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I did not find the episode amusing. In fact, I thought some parts were downright degrading. If Buffy did what was implied with R.J., gee, I think she should be in jail. Smooching him due to a spell - that's understandable and in step with a love spell. But if she honestly went there? That's disgusting, deplorable and illegal. R.J.'s age was never stated, but some assume he was 16, Dawn's age. Buffy is 21. If that was Xander letting people get physical with him, fans would have had a fit and a half, calling him irresponsible and so forth. Xander had enough of a clue in BB&B to tell stop lovestruck Buffy from going too far.

BB&B was ten times funnier than this. It was also quite a bit more respectable and decent. It showed that actions have consequences. People such as Giles and Oz were completely disgusted with what Xander had done. Xander hadn't meant to make everyone fall in love with him -- just Cordelia -- and his motive made sense, due to their breakup and their characterizations. The spell went wrong, wackiness ensued, but at no point did Xander fully take advantage of any of the women once he knew what was going on and that the attention/affection was false.

HIM had a guy who had a jacket that had been passed down from his brother, who had gotten it in turn from his father. We had never heard of this brother before, we still don't know what happened to the father, and we still don't know what happened to the jacket in the first place - how long it has been enchanted or whathaveyou. All we got for completion was a jacket being burned, everyone being okay, everyone smiling, Anya not having to pay for holding up multiple establishments (the radio announcement at the end said they were hold ups) and everything played like a big joke. Willow wasn't in the teaser act nor the first act. It felt as if Spike was forced and used; there was none of the funny Xander/Spike interaction that there was in Hush (which - in another case of "syndie freaky" - aired on FX today) nor the hostility we love to hate. Dawn was ready to die for this boy, at which point it would have been nice for Buffy or SOMEONE to mention that Buffy did die for Dawn in The Gift - because as much as I disliked The Gift, I would have rather heard that THAT was what snapped Buffy out of it, the connection. Something . . . more.

Season Seven has been strong and steady, with the exception of this episode. I'm sorry, but if this had been on another show like Charmed, you KNOW many of us would have been saying, "Gee, what a BtVS rip-off," or, "Wow, someone watched Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered, huh?"

I still think that BB&B is one of the funniest BtVS episodes ever. It holds up after all of this time not just because the writing was funny, but because the writing was true to form and to character. It continued seasonal arcs - Buffy suffering through Valentine's Day, Angelus trying to kill Buffy's friends, Drusilla, Cordelia/Xander, Giles/Jenny, Amy dealing with witchcraft, Oz/Willow - and it wrapped itself up tidily. It is not that I'm holding HIM up to BB&B and refusing to see the light. It is that you can't help but compare the two, what with the similar plotlines and the fact that a clip of the old episode was purposely within the new episode.

There was a great deal of music in tonight's episode. The theme to A Summer Place was funny the first time, but didn't end up being directly connected to the jacket, so it either should have been used every time as a signal (ie I Only Have Eyes for You) or just the first time, when Dawn fell off of the bleachers. I did like the espionage score music when the four women were each on a mission. I wished for better editing, both sound and visual.

As always, I'd rather watch my least favorite episode of BtVS on repeat than watch many other shows out there. This episode was not the worst one I've ever seen.

I simply won't ever fall in love with it.

Asleep now,
Little Willow