Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

After the tantalizing cliffhanger that ended the last issue, in which we see Buffy floating hundreds of yards in the air, we knew we were up for something big. And we get it, as the latest issue picks up with Buffy flying through the air, Superman-style, mentioning to herself how strong she feels.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle that’s been featured in the last two issues, we catch up with the currently powerless Slayers, who are nursing their own wounded, as well as Twilight’s soldiers. The three havoc-wreaking goddesses are still bent on destruction, and Willow can do nothing to stop them. Finally, after a confessional chat with Xander, Buffy outs herself as newly super-empowered and buries the goddesses deep in the ground.

Overview: This issue was written by the man himself, Joss Whedon, and thus the dialogue had that familiar flow of the series (much like the issues written by Jane Espenson), so for that alone it’s worth it. But overall not a whole lot happens here. We discover Faith, Andrew, and Giles have been kidnapped by Twilight, a small heart-to-heart between Buffy and Riley, a lengthy talk between Buffy and Xander, and finally Buffy’s revelation of her new powers.

But it’s really the encounter between Buffy and Xander that is the focus of this story. Having learned that Xander and Dawn are dating, Buffy professes that she has feelings for Xander, who puts her in her place, saying she’s confused and selfish, in a nice way, of course. In essence, he’s having none of it, and Buffy admits it was tactless.

And that’s what’s great about Joss Whedon’s vision: he’s created a hero who is seriously, deeply flawed in the way that we’re all seriously, deeply flawed. Super strength and (now) the power of flight do not place her emotionally above any of us, and she’s as prone to moments of pettiness as the rest of us, even if her pettier moments come between the times she’s busying herself saving the world.

I also want to point out that artist Georges Jeanty, who I’ve said I’ve found unimpressive in previous issues, seems to have upped his game, returning to his more detailed, nuanced drawings that he started the series with. I’m beginning to think the reason his art has seemed a little off is because he’s been rushed. With December off, it’s been two months since the last issue that he drew, and his style is noticeably sharper. So well done, Mr. Jeanty.

Since the series started in March of 2007, we’ve had to deal with something that’s unusual for Buffy (but not comics in general): a masked villain. In the letters column, we’re promised that Twilight’s identity will be revealed in naught but a few months. After three years, I’d say it’s about time.

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: How is it that a spell or potion of invisibility can make clothing invisible too — but only as long as it’s on the person who is invisible? — Aaron, Pasadena, CA

A: It’s called magic for a reason.

Q: I hated Dollhouse for a lot of different reasons, but one thing that creeped me out was the idea that the “dolls” were programmed for sex, which they had no control over. How is this entertaining? It bugs me that Joss Whedon also romanticized prostitution in Firefly. Given his reputation for writing strong females, does he not understand that most women see this “fantasy” very differently? — Margot, Chicago, IL

A: Whedon definitely intended the show to explore a certain kind of sexual fantasies, but says he immediately ran into studio interference surrounding those themes.

“Fox sort of has that reputation for sexy or edgy or blah, blah, blah, but they don’t actually want that and it frustrates me,” Whedon told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s the classic American double standard — torture, ‘Great.’ Sex, ‘Oh, that’s so bad.’”

At the same time, Whedon admitted that their objections weren’t quite so cut-and-dried.

“This was also more complicated because people responded to this [by saying], ‘This is trafficking. This is sex for money,’” he said. “It wasn’t just sex. It was also the other implications of what was originally supposed to be somewhat more of a fantasy. The real world version of [this kind of activity] was I think what made the network really twitchy and I can’t really fault them for that.”

In the end, Whedon sort of acknowledges the ethical problem with the central concept, but he seems to imply that it’s mostly the result of some kind of sexual hang-up.

“The idea was always, how much of the fantasy will [viewers] accept and how much will they go, ‘You know what, this just is too much like real-world situations that are truly appalling and so I can’t let the fantasy happen.’”

In the end, the Oracle sides with you, Margot, and thinks that Joss might have a bit of blind spot on this particular issue.

Q: How can Santa, one person, visit all those houses in a single night? There are billions of people in the world! — Mehran, St. Louis, MO

A: Because Santa isn’t real.

Q: If gladiators all fought to the death, wouldn’t that mean they’d run out of gladiators? — Logan, Rochester, NY

A: The ranks of gladiators were filled with captured enemy soldiers, criminals, and even paid “volunteers.” Except for the volunteers, all these people were officially laboring under a sentence of “death.”

Even so, due to the popularity of the sport, Rome did soon start to run out of gladiators, and the practice of often killing the loser at the end of every combat (if he wasn’t already dead) was officially banned. It didn’t seem to make much difference, however, as the odds of dying in any given gladiatorial combat actually rose from the beginning to the end of the empire. Rome, like Quentin Tarantino, was big on giving the audience what it wanted.

In any event, it was an extremely bloody sport. Few gladiators survived more than 10 bouts (although there are recordings of gladiators who won more than 150 fights). And almost no gladiator lived past the age of 30 — most died far younger than that.

Speaking of gladiators, the Oracle just received preview copies of the first four episodes of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the new Lucy Lawless show coming on Starz in January. The Oracle is psyched!

Q: How can you say that Narnia doesn’t really exist! It exists in the imagination of every person who reads those books! — Roberta, Fayetteville, AK

A: Under that reasoning, everything that anyone has ever imagined “really” exists, which is a nonsensical argument that turns words into sentimental mush.

Q: Someone told me that the characters in The Year Without a Santa Claus were puppets and that you could see the strings. So I guess I want to know if they were indeed puppets or is it just lines on the screen from the film being too old? – Barb

A: They’re definitely a kind of puppet, but they’re not moved using strings, but rather a process called “stop-motion,” where the movable models are position in a certain way, and a several frames of film are shot; then the camera is turned off, and model is moved slightly, and more frames are shot, and so on; when the frames of film are shown all together, it creates the illusion that the model is actually moving.

In the case of Rankin/Bass, which created The Year Without a Santa Claus and many other Christmas classics, they sometimes later added hand-drawn animation as well, for falling snow and other elements.

Any “strings” you see are probably imperfections in the film itself, although perhaps your eagle-eyed friend has also caught a glimpse of a string or stick that the filmmakers used to position a model in a certain way in an individual “shot” — suspended in the air, perhaps.

Q: Is it my imagination or is the All-Knowing Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle in kind of a bad mood this week? Why gives? — Brent, Seattle, WA

A: Pre-Christmas let-down. Even All-Knowing Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracles get the blues.

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I know a lot of people have busied themselves haterizing on Dollhouse, but I’m here to take a stand.

I really dug that show.

And with the news that it’s been canceled, I find myself disappointed, for once again the world has been deprived of what could have been.

I say could have, because I think we can all agree that Dollhouse never really rose to the apex of Joss Whedon’s talent for storytelling.

But the potential was definitely there. Dollhouse is the Jerry Maguire to my Renee Zellwegger — I love it for the show it wants to be and I love it for the show it almost is. And I even made my face all scrunchy and squinty when I said it!

But like Firefly before it, Dollhouse has been given the axe too soon. (Of course, the difference is that Firefly was instantly a clearly great show, but I digress.)

It seems that the two most common criticisms of the show were the following: Eliza Dushku wasn’t a good enough actress to pull off the part of Echo, and the show took far too long to establish the greater story arc, instead focusing on too many “one-shot” episodes. I’d like to take this time, before the corpse is even cold, to offer my rebuttal.

Sure, Eliza Dushku is no Meryl Streep, but few are, and I think people had made up their minds about her not having what it takes long before they saw a single episode. In fact, there were a few times she really impressed me. (And personally, I have a theory that indifference to this show stemmed from a lot of Buffy fans’ resentment of the fact that Dushku and Whedon were working together but NOT in a Buffyverse-related project. That, however, is a topic for a whole other article.)

Focusing on her also conveniently allows haters to overlook the solid talent of some of the other players, particularly Amy Acker, Fran Kranz, Olivia Williams, and the impressively chameleonic Enver Gjokaj, who in the part of Victor really did seem to be a different person with each new assignment.

As for the season-long story arc that we’ve come to expect from Whedon (a tactic he used on both Buffy and Angel), I believe he was trying something different. With Dollhouse there was no season-long storyline, but rather a series-long storyline. Each season didn’t contain a Big Bad — the corporation responsible for the Dollhouses was the nemesis, and the vanquishing of that foe meant the end of the series.

Therefore, Whedon allowed us a great deal of time to live in this world, to soak up every little detail of it, so that when the plot changed significantly there would be no confusion. But while crafting this sort of slow-drip exposition, he gave us fun little adventures each week, and with his true flair for storytelling, they bounced liberally between drama, comedy, action, and horror.

The individual episodes weren’t setting us up for the ride. They were the ride. But many Whedonites, too busy looking for the Big Bad and the overarching story, failed to see that, and grew frustrated.

Of course, this is all just my opinion. What one likes is entirely subjective, and I can understand how for many people, Dollhouse just wasn’t their cup of tea. But I enjoyed it. I genuinely liked the characters, and wanted them to eventually find their way out of the Dollhouse. But now, sadly, I’ll never see that happen.

Sorry it didn’t work out, Joss and Eliza. I was with you guys.

Um…if you’re looking for something else to do, though, there’s always that Faith show! Just throwin’ it out there…

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• The reviews are great, and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam’s latest and Heath Ledger’s last film) is cleaning up overseas.

• Joss Whedon pens a cheeky open letter offering to buy the rights to The Terminator franchise … for $10,000.

• Really, really interesting: Ursula K. Le Guin takes on the “dragons” of publishing! She and a group of fantasy/sci-fi authors are getting together to publish their books electronically — bypassing traditional publishers.

• How do you make a movie about a character who can’t be depicted? The producer of The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix is working on a $150 million movie about Mohammad, but, in accordance with Muslim strictures, he won’t be seen. I’m trying not to be religion-phobic here, but this seems like a really bad idea.

• Shooting for the pilot of the HBO series A Game of Thrones has begun. With all the buzz and such a top-notch cast, I’m increasingly optimistic this will go to series — and be a hit.

• Does Spiderman already need a reboot? If so, here are some ideas.

• Publisher’s Weekly interviews urban fantasy author Anton Strout: “I hate reading stories where you don’t know the limitations of the world. When everything is possible, there’s no tension for me.  I can’t get invested in the characters because they’re not realistic enough to me, not grounded. I need the core of their world to feel real, limiting them in a way.” Truer words!

• A Chinese online gaming company is banning men who play as female characters. Wow, that company has issues.

• The Green Lantern director Marty Campbell talks of the movie’s  complicated special effects: “It’s daunting. Just the process, something like 1,300 visual effects shots, it’s mind-blowing, quite honestly.” The Green Lantern’s powers are generated through a mystical ring. “It’s energized by a battery on the planet of Oa, which taps into the willpower of everyone in the universe. From that ring you can form constructs. So if you got into a fight, you could form a giant fist. Or a fighter plane.”

• Now we know why Robert Zemeckis wants to do a sequel to Roger Rabbit that nobody else cares about. He wants to use the “performance capture” technology that he’s used in Beowulf, The Polar Express, and A Christmas Carol. I admire his persistence, but let’s face it: at least two of those three movies sucked.

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• Hilarious: five reasons it sucks to be a Joss Whedon fan. I don’t agree with all of this, but the writer knows his stuff — especially, “Nothing bad is ever Whedon’s fault.” Boy, is that true!

• This pathetic crank is all in a tither because science fiction now sometimes includes gay characters and women who actually do stuff: “Science fiction is a very male form of fiction,” he writes. But I’m pretty sure it’s a parody — it’s so perfect in its sad, irrelevant 1950s tone.

• I mentioned last week that ABC was being criticized for air pollution as a result of their plan to do sky-writing in 15 cities to promote next week’s V? Idea’s been scrapped.

• The Gathering Storm (the latest Wheel of Time book) is officially released, and at BYU bookstore in Utah at least (where Brandon Sanderson, the author, was signing), a lot of fans showed up at midnight on the 27th to buy it. (One person waited in line 41 hours!)

• So they’re officially casting the Conan remake. FilmSchoolRejects.com has the ages and ethnicities of the various characters. Interestingly, all the women seem to be in their early 20s while the men are all different ages. That should make the sexist crank I mentioned above very happy.

• A Harry Potter-themed “dinner,” which was supposedly not-for-profit, has been stopped by Warner Brother for copyright infringement. But here’s the really funny part: the organizer has renamed it the Generic Wizard Night!

• Okay, this is pretty cool. Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson are co-directing Tintin: the Secret of the Unicorn, but while Spielberg is on the set in Los Angeles, Jackson is in New Zealand, communicating via iChat!

• So everyone is waiting for the upcoming  Dragon Age: Origins game. In the meantime, Dragon Age Journeys is a recreation.

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This is the article I have been waiting years to write. As not only a superfan of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess, I also, for a time, was a musical theater performer in New York City. So when approached to write an article comparing the musical episodes of both shows, I step-ball-changed right over to my computer and hit up my iTunes, which of course contain the cast recording for both shows.

Television shows are no strangers to wacky stunts in order to grab ratings, and it’s not completely unheard of for a show to have a “musical episode” — usually for comedic value — in order to get people to tune in.

But both Buffy and Xena stood out — for one thing, they were genre shows, and fantasy action-adventure, no less!

What’s more, neither episode was a silly, whimsical throw-away story. Both shows carefully integrated their story-lines and character arcs so that they came to a head during the musical episode.

In other words, the plot doesn’t make sense if you eliminate those episodes. They are crucial to the overall stories.

Much like a musical you would see onstage, the characters had all reached a breaking point, where their problems and passions had grown to a fevered pitch, and simple words would no longer suffice to express their emotions. Instead of being a cute distraction, the songs were necessary.

On Xena’s musical, called “The Bitter Suite,” Xena and Gabrielle’s bond had been demolished by Gabrielle’s act of betrayal: she had lied about killing her demonic offspring, Hope, who later returned and murdered Xena’s son, Solan.

Gabrielle, wracked with guilt, fled to the Amazons, and Xena came after her with a vengeance. Their battle took them over a cliff and into a mysterious waterfall which led them to a mystical land called Illusia, where new characters appeared with the faces of their friends and enemies, and everyone spontaneously burst into song.

Throughout the course of the episode, Xena and Gabrielle are forced to confront the reasons for their anger and realize in the end, they ultimately do love each other. The unsung hero of this episode is Joseph LoDuca, the man responsible for most of the scoring of Xena (as well as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys), and who endows the score with a creepy, Danny Elfman-vibe. Lucy Lawless and Kevin Smith, who played Ares, sang their own parts, and did so beautifully.

Less convincing was Renee O’Connor lip synching away to her voice double. Could her voice really have been so bad they didn’t let her sing?

Here’s the problem with the episode. It’s a total deus ex machina, and in a show filled with actual gods, it’s a weak device. How this universe exists or how they got there is never explained, except that Xena’s son, Solan, brought them there, which is not in keeping with the rest of the show’s mythology — since when can dead humans create an entire musical world and send the living there to find their way?

(It should be said there was a second musical episode later on, as a purely campy, throwaway comedy episode, but the less said about that one the better.)

But minor criticisms aside, with “The Bitter Suite,” the writing crew for Xena proved once again (as they did a million times throughout the series) that they had no fear, and were always willing to “go there” — they’d go anywhere — if they felt the story required it. The series was a six-year explosion of creativity.

“The Love of Your Love” From “The Bitter Suite”

On Buffy, however, the musical was not only not a bizarre, trippy out-there episode, it felt (mostly) like just another Buffy episode. We had seen the gang drawn into spells without their knowledge in the past, such as the fourth season episode “Superstar,” so when the gang just started singing for no reason, we knew their had to be some devilry behind it, and so did they.

Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, also wrote the songs for the show, and used it to deal with several of the characters’ emotional journeys: Buffy, recently back from the dead, dealing with a horrible depression and a strange attachment to Spike, who is in love with her; Xander’s fear of his impending marriage to Anya; and Giles’ realization that he must leave Buffy if she’s ever to become an adult.

“Once More With Feeling,” as the ep was called, treated us to over an hour’s worth of what felt almost like a fully realized book musical, from the opening Disney-style song “Going Through the Motions,” to the Sondheim-inspired, conversational “I’ve Got a Theory,” to the beautiful (and beautifully subversive) love ballad “Under Your Spell,” sung from Tara to her girlfriend Willow, all the way through to the montage pre-climax “Walk Through the Fire,” which is a pretty hilarious send up of the bombastic full-cast songs like “The Tonight Medley” from West Side Story.

All in all, “Once More With Feeling” worked in a way that “The Bitter Suite” didn’t, in that it truly was just another episode of the show without any crazy story-tweaking. The reason for the singing was that Xander had summoned a demon who made people sing and dance, which eventually led to their demise if the demon wasn’t stopped.

Furthermore, the story of the episode calls for regular people, not Broadway voices, bursting into song, so it worked perfectly when the cast all sang their own parts, despite their lack of musical experience. The beautiful exceptions to this rule were Anthony Stewart Head, who had a background in musical theater, and Amber Benson, whose sweet voice complimented her character so well.

“I’m Under Your Spell”

“I’ve Got a Theory”

While I’m calling Buffy’s “Once More With Feeling” the better episode, both stories used clever plot devices to bring their characters into a world where singing made sense, which, for fantasy series, seem more believable than if, say, the cast of Gossip Girl were suddenly to start belting out numbers to each other instead of…texting? I don’t know, I’ve never seen the show, but you get the point.

It makes one wonder about the possibility of other fantasy series taking on this challenge. I for one would love to see an episode of Merlin, in which Arthur and Merlin sing a (possibly HoYay-esque) duet to each other called “Every Sword Needs Its Stone.”

Yeah. I’ll let that one simmer for a minute.

So what final “rating” do I give both episodes? Oh, please — they both deserve five “torches” based on sheer audacity alone!

Five Torches (Out of Five)

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Back again with The Tinder Box, our weekly column on all things fantasy. Remember, the column is called The Tinder Box; the name of the site is TheTorchOnline.com. Get it? A tinder box lights the spark that lights the torch?

Once again, moving on!

I THINK WE CAN SAFELY ASSUME THAT PEOPLE LIKE LUCY LAWLESS

We’ve run a number of articles here on both Xena: Warrior Princess and its star, Lucy Lawless. What do they all have in common?

Whenever we run one, traffic on the site goes crazy.

Since we’re advertiser-supported, I’m always happy to see this, and most of the time I think all this new traffic is absolutely warranted, as when we broke the stories that a Xena movie wasn’t going to happen or that Lucy herself had changed her mind and now wishes they hadn’t killed Xena.

But can I make a confession? Sometimes I’m tempted to rename the site LucyLawlessWeek.com, and just leave it at that.

Whaddaya think?

Nah. Then we couldn’t write about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that makes traffic here go crazy too…

(Which may be why we have an article running next week on both Xena and Buffy!)

I’M HAVING A CRISIS OF FAITH … IN JOSS WHEDON

Speaking of Buffy, like most fantasy enthusiasists, I love Joss, I really do. In fact, I was at a convention of TV critics two weeks ago, and one of the other critics said to me, “Watch when Joss walks into the room, and you’ll see what I call the ‘Joss-gasm’ as all the critics can’t contain themselves and fling themselves at him in unbridled glee.”

And when it comes to Buffy, I experience frequent “Joss-gasms” myself. I also liked Firefly (and really liked the movie, Serenity).

But can I be honest? I think Dollhouse mostly stinks. I watched the first five episodes that everyone seemed to agree stank, and I thought so too. Frankly, they were so simplistic and predictable they reminded me of 70s television, like Charlies Angels, except without the camp; they seemed to me to be the exact opposite of the rich, wonderfully complicated world of Buffy.

And as much as I liked Eliza Dushku in Buffy, she simply isn’t the sort of actress that can “become” a different character every week (which, IMHO, is a stupid premise for a TV show anyway).

But then people said, “No, wait! In the sixth episode, Joss really finds his groove!”

I watched it. It wasn’t any better.

It happened again with the ninth episode. My fellow critics said, “No, wait, it gets better! There was network interference before, and after this episode, Joss was able to take complete control!”

Lately, the word has been, “You have to see the un-aired thirteenth episode on the Season 1 DVD! It makes the whole series make sense!”

Last night, I watched the DVD of the un-aired thirteenth episode. And within five minutes I had guessed the “twist” at the end. The cliched, overwrought dialogue made me want to scream. And don’t get me started on Eliza Dushku’s “Russian” accent.

Now Joss is hiring all kinds of cool new cast members for season 2, including Summer Glau, who I adore.

But you know what? The show just doesn’t speak to me, and I’m not falling for the “Joss-gasm” hype again.

THE TINDER BOX TAKES ON THE IDIOT BOX

The Vampire Diaries from Kevin Williamson (the creator of Dawson’s Creek and the Scream movies) premieres next Thursday on the CW. We’ll have a full review next week (and an interview with Williamson, who’s a very nice guy).

But suffice to say: yes, it’s more than reminiscent of Twilight, but it’s actually surprisingly good. And this is coming from someone who thinks Dawson’s Creek is one of the worst TV shows of all time.

Following Diaries is the fifth season premiere of a little show called Supernatural. Since I think this is just about the best thing on television right now, I will so be there!

THE TINDER BOX AT THE BOX OFFICE

New fantasy/sci-fi movies in theaters include Gamer, which looks like something of a remake of the old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Running Man (which doesn’t offend me that much, because the original kinda sucked). But the studio isn’t screening Gamer for critics such as myself, which, if you think reviews mean anything at all, is not a good sign.

Also out is Carriers, about four friends trying to evade a lethal epidemic. But since we’re all about to experience a real-life swine-flu epidemic, that might explain why this one is coming out in “limited release.”

Here’s the trailer, which looks cool if you can forget about the unfortunate real-life parallels:

New movies out on DVD this week include a new edition of The Exorcist and what looks to be a “prequel” to Scooby Doo, Scooby-Doo: The Mystery Begins.

I’m not trying to judge here, but who exactly buys this movie, much less on Blu-Ray?

Well, this week’s flame has sputtered out, but join me again next week when I promise I won’t be nearly so cranky.

Oh, who am I kidding?!

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opened Wednesday, is cleaning up at the nation’s theaters. It made $58.4 million domestically its first day, the franchise’s best opening yet, and the second-highest box office take ever for a Wednesday opening (after last month’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which made $62 million).

Overall, its take is the fourth highest opening day ever, also trailing the Friday-opening movies The Dark Knight (at $67.2 million) and Spider-Man 3 (at $59.9 million).

Industry observers say Half-Blood Prince might end up being the highest-grossing Harry Potter movie of all, beating the current record-holder, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the franchise’s first installment.

But the news is less good for several other fantasy-themed projects.

In the Emmy nominations, which were announced today, fantasy programming was mostly ignored. In the major categories, Lost scored a couple of nominations, Kristen Chenoweth was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Pushing Daisies, and Bob Newhart scored a Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Librarian: Curse of the Jades Chalice.

Meanwhile, Pushing Daisies, True Blood, Heroes, Lost, Smallville, Ghost Whisperer, The Librarian, and Sancturary all scored at least one nomination in the technical categories, and Joe LoDuca, who was previously nominated every season for Xena: Warrior Princess, was nominated for Outstanding Music Composition for Legend of the Seeker, that show’s only nod.

Joss Whedon’s online short, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, was nominated for Outstanding Special Class.

But True Blood (and the final season of the sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica) were shut out of the major nominations, despite being considered strong contenders. Likewise, Supernatural was shut out, despite serving up its best season ever.

See the entire list of nominations here.

In more bad fantasy television news, NBC’s The Listener, about a man with psychic ability, has been canceled, with its last episode airing next week. Five unaired episodes remain.

Will NBC also cancel Merlin before its 13-episode run is over? The last The Listener scored a .7 share in the 18-49 demo on a Thursday night, while Merlin, whose ratings continue to sink, scored a .9 in the same demo in its last Sunday night outing.

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Hello, fans of blood, gore, and general yuckiness, and welcome to another installment of the column that, like the Spike TV hit Deadliest Warrior, pits famous warriors against each other. (But in our case, we match famous fantasy warriors!)

Last time we checked in to see who would win in a fight between an Uruk-hai and a Skeleton Warrior. The result? A complete bonebath as the Uruk stood victorious.

This week we turn our attention to a grudge match that has been going on for a while among aficionados of the undead. Vampires are, of course, a force to be reckoned with, and while the general rules tend to be the same — drink human blood, killed by sunlight — the details changedepending on which pack of blood-drinkers you’re dealing with.

For example, according to vampire journalist Anne Rice, vampires have no aversion to crucifixes at all, whereas in the laws explained to us by student of the undead Joss Whedon, if a cross touches a vampire, said vamp will sizzle and burn, and eventually die.

We’ve brought in two experts to shed more light onto the situation. Up first, we have Azriel LeFeau, a resident of New Orleans and follower of the creatures of the night.

“The thing to remember about vampires,” moans Azriel, “is that they are here, walking among us, seeing our world with supernatural eyes and longing to be part of it, and yet they can never be so. Their greatest gift is their greatest tragedy. And that, my friend, that is their beauty.”

He wipes a tear from his eye, smearing his Midnight Black Eyeliner.

“You think you know what it is to feel? You can never know truly what a feeling is until you’ve been given the Dark Gift.”

Uh-huh. But what about taking on a Sunnydale vamp?

“It’s simple. The vampires in California are weak, but even worse, they’re ugly. What’s with their faces? That squished skin thing above their eyes? Ew. Vampires should be beautiful. Plus, Sunnydale vampires have too much fun. They should understand that life is nothing but pain.”

Moving on, we now take a closer look at said squished-skinned vampires. Joining us for this exercise is Adriana Van Salazar, a personal trainer and martial arts instructor living in Sunnydale, California.

“Okay, the thing about the vampires we have here is that they are kick-ass. No matter what they were in life, they inevitably learn a style of martial arts known as Vamp Fu. It’s a lot of jumping and spin-kicking. Professional stunt people wish they could move like that. Now, from what I understand, their social behavior is similar to that of the vampires in New Orleans, in that younger vamps act as drones, more or less, for older, more powerful vamps. There’s just one noticeable difference.”

Which is?

“The New Orleans vampires are pussies.”

So you’re hedging your bets on the Sunnydale vampires, then?

“No contest. They would cream those N’Arleans bloodsuckers.”

“Impossible!” Azriel shouts. “Those brainless Californian vampires could destroy the likes of Lestat de Lioncourt?!”

“Well, not just any one of them could. The newer ones would probably be get a beat down, but if you’re talking about someone like Spike or Angel … hell, even Drusilla, then yeah.”

“But, but..” Azriel sputters, “do they know how to feel?”

Adriana’s retort? “Yo, seriously, where did you find this kid?”

We took all of the info and fed it into the battle simulation computer. On paper, the New Orleans vampires seem more formidable: they are unaffected by garlic, crosses, and stakes through the heart. They can control the minds of mortals and read their thoughts, and with age many are able to fly. They have exceptional physical strength and speed and can mimic any physical action. Some can even set things on fire using only their mind. Many are telekinetic.

The Sunnydale vampires, on the other hand, are prey to almost all the classic vampire-killing methods: stakes, crosses, holy water, beheading, etc. Their mind powers are pretty much nil.

The result?

New Orleans vampires win in 95% of our battle simulations.

“Shenanigans!” Adriana yells.

Azriel, in a surprisingly upbeat motion, jumps up and down giddily. “See? I told you! Not so tough now, are — ”

He is unable to finish his sentence and Adriana spin-kicks him in the face.

Join us next time for the third installment of Deadliest FANTASY Warrior!

Battle #2: Joss Whedon’s Vampires vs. Anne Rice’s Vampires

Winner: Anne Rice’sVampires

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: What’s this about a sequel to Heavy Metal? Is it really going to happen?  — Blake, Appleton, WI

A: The Oracle can reveal that there already is a sequel to the 1981 animated cult classic: Heavy Metal 2000 (not to mention a video game, 2000’s Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.2). But ignoring the horribly-received 2000 movie, there has been a new version — not exactly a sequel — in the works for several years now, spearheaded by David Fincher (Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), a fan of the original.

At one point, Paramount dropped the project, but last week’s announcement that Titanic’s James Cameron will co-executive produce and direct a segment (and that Jack Black will appear in a comedy segment) makes the project now far more likely to happen.

Q: Have any fantasy shows ever won Emmys? – Ent, Fort Lauderdale, FL

A: The Oracles assumes you jest. Fantasy, like most genre programming, is quite simply almost never given the recognition that the Emmys, the ultimate designation of industry respect, signify.

While fantasy series have frequently been nominated in the make-up, special effects, and other technical categories, as far as the Oracle knows, only three fantasy series have ever been nominated for the Outstanding Drama or Comedy Awards: Beauty and the Beast in 1988; Bewitched four times during its nine-year run; and The Twilight Zone in 1961 (Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, a 1970s sequel of sorts, was also nominated once in the category of Outstanding Single Program, Comedy or Drama).

Fantasy programming is virtually never nominated in other prominent categories either. In seven seasons, for example, Sarah Michelle Gellar was never nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role for her landmark role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor was any of the stellar supporting cast (the Oracle won’t name the often lackluster, already-forgotten actors who were nominated instead, because it will only make your blood boil). It was considered a big deal in 2000 when Joss Whedon was finally bestowed a writing nomination for “Hush,” his revolutionary, mostly dialogue-free Buffy episode.

Xena: Warrior Princess was likewise mostly shut-out of the Emmys, although Joseph LoDuca was — very deservedly — nominated six years in a row for the show’s music.

A few notable Emmy fantasy exceptions: The X-Files did receive a number of acting nominations (and star Gilliam Anderson actually won the award in 1997). The leads and many guest stars on Touched by an Angel were frequently nominated for acting awards for that show, as were many actors on Bewitched; Agnes Moorehead was nominated six of the show’s nine years, and Elizabeth Montgomery was nominated five times.

And in addition to their Outstanding Drama nominations, Beauty and the Beast received several acting nominations for its lead actors, and The Twilight Zone did receive a number of writing nominations (and won twice, both times for Rod Serling).

Q: Since dwarves live underground, why don’t they suffer from kidney failure, osteoporosis, and other symptoms associated with Vitamin D deficiency? — Martin, Tulsa, OK

A: The Oracle senses some sarcasm on the part of the question-writer, but will take your question seriously anyway (he’s just that kinda oracle).

The Oracle can reveal that, after many generations of subterranean dwelling, dwarves have developed genetic mutations that enable them to survive on much lower levels of Vitamin D, and enable them to derive it solely from their food sources, in much the same way the Inuit developed the ability to survive on a mostly-meat, high-fat diet.

Q: Is it my imagination or does “If I Only Had a Brain,” the song the scarecrow sings in The Wizard of Oz, speed up halfway through? Isn’t that sort of unusual? – Molly, Sandpoint, ID

A: The Oracle compliments you on your keen ear! For the 1999 DVD release of the classic film (which coincided with the movie’s 60th anniversary), Disney included outtakes not used in the film’s earlier releases — including an extended version of this song and dance number by Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow. In this version, the tempo definitely speeds up for the instrumental dance interlude.

Unusual? Yes. But not so uncommon that composers don’t have terms for it: namly, “Più Mosso,” which indicates a sudden change in tempo, in this case an “assai,” or large, change. After Bolger’s dance, the composer employs “Tempo primo,” which returns the song to its original speed.

Have a listen.

Looking to buy The Wizard of Oz (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

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Last week, the Hollywood Reporter reported that the rights holders to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the original 1992 movie, were pursuing a “relaunch” of the property as a potential movie franchise — although so far without the involvement of Joss Whedon, the movie’s screenwriter and the creator of the much more successful television series that followed.

But at least one cast member from the classic series thinks it’s a bad idea.

“The notion of doing anything to do with Buffy without Joss Whedon’s involvement is wrong,” said Anthony Stewart Head, the actor who played Rupert Giles, in a phone interview with TheTorchOnline.com.

Fran Rubel Kuzui, who directed the 1992 movie, and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, who co-produced, reportedly don’t plan to tamper with the storyline mapped out in the television series, but instead see the movie series going in a different direction, much like the recent Star Trek reboot. Characters from the television series such as Willow, Xander, Spike, and Giles will not be part of the project.

“It was [Joss Whedon's] baby,” Head said. “He created it at the age of 19. He couldn’t get the film made — no one would make it. He couldn’t get arrested with it, then the Kuzuis picked it up and said, ‘All right we’ll make a movie.’ They said, ‘Stick with us, we’ll show you how to do it,’ but they changed the tone of it. It became more camp, slightly schlocky humor.”

Head said that Joss received a rare second chance to fulfill his original vision with the subsequent television series.

“Around that time, people started to get the idea of introducing wit, real sardonic humor into horror, so that it ceased to be the campy thing that was everyone was used to up to this point,” he said. “He could make much, much stronger points, he could go into the underbelly of it. Joss could turn the audience on a dime. The classic, brilliant stroke of having a genius episode, a really funny episode, and then at the end of it, Buffy walks in and her mother’s dead on the sofa.

“Stuff like that really, really screws with your mind,” Head said. “That’s Joss Whedon.”

Head isn’t completely opposed to the project. “Maybe Kaz will approach Joss, and Joss will say, ‘All right, let’s work together again,’” he said. “But Buffy without Joss wouldn’t make sense to me.”