Still trying to get over her encounter with Parker, Buffy drowns her sorrows in beer, unaware that it has been tampered with and has the ability to make drinkers de-evolve into cave people.

I can't begin to tell you how awful this is. As an idea, someone should have stopped it on the drawing board, screwed it up and thrown it away. What's most annoying is that it starts off pretty well. Xander's new job is good for some laughs with his patented "Bad day?" opening, and Willow's later discussion with Parker about what he did to Buffy is nicely played by Alyson Hannigan, and well written to be perfectly in character. Otherwise, the entire story seems set up for Buffy to save Parker and earn his respect, only to bash him over the head.

On the downside, Buffy's new love interest is being bludgeoned over the head of the viewer as he conveniently appears to offer Buffy sage advice, and we know they'll get together. Seth Green's leaving seems to be causing trouble as well, with Oz's interest in Veruca coming as rather out of character. It seems unlikely he'd be turned from Willow so easily as their relationship has always appeared stronger than it seems here. Watching the breakdown between them is rather sad and hopefully it won't be a permanent split.

Getting back to the cavepeople, all we seem to get in the way of acting is behaving firstly like Beavis and Butt-head and then acting like monkeys. There's never much of a threat, events towards the end seem contrived and Giles serves no useful function, as seems to be his wont in too many of this season's episodes. Some kind of shake-up is urgently needed, and the person who wrote this needs a swift kick up in the air.

**

Would you like to go to the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Four guide, head back to the main TV reviews page, read older reviews in the Reviews Archive or return to the front page?

This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page