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There's been a recurring of the Willow-Spike bedroom scene in "The Initiative", and how it's bothersome to some viewers that an act played as murder/rape suddenly switches to impotence metaphor. The incongruity of considering how a person would likely respond if actually faced with the circumstances. I recognize that argument, though I can think of a large number of scenes in any number of stories that a greater offenders than this one.
Some of the scenes and storylines are not meant to be taken seriously. In this particular case, the metaphor switches rapidly in the scene and it becomes played for laughs. As long as you don't think too seriously about it, or infuse it with much depth, it works. If you take it seriously, and consider what it would indicate about an actual person living within the reality, it becomes a very disturbing thing.
I liked the scene. I think it's funny. In general, it's crafted in a way that I don't think very seriously about it. The challenge, I suppose, is to know when to take characters seriously, and when to look at the show as shallow entertainment. And lets not forget that, sympathetic as Willow seems to Spike's "impotence", she still has the presence of mind to recognize him as a danger and whack him with a vase.
There are far worse offenders on the shallow/deep/glib score than this scene. I do, at times, get disappointed because I do want to see depth, and because it's not always there. It's worse for me when I think the storyteller means for depth to be there, but fails to communicate it. But that's as much my issue as a reader/viewer, as it is a problem with the story itself.
Some of the scenes and storylines are not meant to be taken seriously. In this particular case, the metaphor switches rapidly in the scene and it becomes played for laughs. As long as you don't think too seriously about it, or infuse it with much depth, it works. If you take it seriously, and consider what it would indicate about an actual person living within the reality, it becomes a very disturbing thing.
I liked the scene. I think it's funny. In general, it's crafted in a way that I don't think very seriously about it. The challenge, I suppose, is to know when to take characters seriously, and when to look at the show as shallow entertainment. And lets not forget that, sympathetic as Willow seems to Spike's "impotence", she still has the presence of mind to recognize him as a danger and whack him with a vase.
There are far worse offenders on the shallow/deep/glib score than this scene. I do, at times, get disappointed because I do want to see depth, and because it's not always there. It's worse for me when I think the storyteller means for depth to be there, but fails to communicate it. But that's as much my issue as a reader/viewer, as it is a problem with the story itself.
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