Buffy was then introduced again to life and compelled to claw her approach out of her personal grave by her well-meaning mates originally of season 6. She had been clearly depressed ever since however nobody knew why; it was when compelled to sing all her deepest emotions within the musical episode that she revealed it was as a result of she had been yanked out of Heaven (and never a Hell dimension, as her mates had thought) towards her will. The musical additionally noticed a turning-point in a darkish sub-plot between Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara (Amber Benson), through which Willow was magically manipulating her girlfriend, in addition to Giles’ (Anthony Stewart Head) resolution to return to England, and the start of a romantic relationship between Buffy and still-un-ensouled vampire Spike (James Marsters). So all in all, like “The Bitter Suite,” “As soon as Extra, With Feeling” came about at a really bleak second within the characters’ lives.
Buffy’s musical was additionally, like “The Bitter Suite,” a completely immersive musical through which the characters had been compelled to sing their deepest feelings by exterior forces; on this case, due to a spell foolishly carried out by Xander (Nicholas Brendan) that summoned a demon (Xander having discovered nothing from the time he made each lady in Sunnydale determined to be with him in season 2’s “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”). Emotions that varied characters had been suppressing had been compelled out by the musical numbers, simply as in “The Bitter Suite,” although the finale, “The place Do We Go From Right here?,” was extra of an open query than a decision.
“As soon as Extra, With Feeling” options various songs in several musical kinds, chosen to suit particular person characters. Tara sings a melodic love track, Spike is a rocker (Marsters was in a rock band), Giles (performed by precise musical theatre star Anthony Stewart Head) sings a Broadway ballad, whereas Buffy herself will get each a enjoyable Disney-style ‘I Need’ track originally (“Going By The Motions”) and leads a rousing refrain quantity (“Stroll By the Fireplace”) on the finish. Nevertheless, in contrast to “The Bitter Suite,” which needed to pack all the pieces into a daily TV episode run-time, “As soon as Extra With Feeling” had a barely prolonged runtime of fifty minutes, permitting it to pack in much more songs than its predecessor – and they’re, no offence to Xena’s wonderful numbers, a little bit bit catchier too.
Like “The Bitter Suite,” “As soon as Extra, With Feeling” didn’t neglect coloration, liveliness, or humor both. The Land of Illusia had regarded vibrant and enjoyable; the Buffy model steps that up a notch by saturating the traditional Sunnydale units with coloration and placing everybody in significantly colourful costumes. Tara and Willow are dressed as if going to a Renaissance Truthful for no obvious purpose, Emma Caulfield’s Anya wears a surprising pink negligée for her Previous Hollywood-inspired track and dance, and the colours on show within the well-known “They Bought The Mustard Out!” sequence are fairly one thing.
“As soon as Extra, With Feeling” additionally options in all probability the funniest and most well-observed line in any TV musical episode. Whereas the singing in Xena’s “Bitter Suite” was a mixture of solid members with sturdy voices doing their very own singing whereas these much less assured had been dubbed by skilled singers, all of the Buffy solid had been required to do their very own singing. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Nicholas Brendan do a good job of holding their very own subsequent to their professional-singer castmates, however Alyson Hannigan was not assured in any respect, so she was given little or no singing to do, and her contribution to the all-cast quantity “Stroll By The Fireplace” is a quick “I believe this line’s principally filler” It’s, and it’s genius.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a present was effectively conscious of its debt to Xena: Warrior Princess, its predecessor in ass-kicking feminine character-led style tv. Again in season 2, when everybody changed into their Halloween costumes and Buffy grew to become a helpless, over-protected 18th century younger woman, Willow lamented, “She couldn’t have dressed up like Xena?” The musical’s apparent debt to “The Bitter Suite” was additionally acknowledged early on within the episode, as Xander reacts to occasions by exclaiming “Merciful Zeus!”
