways rather than plot-centric episodes. This becomes considerably less true as the seasons go on, but for now, in the first season, this argument is pretty much spot on. The problem with that line of thinking is that it dismisses a lot of what makes Witch - and by extension the good bits of season 1 - great.
Whilst the later seasons are very explicit about the characters and their relationships changing considerably episode by episode, season 1 tends to be more covert about this. Yes, this results in much more muted character growth, and I think is a worse approach to the type of story Buffy is trying to tell than what we get in season 2 onwards, but it's still there if you look for it. In Witch we have simple but logical and satisfying continuations to the character work we got in Hellmouth and Harvest. As soon as it becomes evident that there's a supernatural issue, Xander and Willow instantly jump in to help, stating that they're Buffy's team. Buffy and Joyce's relationship is initially strained in the episode, carrying on from Joyce's grounding of Buffy in Harvest. Both Xander's crush on Buffy and Willow's crush on Xander are in full swing here, both unreciprocated and hit by a line about how they're just "one of the guys/girls" from the object of their affection, which gives texture and context to these characters' relationships. We get to see the first of angry Giles at Amy's home: the first instance of his twee facade breaking down and revealing the harsher and more ruthless side of the character that later seasons play off, and also the first indication of his developing care and affection for Buffy.
These are all small character moments that are confidently written and not particularly pointed out, but that absolutely advance our understanding of the main cast. The sweeping interconnectedness of future Buffy is brilliant, but it's only made possible by the consistent inclusion of tiny character beats like these, that constantly force the audience to update their understanding of who these people are and why they're this way.
Witch envelops these satisfying character moments in what was, to me, a surprisingly solid and engaging little monster-of-the-week story. Both the writing and directing here are surprisingly crafty, and I'm saddened that neither Dana Reston nor Stephen Cragg make any more contributions to the show. I was particularly impressed by the scene in front of the trophy case in which we get Amy and her mother's backstory. Taken at face value, Amy is frustrated at not being as good as cheerleading as she wants, and she indicates that she admires her mother, and is grateful to her for her cheerleader training, maybe even a bit too much. She's also weirdly resentful of her dad. This comes across as odd but believable for a teenage girl. Very casually, in the middle of expositing, she says that her mother "never gained a pound". This speech only fires off alarm bells due to the nature of episodic television, and it doesn't actually give away that either Amy or her mother is the witch.
The genius bit comes later, when as soon as Amy is done talking and goes away, Willow pops in. She talks about how her and Amy used to be friends in middle school, and how whenever Amy's mom gained a pound she'd lock up the fridge and eat nothing but broth, and how Amy would come to Willow's house and go on brownie binges with her whenever this happened. To the careful viewer, this immediately indicates that something's amiss. Not only is it not true that her mother never gained a pound, but Amy was both very aware of this and actively working against her mother's wishes here, indicating a disregard for her desire to shape Amy into a cheerleader. This all went completely over my head the first three times I watched this episode, but that simple little one-two punch of exchanges is all you need to figure out everything that's going on.
Beyond that, Witch is just a really fun time. The various spells cast by Amy's mother are inventive and range from amusing to terrifying, and the way the Scoobies (or, as one of them calls the group at the start of the episode, the Slayerettes), work together to uncover the mystery is fairly satisfying to behold: They are quick on the uptake, demonstrate solid teamwork, and don't have critical intelligence failure in order to move the plot along the way they often will in the course of the first three seasons. Special props go to their casting of the spell, which has a wonderful "high-school magic chemistry" feel that gives it a very nice sense of physicality. I wish later seasons had kept it to a larger extent, rather than going more towards effortless "just speak the words and have CG lights appear" magic. Another highlight is the sequence involving Amy's mom walking down the corridor with an axe as Buffy and Giles are barricaded in the science lab, which is very tense for how simple it is.
Despite all that, there's definitely a few flaws: Xander's crush on Buffy, whilst important to his arc through the season, takes up way too much time in this episode and isn't relevant to the proceedings, for instance. There's a decent amount of scenes that go on for too long or feel out of place, like Cordelia's blind drivers' ed class, or the cat jumpscare in Amy's mother's lair. The episode obviously tries to play Joyce and Buffy's relationship off of the relationship between Amy and her mother, but it doesn't work as a mirror, largely due to way too few Joyce and Buffy scenes for that to be effective. It also starts a trend among Season 1 episodes of ending on an excessively dark or disturbing note, in this case the revelation of Amy's mother's consciousness stuck, in pain, in the cheerleading statue. It's truly horrifying, and it doesn't go anywhere. It's a very disturbing moment, and it's done well in that regard, but it just feels tonally incosistent with the otherwise light-hearted show.
I was surprised by just how much I liked Witch this time around. It's typically an episode that I think of as a middling Season 1 episode: Appropriate, but little more. You gotta get through it to get to the bad stretch of Season 1 starting next episode, and you gotta get through that to get to the good stretch of Season 1 starting at The Pack, and you gotta get through that to get to the real Buffy starting at Prophecy Girl. I found Witch very strong this time, full of strong, if subtle, character moments, and with one of the most entertaining and creative monsters-of-the-week of the first season. Witch is good Buffy, and I didn't expect to get to that quite this fast.
Here's ranking and rating: The ranking is of all episodes of Buffy and Angel I've watched so far, with 1 being the best one, and the rating is out of ten in context of the quality of the show: I'm essentially trying to decide what 10% of quality of that particular show the episode belongs in. Because both shows are so good, this means negative ratings are not neccesarily a diss on the episode - I just think it's one of the show's weaker ones.
I'm surprised to announce that ranking was tough this week. The Harvest and Witch were very comparable in terms of quality, and after struggling with it for a bit... I decided I liked Witch more? That was unexpected, but I just found more enjoyment out of all the little vignettes created by the various spells in Witch than I did out of the typical Buffy vs Vampires setup of The Harvest. I also think Witch's plot is very subtly and cleverly written, and it furthered what I understand about these characters a surprising amount. So I guess The Harvest didn't get to keep its number 1 spot for even one week. Sorry I overpromised, Harvest. I still love you.
Ranked List
Rating: 4/10. Witch was close enough to Harvest in terms of quality that they deserve the same rating. Witch was very solid, and a good episode of Buffy, but there's a lot of very solid stuff yet to come that's good in ways much more ambitious and by extension effective than Witch is.
Side note 1: This includes the series very first ironic cutaway, where Buffy talking about having a normal life is interrupted so we can go to see Amy's mom cast a spell. That's the second best reason to argue this is the first real episode of Buffy. Get used to those.
Side note 2: This episode also includes the first instance of Giles being knocked out. That´s the best reason to argue this is the first real episode of Buffy. Also get used to that. I'm going to be keeping track of it.
Witch is the third episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It marks the first and only appearance of Dana Reston as writer and Stephen Cragg as director. According to The Phi Phenomenon, Witch averages out at 71st most liked episode of Buffy, placing it just above the average (ie the 72nd episode, which for those curious is Season 3's Faith, Hope & Trick).
In a way, one could make the argument that Witch is the first "real" episode of Buffy. After all, Hellmouth and Harvest were both the show's pilot and unusually arc-heavy episodes. The great majority of Buffy, is spent on episodes more akin to Witch than the pilot: episodic monster-of-the-week stories that develop the characters in subtle ways rather than plot-centric episodes. This becomes considerably less true as the seasons go on, but for now, in the first season, this argument is pretty much spot on. The problem with that line of thinking is that it dismisses a lot of what makes Witch - and by extension the good bits of season 1 - great.
Whilst the later seasons are very explicit about the characters and their relationships changing considerably episode by episode, season 1 tends to be more covert about this. Yes, this results in much more muted character growth, and I think is a worse approach to the type of story Buffy is trying to tell than what we get in season 2 onwards, but it's still there if you look for it. In Witch we have simple but logical and satisfying continuations to the character work we got in Hellmouth and Harvest. As soon as it becomes evident that there's a supernatural issue, Xander and Willow instantly jump in to help, stating that they're Buffy's team. Buffy and Joyce's relationship is initially strained in the episode, carrying on from Joyce's grounding of Buffy in Harvest. Both Xander's crush on Buffy and Willow's crush on Xander are in full swing here, both unreciprocated and hit by a line about how they're just "one of the guys/girls" from the object of their affection, which gives texture and context to these characters' relationships. We get to see the first of angry Giles at Amy's home: the first instance of his twee facade breaking down and revealing the harsher and more ruthless side of the character that later seasons play off, and also the first indication of his developing care and affection for Buffy.
These are all small character moments that are confidently written and not particularly pointed out, but that absolutely advance our understanding of the main cast. The sweeping interconnectedness of future Buffy is brilliant, but it's only made possible by the consistent inclusion of tiny character beats like these, that constantly force the audience to update their understanding of who these people are and why they're this way.
Witch envelops these satisfying character moments in what was, to me, a surprisingly solid and engaging little monster-of-the-week story. Both the writing and directing here are surprisingly crafty, and I'm saddened that neither Dana Reston nor Stephen Cragg make any more contributions to the show. I was particularly impressed by the scene in front of the trophy case in which we get Amy and her mother's backstory. Taken at face value, Amy is frustrated at not being as good as cheerleading as she wants, and she indicates that she admires her mother, and is grateful to her for her cheerleader training, maybe even a bit too much. She's also weirdly resentful of her dad. This comes across as odd but believable for a teenage girl. Very casually, in the middle of expositing, she says that her mother "never gained a pound". This speech only fires off alarm bells due to the nature of episodic television, and it doesn't actually give away that either Amy or her mother is the witch.
The genius bit comes later, when as soon as Amy is done talking and goes away, Willow pops in. She talks about how her and Amy used to be friends in middle school, and how whenever Amy's mom gained a pound she'd lock up the fridge and eat nothing but broth, and how Amy would come to Willow's house and go on brownie binges with her whenever this happened. To the careful viewer, this immediately indicates that something's amiss. Not only is it not true that her mother never gained a pound, but Amy was both very aware of this and actively working against her mother's wishes here, indicating a disregard for her desire to shape Amy into a cheerleader. This all went completely over my head the first three times I watched this episode, but that simple little one-two punch of exchanges is all you need to figure out everything that's going on.
Beyond that, Witch is just a really fun time. The various spells cast by Amy's mother are inventive and range from amusing to terrifying, and the way the Scoobies (or, as one of them calls the group at the start of the episode, the Slayerettes), work together to uncover the mystery is fairly satisfying to behold: They are quick on the uptake, demonstrate solid teamwork, and don't have critical intelligence failure in order to move the plot along the way they often will in the course of the first three seasons. Special props go to their casting of the spell, which has a wonderful "high-school magic chemistry" feel that gives it a very nice sense of physicality. I wish later seasons had kept it to a larger extent, rather than going more towards effortless "just speak the words and have CG lights appear" magic. Another highlight is the sequence involving Amy's mom walking down the corridor with an axe as Buffy and Giles are barricaded in the science lab, which is very tense for how simple it is.
Despite all that, there's definitely a few flaws: Xander's crush on Buffy, whilst important to his arc through the season, takes up way too much time in this episode and isn't relevant to the proceedings, for instance. There's a decent amount of scenes that go on for too long or feel out of place, like Cordelia's blind drivers' ed class, or the cat jumpscare in Amy's mother's lair. The episode obviously tries to play Joyce and Buffy's relationship off of the relationship between Amy and her mother, but it doesn't work as a mirror, largely due to way too few Joyce and Buffy scenes for that to be effective. It also starts a trend among Season 1 episodes of ending on an excessively dark or disturbing note, in this case the revelation of Amy's mother's consciousness stuck, in pain, in the cheerleading statue. It's truly horrifying, and it doesn't go anywhere. It's a very disturbing moment, and it's done well in that regard, but it just feels tonally incosistent with the otherwise light-hearted show.
I was surprised by just how much I liked Witch this time around. It's typically an episode that I think of as a middling Season 1 episode: Appropriate, but little more. You gotta get through it to get to the bad stretch of Season 1 starting next episode, and you gotta get through that to get to the good stretch of Season 1 starting at The Pack, and you gotta get through that to get to the real Buffy starting at Prophecy Girl. I found Witch very strong this time, full of strong, if subtle, character moments, and with one of the most entertaining and creative monsters-of-the-week of the first season. Witch is good Buffy, and I didn't expect to get to that quite this fast.
Here's ranking and rating: The ranking is of all episodes of Buffy and Angel I've watched so far, with 1 being the best one, and the rating is out of ten in context of the quality of the show: I'm essentially trying to decide what 10% of quality of that particular show the episode belongs in. Because both shows are so good, this means negative ratings are not neccesarily a diss on the episode - I just think it's one of the show's weaker ones.
I'm surprised to announce that ranking was tough this week. The Harvest and Witch were very comparable in terms of quality, and after struggling with it for a bit... I decided I liked Witch more? That was unexpected, but I just found more enjoyment out of all the little vignettes created by the various spells in Witch than I did out of the typical Buffy vs Vampires setup of The Harvest. I also think Witch's plot is very subtly and cleverly written, and it furthered what I understand about these characters a surprising amount. So I guess The Harvest didn't get to keep its number 1 spot for even one week. Sorry I overpromised, Harvest. I still love you.
Ranked List
Rating: 4/10. Witch was close enough to Harvest in terms of quality that they deserve the same rating. Witch was very solid, and a good episode of Buffy, but there's a lot of very solid stuff yet to come that's good in ways much more ambitious and by extension effective than Witch is.
Side note 1: This includes the series very first ironic cutaway, where Buffy talking about having a normal life is interrupted so we can go to see Amy's mom cast a spell. That's the second best reason to argue this is the first real episode of Buffy. Get used to those.
Side note 2: This episode also includes the first instance of Giles being knocked out. That´s the best reason to argue this is the first real episode of Buffy. Also get used to that. I'm going to be keeping track of it.
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