Haven't watched this one for a while, but I do remember that I really dislike it.

I may rewatch and post an extended rant on just how wrong it all is, with particular reference to Willow.

I didn't think that this one was too bad, although I didn't really like the scenes with Willow going all crazy...I've never liked the idea of Willow going off the rails. I did however, like that bits with Dawn standing up to Willow.

Thank God there was no Spike and Buffy 'action' this week. Is there anyone out there that thinks this is all kind of wrong??

How to labour a metaphor (magic = drugs) in 1 easy lesson by the Buffy Team.

Season 6 had been quite good so far but this was pretty turgid dross. A colleague keeps asking to watch an episode but I would be embarrassed to show him this one.

I noticed for (what I believe to be) the second time, an actor has appeared twice in the show, playing two different roles.

In Seasons 1 & 2 we had Brian Thompson playing Luke and The Judge.

In the case of this episode, the part of Rack was played by Jeff Kober, who also appeared as Zackary Kralik in Season 3's Helpless.

I really miss him in the Bacardi ad's

---

by Incandenza
How to labour a metaphor (magic = drugs) in 1 easy lesson by the Buffy Team.

---

A real dissapointment, especially from Marti Noxon; and they were doing so well with this line up to here. The 'magic as addictive', 'power corrupts' plot was nicely handled, with Willow's increasing power and ease with magic blinding her to the abuses she put it to, even at the point when Tara had actually left her over it.

Sterling stuff.

Then suddenly it's everyone down to the magical crack-house, and magic is bad where before magic was simply being used badly. The point they seemed to be working on was that Willow would start doing the wrong things for the right reasons, not that she was doing gateway spells that would lead to the bad-trip, acid flashback, summon a demon to eat my friend recreational spell-casting.

All the Way, Once More with Feeling, Tabula Rasa, Wrecked - the line followed through these episodes was that Willow was using too much magic, to make the world a more Willow-friendly place. Suddenly with Smashed...It's a completely different vibe, and buries the 'with great power comes great responsibility thread'.

Instead all we got was: Hey kids; don't do crack.

And does anyone else besides myself and White Hart feel that cold turkey is a bad way to deal with addicition to a power that comes from inside you? It's established now that Willow doesn't just do magic; she has power. I don't see that would go aaway just because she stopped doing spells.

Oh, and I finally figured out why Willow isn't Wiccan, and it has nothing to do with being Jewish. Wiccans have rules - see Tara's attempts to explain this to Willow - which Willow neither knows nor follows. In as much as she does understadn the rules Tara explains to her, she ignores them because she seems to feel that they don't apply to her, because she's one of the good guys, because she knows what she's doing, and because as a hacker she's used to working outside the rules laid down for the guidance of the layman, and doesn't understand that these are different.