Buffy: Doomed (4.11)

As an episode, this doesn't hold together well at all. It tries to do far too many different things with little cohesive link between them all, spinning off into directions which generally aren't that spectacular anyway. At its heart is the aftermath of Buffy and Riley's exposure to one another, Buffy unsure about starting a relationship with somebody who isn't entirely normal, and Riley uncomfortable with suddenly discovering his love interest puts herself in extremely dangerous situations on a daily basis. While this is a natural development for their courtship, their dialogue-heavy scenes together drag on for what seems like forever, talking in circles and generally getting nowhere. Of course, that was probably the point, but the dialogue felt unusually flat for this show.

Elsewhere, the demon story was ridiculously underwhelming, the script's disinterest in their scheme and the apocalyptic pay-off feeling like a remake of The Zeppo but without the intentional irony. There was an evident motif of 'going back to school' that ran through parts of the script, but again that wasn't as fleshed out as it should have been. As a result, Willow's reunion with Percy and his casual dismissal of her felt kind of redundant.

The lone bright spark in Doomed is Spike's bout of depression. He's been really, really fun these past couple of episodes, and his interaction here with Willow and Xander was particularly awesome. He's a badass, and his miraculous discovery that he can hit demons without feeling pain essentially thrusts him into the Scooby Gang once and for all. And his American accent was genius. In conclusion: Spike good, Doomed bad. Meh. C-

Credits
Guest stars Leonard Roberts (Forrest Gates); Bailey Chase (Graham Miller); Ethan Erickson (Percy West)
Writers Marti Noxon, David Fury, Jane Espenson Director James A. Contner