One more time with feeling (Buffy)

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Episode of the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer
title Once again with feeling
Original title Once more, with feeling
Country of production United States
original language English
classification Season 6, Episode 7 ( List )
First broadcast November 6, 2001 on UPN
German-language
first broadcast		 October 23, 2002 on ProSieben
Rod
Director Joss Whedon
script Joss Whedon
music Joss Whedon, Christophe Beck , Jesse Tobias
Guest appearance (s)
chronology

←  Predecessor
Halloween - The Night of Surprises

Successor  →
Tabula Rasa

Once more with feeling , better known under the English title Once More, with Feeling , is an American musical from the seventh episode of the sixth season of the television series Buffy - The Vampire Slayer . Joss Whedon , creator of the series, not only acted as the director and screenwriter of this episode, he also wrote and composed the songs with the support of Christophe Beck and Jesse Tobias . Once again with emotion celebrated its world premiere on November 6, 2001 on US television at UPN . In Germany, this episode was shown for the first time on October 23, 2002 on the TV station ProSieben .

action

After the opening sequence, in which the viewer is shown a morning at the Summers family home, Buffy Summers , the slayer , can be seen on the patrol. She patrols the town's cemetery and notices something is wrong. She and the vampires and demons around her begin to sing and dance. Buffy's song, Going Through the Motions , is about her life after she was brought back from the dead by her friend, the witch Willow Rosenberg , and her feeling that she does not belong in the realm of the living.

The morning after, Buffy asks her friends if they too felt the urge to sing a song the previous night. Buffy's friends confirm this just before they all start singing again. In the song I've Got a Theory , they speculate where this sudden desire to express one's thoughts and feelings through song came from. Buffy begins to take a different direction during the song. In If We're Together , she explains to the others how important it is that they stick together in order to cope with the situation together, as they were able to overcome everything together before. It finally turns out that all the citizens of the fictional city of Sunnydale are subject to the curse, whereupon the group is initially at a loss.

Willow Rosenberg , Buffy's best friend and witch, and her partner Tara Maclay , who is also a witch, stroll through the park and Tara sings a love letter to Willow called Under Your Spell . In the following scenes, Xander Harris , Buffy's best friend, and his fiancée Anya Jenkins , a former vengeance demon, engage in a battle of words. In the song I'll Never Tell they complain about each other's quirks, but also compliment each other - everything they never dared to say to each other. Spike , a vampire who is on Buffy's side, complains in his song Rest in Peace to Buffy about the unclear relationships between their two.

While training with Buffy, her guardian Rupert Giles realizes that his continued presence is to blame for Buffy's emotional dependence on him, which makes it difficult for her to return to everyday life and cope with the trauma she suffered from death and resurrection . During his standing ballad , he realizes he has to leave Buffy and return to England. Meanwhile, Tara discovers that Willow has cast a spell on her memory of an argument with her and realizes that she has to end the relationship. Giles and Tara sing a short duet, Under Your Spell / Standing - Reprise , without really noticing the other, and sing about the decision to distance themselves from Buffy or Willow.

It seems that a red-skinned demon in a blue suit is responsible for the singing and dancing. Suddenly, some Sunnydale citizens begin to catch fire while dancing and then burn to death.

The demon kidnaps Dawn , Buffy's sister, after she complains about her life in Dawn's Lament at home . Dawn wakes up after being kidnapped at Empty Bronze , Buffy and her friends' regular club. After Dawn's Ballet , she begins to sing a song with the demon, What You Feel , and gets the explanation for her presence: The demon wants to take Dawn with him to the underworld and make her his queen, because he is convinced she has him summoned.

The group around Buffy learns of Dawn's abduction through one of the demon's assistants. Xander, Willow, and Anya want to go out with Buffy and rescue their sister, but Giles tells Buffy to go alone. Willow's suggestion to use a spell to track down Dawn is quickly rejected by Tara. Spike dismisses Giles' suggestion and offers to help Buffy. Buffy refuses, however, as she respects Spike's wish to keep her distance. Eventually she goes out alone to save Dawn. On the way Buffy starts to sing about her inability to feel ("I touch the fire and it freezes me. I look into it and it's black." - "I touch the fire and it freezes me. I look into it and it's black." . "). But her friends finally decide to help her and join her in the song Walk Through the Fire .

When Buffy arrives at the bronze, she defiantly begins to sing and dance. In Something to Sing About she sings again about her condition and how difficult it is for her to live in the world. Her friends and Spike arrive, and Buffy finally reveals that Willow's resurrection ripped her out of Heaven and not delivered her out of Hell, as they'd all assumed. When she begins to smoke while dancing wildly and fast, Spike stops her and explains that the only way to get rid of her pain is by being alive.

The demon wants to run away with Dawn with applause, but it turns out that it was not Dawn who called him, but Xander, who had not expected such effects. The demon then disappears because he has no intention of making Xander his "queen". The group now asks itself in the song Where Do We Go from Here? what they want to do now.

Once again with emotion , the first kiss - without being under a spell - by Buffy and Spike, who find each other outside the club while the others are still singing and dancing inside, ends. Then a curtain falls over the words "The End".

Background information

All performers sing their own songs. Originally the rhythmically complex song Something to Sing About was supposed to be sung by the pop singer Jewel , but Sarah Michelle Gellar took up the challenge. She later stated that she hated doing this episode. In particular, the heavy dance choreography during the song Something to Sing About exhausted her.

Alyson Hannigan asked Joss Whedon to schedule her for just a few lines in the songs, after which he wrote her an amusing line in the song Walk Through the Fire . She sings "I think this line's mostly a filler.", Which in German means something like "I think this line is above all a filler." The protagonist Willow has been attributed an antipathy to singing in the episodes Buffy Makes the Puppets Dance and The Power of Dreams of the first season of Buffy .

James Marsters brought some singing experience with him as he played in the rock band Ghost of the Robot . Anthony Stewart Head also had some experience before joining Buffy . He played a leading role in a British version of the Rocky Horror Show and sang in the musical Chess .

Screenwriter and producer Marti Noxon is featured in an episode for the first time. She plays the no-parking woman. Also, David Fury , screenwriter and producer of the series, made an appearance. He sings about the removal of mustard stains from his shirt.

For the German version of once again with feeling all speaking parts were synchronized as usual . The songs, however, were left in the original. Since the songs are elementary for the course of the plot, Pro Sieben underlayed the songs with German subtitles when the episode was first broadcast in Germany on October 23, 2002, to make it easier for viewers to follow the plot. In Spain and France, on the other hand, all songs were dubbed in the national language.

The opening credits were completely replaced in this episode. A circular section of the main characters is displayed on the surface of a full moon, while the name of the actor is written in red to the right of the moon.

Whedon wrote the song I've Got a Theory in a humorous style and arranged it so that text passages allude to events in the past as well as in the future.

  • Rupert Giles is the first to propose his theory: he believes that a dancing demon is responsible for what happened, which later turns out to be correct.
  • Willow thinks they could all be in a child's crazy nightmare . This is a reference to the episode The Power of Dreams , in which the nightmares of a comatose boy came true.
  • Xander makes a mistake when he suggests that there may be wicked witches behind what happened. The good witches Willow and Tara then look at him reproachfully and he withdraws his proposal.
  • A musical upheaval occurs when Anya emphasizes her rabbit phobia. The soft melody of I've Got a Theory is interrupted by rock sounds , while Anya, singing loudly, blames the rabbits for the situation.
  • Buffy sings that she has died twice already. She "experienced" her first death in the last episode of the first season, The End of the World . The second time she died in a supernatural energy field in the final episode of season five, The Price of Freedom .

The songs Walk Through the Fire , Something to Sing About and Where Do We Go from Here were the fifth studio album of the band Yes , Close to the Edge , inspired, which was at the time one of the favorite albums Joss Whedon.

Much of the segment for I'll Never Tell was shot with just one take. Other scenes, for example the following scene, the so-called Parking Meter Aria with the song The Parking Ticket , had to be repeated unusually often because only a small mistake could spoil the recording.

With a running time of around 50 minutes, once again with feeling is the longest episode of the entire series. Typically, an episode of Buffy is 42 minutes.

With Feeling Again is the only episode that was broadcast in Anamorphic Capture .

It took the actors two weeks to memorize the dance routines and texts and to film the episode. The songs were recorded while filming the first few episodes of the season.

Trivia

  • The demon from this episode is called Sweet and was played by Hinton Battle . However, it was forgotten to let someone say this and so you only get the name from the credits.
  • Joss Whedon had plans to produce a musical episode since the show's first season. He only got the chance to do so when Buffy switched to UPN with the sixth season . In addition, Whedon revealed in the DVD commentary for this episode that a possible musical in the fourth season would have been broadcast only shortly after the broadcast of the musical episode of Xena - The Warrior Princess , which would have suggested theft of ideas. Instead of a musical episode, the episode The Great Silence , better known under the English title Hush, was produced . This is also a special feature because it lasts 26 minutes without a word of spoken dialogue.
  • Buffy says in one scene that Dawn is in trouble - it must be Tuesday. The UPN television station generally aired Buffy on Tuesdays.
  • In the United States, the episode was seen by an average of 5.4 million people.
  • At the end of Tara Maclay's declaration of love to Willow Rosenberg, Under Your Spell , there is a clear allusion to sex between the two women. This scene was cut out when it first aired in China and the Philippines, among others.

Criticism and reception

Once again with emotion was originally supposed to be nominated for an Emmy in 2003. Due to a misprint of the official voting slip, which was later corrected, but which could no longer compensate for the votes that had already been sent for other TV series and the associated episodes, once again it felt as if it did not make it to the valid nomination list and the Emmy to win.

The episode was voted thirteenth on the list of the greatest musicals of all time by British television station Channel 4 .

In addition to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , Die Monster AG , Shrek - The daredevil hero and The Lord of the Rings: The Companions were once again nominated with emotion for a Hugo Award for the best drama representation in a science fiction or fantasy film . The episode lost to the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

A music video was produced for the song Walk Through the Fire , which consists of the corresponding excerpt from the episode and overlays with the names of the protagonists. Although the song was not released as a single from the soundtrack album , it was included in the music video playlist of the German music channels VIVA and Viva Plus . In the case of the latter, the video headed the list of the most played videos within the program Get The Clip for days , in which the viewers vote on the playlist by telephone.

In addition, 20th Century Fox released the entire episode on DVD shortly after it aired in the United States. After a few fan petitions, the DVD was also brought to Europe and published in English for the United Kingdom and in German for the German-speaking countries. The German DVD was released on February 15, 2003.

synchronization

role actor German synchronization
Buffy Summers Sarah Michelle Gellar Nana Spier
Willow Rosenberg Alyson Hannigan Marie Bierstedt
Xander Harris Nicholas Brendon Gerrit Schmidt-Foss
Rupert Giles Anthony Stewart Head Thomas Nero Wolff
Spike James Marsters David Nathan
Anya Jenkins Emma Caulfield Dascha Lehmann
Dawn Summers Michelle Trachtenberg Ilona Brokowski
Tara Maclay Amber Benson Ranja Bonalana

International titles

  • Spain: Una Vez Más, con Sentimiento *
  • France: Que le Spectacle Commence ( Let the show begin )
  • Italy: La Vita è un Musical ( Life is a musical )
  • Finland: Vielä Kerran Tunteella *
  • Sweden: En Gång Till, med Känsla *
  • Turkey: Once More, With Feeling (but in Turkish: Bir Kez Daha, Hissederek ) *
  • Russia: Ещё раз с чувством *
  • Ukraine: Ще раз, тільки з почуттям *
* = Literal translation of the title

The soundtrack

Once more, with feeling
Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack

Publication
(s)

October 24, 2002 (DE)
September 24, 2002 (USA)

Label (s) Decca

Format (s)

CD

Genre (s)

Soundtrack

Title (number)

23

production

Joss Whedon ,
Christophe Beck ,
Jesse Tobias

A music CD was released for the episode with the title Once More, with Feeling , which contains all of the songs sung from the episode and additional pieces. As a bonus, the demo version of Something to Sing About , which was sung by Joss Whedon and his wife Kai Cole, and one piece of music each from the popular episodes The Great Silence , Each His Nightmare and The Price of Freedom , which are by Christophe Beck, the composer of the series. The CD cover was designed by Adam Hughes . The booklet contains notes from Whedon, the lyrics and pictures from the episode.

Track list

# title play
permanently
1. Overture / Going Through the Motions 2:57
2. I've Got a Theory / Bunnies / If We're Together 2:22
3. The mustard 0:18
4th Under your spell 2:55
5. I'll never tell 4:01
6th The Parking Ticket 0:45
7th rest in peace 2:46
8th. Dawn's Lament 1:19
9. Dawn's Ballet 1:12
10. What you feel 3:01
11. Standing 2:01
12. Under Your Spell / Standing - Reprise 1:35
13. Walk through the fire 3:44
14th Something to Sing About 4:40
15th What You Feel - recapitulation 0:46
16. Where Do We Go from Here? 1:53
17th Coda 0:40
18th End Credits (Broom Dance / Grr Argh) 0:31
19th Main Title 0:26
20th Suite from "Restless"
(Willow's Nightmare / First Rage / Chain Of Ancients)		 5:02
21st Suite From "Hush"
(Silent Night / First Kiss / Enter The Gentlemen / Schism)		 6:54
22nd Sacrifice (from "The Gift") 2:55
23. Something To Sing About (Demo) 4:27

It's worth noting that some sound effects and spoken sequences that can be heard in the episode didn't make it onto the soundtrack. For example, during the break before Anya's use in the song I've Got a Theory, the chirping of crickets can be heard in the television version . This cannot be heard on the soundtrack. Giles' request to Anya and Tara to help Buffy dance during Something to Sing About is also missing .

The soundtrack was successful in Germany and, after entering number 13 in the first week, made it to number 7 on the longplay charts in the second week, which remained its highest ranking.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ channel4.com