Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Vampire - Part 2

[TheCorpulent1]

Darla confused me for a while. Buffy kills her almost as an afterthought in the first season. I never expected her to come back and wind up being such a huge character. I actually thought she was a new character when she appeared in Angel until I watched both series again and realized that was her in the schoolgirl outfit way back in the day.

 

[flickchick85]

I've always found her to be one of the most fascinatingly tragic characters of either show, tbh, partially because her tragic nature wasn't the focus of her character like it was for Wes, Cordelia, etc. But when you really think about her life, and even some of the stuff that's merely implied or mentioned in interviews, it's a damn sad life. And when Dru "re"-turned her, Darla's the only vampire in either series I can recall who actually showed (brief) signs of resistance and anger that she'd been turned again. Even without her soul, she didn't relish being a vampire again like the other vamps always did when they were "reborn."

And before that, she'd only had her soul for a few weeks before deciding she wanted to be good and do the right thing (it took Angel how many decades for this??). Just seemed to me that Darla had this huge potential capacity for good, but she was consistently dealt a bad hand, even from the very beginning, so that potential never got realized. It's like we never got to know the "real" Darla at all. I like to think that was the real her in "Inside Out," sent by the Powers, and not just the Powers taking her form, but we'll never know for sure.

 

[Hush]

Man now I gotta watch both again.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

In fairness, Angel didn't have anyone pushing him toward redemption like Darla did. He had just the opposite, in fact: a family of evil, soulless beasts that represented the only world he knew and thus the one he desperately wanted to get back to. Darla had Angel's example to show her that she could atone for past sins and carve out a new life for herself.

 

[ComicChick]

i really enjoyed Darla on Angel, backstory and all. when i first started watching buffy and saw her brief introduction and all, it was crazy how different she was .

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, I wonder if Whedon planned that out or if she was literally just some vampire underling and he liked Julie Benz's performance, so he had her role expanded when more of Angel's backstory started cropping up.

 

[Sawyer]

Probably the latter.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I bet there's an interview somewhere that has the truth. I wish I cared enough to hunt it down.

 

[Charlie Boy]

Darla confused me for a while. Buffy kills her almost as an afterthought in the first season. I never expected her to come back and wind up being such a huge character. I actually thought she was a new character when she appeared in Angel until I watched both series again and realized that was her in the schoolgirl outfit way back in the day.

I feel like Darla was an afterthought for Joss. He hadn't fully thought out the history of Darla before writing the pilot. Buffy defeating her so quickly doesn't add up if you take into account just how evil and ruthless she was.

 

[Sawyer]

I don't think it would've taken until the end of the spinoff's first season if it was something he had planned from the start. It's probably something that came up in the process of plotting out a series with Angel at the center. Just an interesting element that would provide for good story.

 

[ComicChick]

Yeah, I wonder if Whedon planned that out or if she was literally just some vampire underling and he liked Julie Benz's performance, so he had her role expanded when more of Angel's backstory started cropping up.

she was pretty popular in WB shows at the time, buffy, angel, roswell etc

 

[Charlie Boy]

All of those WB shows cross pollinated. Jason Behr starred in Roswell, guest starred on Buffy and Dawson's Creek. White kids in their mid-twenties who played teenagers... They're not a dime a dozen.

 

[ComicChick]

oh yeah i remember behr from season 1 (or 2) now. he was buffy's friend from her old school

 

[Charlie Boy]

Yeah, he desperately wanted to become a vampire.

 

[flickchick85]

In fairness, Angel didn't have anyone pushing him toward redemption like Darla did. He had just the opposite, in fact: a family of evil, soulless beasts that represented the only world he knew and thus the one he desperately wanted to get back to. Darla had Angel's example to show her that she could atone for past sins and carve out a new life for herself.

True, but the difference between a few weeks and 100 years is still quite staggering to me nonetheless. And it's not like Angel wasn't presented with redemptive opportunities or people suggesting he do some good. He had plenty. Not with someone so invested in his fate like Darla had, but he still had several and remained pretty unfazed. Darla was presented with one (with persuasion from someone she cared about, admittedly), and she took it. In a way that even Angel didn't want her to do. She was willing to sacrifice herself twice, against Angel's wishes both times. That was all her. I mean, all you have to do is look at who they were before becoming vampires (Angel being the entitled brat playing the victim; Darla being born to nothing, living a life of misery and still refusing to be the victim) and how they dealt with being vampires to see that Darla was never nearly as "bad" as Angel, even when she was a soulless, evil being.

As for what Whedon had planned for her, I honestly don't think he gave her a second thought until he decided to do the flashbacks in Becoming. I believe he's said it was around that same time that he had decided Angel could carry his own show, so that's probably when he and David Greenwalt realized they still had a lot of untapped potential with her character and her place in Angel's history.

 

[ComicChick]

darla was about 100 or so years older than him right? i seem like i remember them mentioning that she was turned in the 1700's?

 

[ComicChick]

i was bored and did some googling

Julie Benz initially auditioned for the role of Buffy Summers,[1][2] but that later went to Sarah Michelle Gellar, who had previously won the part of Cordelia Chase.[1] However, Benz was offered the small role of the vampire Darla in the pilot episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her performance was so well-received that her character appeared in a few more episodes.[2] In an interview with TheTVAddict.com, Benz said of her casting: "I was supposed to die in the pilot, but about halfway through the pilot Joss Whedon was like, 'We’re giving you a name and we’re not going to kill you.' And he did that for a while until it finally came time to kill me, and kill me, and kill me and killed [sic] me."[3] She later went on to say:

For me, I was a new actor to Los Angeles, didn’t know the TV business very well so I was just excited to work and play a vampire. I had no clue what I was going to do or how I was going to be scary. Until that is, they put the vampire makeup on me and I went into the trailer and smiled, which I thought was creepy. Joss always said he was intrigued that someone who looked like me and talked like me was like the scariest vampire ever. That’s what he wanted, my sweet voice and demeanour until all of a sudden I’m just this vicious vampire."[3]

darla's bio on Wiki:

Darla is born in the late 16th century in the British Isles. Her birth name has never been revealed in either series, and Darla herself eventually forgets it. As a young prostitute, she emigrates to the Virginia Colony in North America and becomes independently wealthy but also contracts a fatal case of syphilis.[8] By 1609, Darla lies dying in the luxurious house she owns. She scoffs at a "priest" who comes to her deathbed before he reveals his true identity: the Master, leader of the elite cult of vampires known as the Order of Aurelius.[8] Darla despises the clergy and religion, a trait that would follow her as a vampire. The Master turns her into a vampire and renames her "Darla," meaning "dear one" in early modern English ("darling").

She spends four centuries torturing innocent people, often accompanied by Angel (until his soul is restored), before showing up in Sunnydale.[8] Darla's first appearance is in "Welcome to the Hellmouth", the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, aired in 1997. She breaks into Sunnydale High School with a student who goes there. Darla first toys with the youth, then her face morphs into that of a vampire, and she bites the boy.[9] Darla later appears in the episode "The Harvest", where she participates in the ascension of the Master, a very old and powerful vampire.[10] Darla's role in the series is more prominent in the episode "Angel", where it is revealed that she was Angel's sire and former lover.[4] Darla bites an unsuspecting Joyce Summers (Buffy's mother), making it look as if Angel did it. Angel eventually kills her.[4] She later appears in numerous flashbacks, illuminating her involvement not only with Angel, but also with Spike.[11][12]

 

[Charlie Boy]

I feel like on a scale of who committed the worst atrocities as a vampire, Angelus and Darla are pretty much on even playing field with one another. Hell Angel was the first of his kind. He has no template to go off of. All he wanted was to go back to being soulless, he was racked with guilt. I never felt like Darla was ever really sorry for the people she destroyed.

 

[Sawyer]

So, apparently today is the 10 year anniversary of Buffy's series finale... who the **** has been stealing my time? It can't have been that long...

 

[Lord]

And the finale's special effects still hold up quite well nowadays

 

[Charlie Boy]

Jeez, I remember watching the finale in high school. I miss it so.

 

[Charlie Boy]

And the finale's special effects still hold up quite well nowadays

What?

 

[Lord]

I meant that the series finale had good special effects

 

[Charlie Boy]

Oh, I knew what you meant, I just couldn't believe anyone thought that... I mean, the show's effects were always low budget. Almost distractingly so.

 

[Sawyer]

We're just spoiled by these things. The effects weren't awful...