The world is spinning

Weight of the World (Douglas Petrie)

Spike warns the Scoobies that "You waste time with kid gloves. I'm willing to wager, when all is said and done, Buffy likes it rough." Are these lines written with intent? Or do obsessives just seize on the innocent?

Willow gets cranky but not very convincingly. Alyson Hannigan's charm is wearing off. I feel so bad writing that. I would have loved Willow taking charge at any other point in BtVS but not in season 5.

"Ben is Glory. Glory's Ben." This is vaguely funny but once again it makes the Scoobies look like idiots.

Glory goes all Dawn when she shouts "Get out! Get out! Get out!". I do owe Clare Kramer an apology when I dismissed her performance earlier in the season but I have grown to appreciate her moods, vanity and humour. She is particularly good in this episode as the barrier between herself and Ben breaks down. And this speech is quite something:

"Who's not crazy? Look around: everyone's drinking, smoking, shooting up, shooting each other or just plain screwing their brains out because they don’t want them anymore. I'm crazy? Honey, I am the original one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts."

By far and away the best thing about this rather plodding episode are the inside Buffy's mind sequences. They are nicely photographed and it is good to see Joyce and Hank again. The little girl who plays Buffy looks more like a young Britney Spears: she isn't nearly as convincing as Mimi Paley in "Killed By Death". More importantly the sequences reveal Buffy's feelings about her burden very clearly and she can't wait to lay it down.

She explains why she going to become increasingly more miserable ("I would grieve and people would feel sorry for me. But it would all be over. And I imagined what a relief that would be") and it's no wonder she's peeved in season 6.