This week on Buffy and the Art of Story: I, Robot...You, Jane. (Season 1, Episode 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

This podcast episode covers using prologues to raise the stakes, whether the demon here is a compelling antagonist, and how I, Robot weaves in action in quick bursts.

As always, the discussion is spoiler-free, except at the end (with plenty of warning).

Story Elements in I, Robot

In this podcast episode we’ll look at:

Raising the stakes through a prologue  

Learning about strong chapter endings from Buffy

Weaving in action you don’t have time to show

What makes an antagonist less than interesting

Sorry, no Season 1 DVD commentary this time! (But there will be for The Puppet Show.)

Next Up: The Puppet Show S1 E9 (on December 30, 2019 after a short holiday break)

Last Week: Angel S1 E7

Plotting Your Story

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Episodes will include Buffy-adjacent stories (such as key Angel episodes). Also films or TV episodes that are intriguing from a story, theme, or character perspective.

Episode Transcript of I, Robot...You, Jane

Hi, and welcome to Buffy and the Art of Story.

 

I am Lisa M. Lilly, author of The Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries, and the founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com. If you love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you love creating stories, or just taking them apart to see how they work, you're in the right place.

This Week: I, Robot, You, Jane

This week we’re talking about I, Robot, You, Jane, Season One, Episode Eight. Written by Ashley Gable and Thomas Ace Wyden and directed by Steven L. Posey.

In addition to the major plot points, we’ll talk about:

using a prologue to raise the stakes or at least let your audience know how high the stakes are;

chapter endings and what you can learn about them from Buffy;

weaving-in quickly action that you don't have the time to show, but that the audience needs to know about;

and what makes an antagonist less than perhaps as interesting as we would like

There will be no spoilers, except at the end, to talk about some foreshadowing. But I will give you plenty of warning.

Listener Comments

First, though we do have a couple listener comments. Both relate to the spoiler section on The Harvest.

But I can talk about this point now. Because last week we found out in the episode Angel, that Angel is a vampire and that he, over 100 years ago, was extremely dangerous.

Angel, in The Harvest, meets Buffy in the crypt. She is about to go down and face the Master. He says that he's afraid when she asks why he won't go down there.  I questioned that, given what we later find out about Angel and how strong he is and how feared he was.

Steve commented that he thought perhaps Angel just wasn't ready to reveal yet that he was a vampire, and he knew that was going to come out during the fight and also that he was confident Buffy would be fine.

So he didn't feel that he needed to go with her.

Similarly, Kerry thought Angel's facial expression and his tone showed he was clearly lying about being afraid. And she says, “I think he just says it to get her to go on her own and realize her own strength.” I love that reading of it.

I love both readings of it because they suggest Angel has a lot of confidence in Buffy. I like that my listeners had more confidence in the writers than I did at that particular moment.

If you have thoughts on the show, you can email me [email protected] or you can tweet me on Twitter @LisaMLilly.

Okay, let's dive into the Hellmouth.

I, Robot

I was a little bit surprised when I re-watched this episode for the podcast. I always remember it as one that I'm not that excited about. The whole Internet-demon-who-turns-into-a-robo...