Once More, With Feeling

"Once More, With Feeling" is a special episode of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is a musical episode, written and directed by Joss Whedon, the creator of the show. All the songs are also written, lyrics and music, by Whedon, with a score by Christophe Beck[?] and arrangements by Jesse Tobias and Christophe Beck.

Other technical differences between this episode and the normal ones are its running time (50 minutes and 52 seconds instead of the usual average of 43 minutes) and its format: the episode aired in letterbox format.

The episode, the seventh of season six, first aired on November 6, 2001 on the UPN.

The episode has been critically acclaimed and is a fan favorite. All the actors sing their part and no one has been dubbed, although it is rumored that some voices have been improved electronically. The only member of the regular cast who sings very little (three lines, one of which is "I think this line's mostly filler"), is Alyson Hannigan; it seems that she did not want to sing and Whedon respected this choice of hers (and in fact, this ties in closely with the character of Willow, who early in the first season is seen to have a fear of singing in public).

A music CD has been released, featuring the whole score and some additional tracks including the demo of "Something to Sing About", sung by Joss Whedon and his wife Kai. The art for the CD (also used as cover of other Musical items, like the script book, the DVD and the poster) is by Adam Hughes[?]. In the booklet there are liner notes by Whedon, all the lyrics for the songs, and pictures from the episode.

Also available for sale is the original script book (ISBN 0-689-85918-X); besides the actual screenplay the book features pictures from the episode, articles, sheet music for all the songs and a behind the scenes.

Finally, a single (Region 2) DVD has been released in Europe (two editions: in English for the United Kingdom and in German for Germany).

David Fury[?], producer and writer of the show, had realized that the episode would be something great, so he asked Whedon if he could document it, and shot about 40 hours of behind-the-scenes material; part of this material is available on the UK Season Six DVD set.

Table of contents 1 Plot summary 2 Cast 2.1 Regular cast 2.2 Guest cast 2.3 Supporting cast 3 CD Track List 4 International Titles 5 External links

Plot summary Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers.

After an overture with some wordless scenes of Buffy and her friends taken from a normal day, we see Buffy patrolling in a cemetery at night, but there is something wrong with her and with the demons she meets and kills: they are all singing and dancing.

The morning after Buffy asks her friends if the same thing had happened to them, and it seems it has... suddenly they burst into song again, singing how they can face anything if they're together. It seems that all the people in Sunnydale are forced to sing about their inner feelings.

Later Xander and Anya sing together about things they would have never told themselves or each other otherwise, Tara sings a love song to Willow and Spike sings a love song to Buffy.

Incidentally, Tara finds out about a forgetting spell Willow had cast some days before to make her forget about their fight, and decides to break up with her. In the meantime Giles realizes that he has become useless and that he is keeping Buffy from her responsibilities, and decides to leave again and return to England for good.

It seems that there is a new demon in town, named Sweet, and he is responsible for all the singing. Unfortunately, some people are singing and dancing so much that they start burning from the inside, and end up dying in flames.

The demon has Dawn kidnapped by his minions because he thinks she is the one who summoned him, and wants her to be his queen and take her to the Underworld with him.

So Buffy and the gang go to the Bronze (where Sweet is) to fight him. Buffy starts to "sing and dance against" him, and while singing she reveals things to her friends that she did not want to reveal at all: she tells them that when they had resurrected her, they had taken her out of Heaven and not out of Hell as they thought. Then, just when she is about to start burning Spike arrives and helps her stop from spinning around and recover.

Eventually, it turns out that it was not Dawn the one who had summoned Sweet, but Xander, so the demon gives up on the queen matter and just vanishes away.

Buffy and her friends have won, but now that things have been said everything has changed for all of them. The curtains close on Buffy kissing Spike outside of the Bronze, apparently because he is the only one who can make her feel alive.

Cast

Regular cast

• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
• Emma Caulfield as Anya
• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
• James Marsters as Spike
• Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers

Guest cast

• Hinton Battle[?] as Sweet
• Amber Benson as Tara Maclay
• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Supporting cast

• Timothy Anderson as Henchman
• Hunter Cochrane as College Guy #2
• Alex Estronei as Henchman
• David Fury as Mustard Man
• Marti Noxon[?] as Parking Ticket Woman
• Matt Sims as College Guy #1
• Daniel Weaver as Handsome Young Man
• Zachary Woodlee as Demon/Henchman
• Scot Zeller as Henchman

CD Track List

Track	Title	Time
1	Overture / Going Through the Motions	02:57
2	I've Got a Theory / Bunnies / If We're Together	02:22
3	The Mustard	00:18
4	Under Your Spell	02:55
5	I'll Never Tell	04:01
6	The Parking Ticket	00:45
7	Rest in Peace	02:46
8	Dawn's Lament	01:19
9	Dawn's Ballet	01:12
10	What You Feel	03:01
11	Standing	02:10
12	Under Your Spell / Standing - reprise	01:35
13	Walk Through the Fire	03:44
14	Something to Sing About	04:40
15	What You Feel - reprise	00:46
16	Where Do We Go From Here?	01:53
17	Coda	00:40
18	End Credits (Broom Dance / Grr Argh)	00:31
19	Main Title	00:26
20	Suite from "Restless"	05:02
21	Suite from "Hush"	06:54
22	Sacrifice (from "The Gift")	02:55
23	Something to Sing About (demo)	04:27

International Titles

• French title: Que le spectacle commence
• German title: Noch einmal mit Gefühl
• Italian title: La vita è un musical

External links

• Going Through the Motions (http://musical.chosentwo.com/), the official fanlisting of the episode.