Interesting that you should mention Dollhouse, because I always saw Topher as kind of a continuation of characters like Andrew and Warren; an incredibly intelligent but morally vacuous individual who, like Andrew, didn't do bad things because he was a bad person exactly, but more because he enjoyed applying his…

I'll drink to that.

That is damned funny.

I feel like we're reaching an impasse here.

VD, huh?  I'm not too familiar with the show, but that is one unfortunate acronym.

Check out this bit of dialogue that was cut from "Touched":

The above comment was supposed to be in response to HipsterDBag, by the way, not you, Mythagoras.  Keep up the good work.

Buffy: "He's not evil, but when he gets close to it he picks up its flavor like a mushroom or something."

How you can say that Andrew's defining trait was his homosexuality is a little beyond me.  We didn't even get a hint of that until around, what, Seeing Red?  There was and is a lot more to him.  His nerdiness, for one, his moral underdevelopment and attendant weakness, for another, and here, his slowly developing…

Spoiler x-ing.

Let us not speak of the comics. Ever.

This episode definitely doesn't measure up to some of the show's other experimental episodes like Hush, Once More, With Feeling, and Conversations with Dead People, but I don't think it was really meant to.  It's less ambitious and more thrown-together, a fun idea the writers had rather than something on which they…

Caution: falling spoilers.

About the ultra-quick redemption: I want to point out that, at least from where I'm sitting, he is not redeemed by his actions in Storyteller, nor by what happens afterward, and that he wasn't intended to be.  Some fans decry that he got off the hook for his actions so easily, but I don't think he did.  I think he has…

They definitely have some fun with the gay angle from time to time, but I agree with the people who have said that his nerdiness defines him more than his homosexuality.  And what fun they did have with his homosexuality never offended me, and I'm a gay dude.  It was like his lack of emotional maturity (his nerdy…

But unlike Jar Jar, Andrew has legions of fans who really like him.  A lot, even.  I've always wondered why the split exists.  I have to think that characters like Andrew, who inspire about equal parts disgust and praise from the fan base, are pretty rare.  Everyone hates Kennedy.  Everyone loves Wesley.  Andrew's…

Tell that to Enver Jguei… Gvuei… Dzuri… the guy who played Victor.  He managed it.  And I thought there were times when Dushku didn't have chemistry with people even  after she had been imprinted.  Like the time she was a hostage negotiator, or a serial killer.

Yeah, I could forgive some of the single-mindedness of Strega's recaps because more often than not it was in good fun and she made me laugh.  But some of those Buffy recaps are just plain hateful.  I read them and picture the writers sitting at their keyboard, frothing at the mouth.

Caleb didn't have much depth, I'll grant you that, but I don't think he was around long enough for that to really matter.  They went with a more "evil personified" approach, which I think is a valid enough way of doing things as long as it's not too stretched out.  And despite the lack of depth, Fillion had enough fun…

Here there be SPOILERS.