Hush

I love this episode, favourite of the whole series for me!

There are some genres, like SF and horror, where you'll find short stories that are vastly superior to most novels. "Hush" shows that a TV episode can be vastly superior to most movies of its genre. It distills the genre to its essence without sacrificing any of its elements, and ingeniously uses its own unique twist as a way to do so. Whedon and the cast at their best.

Having seen the movie years ago and been disappointed by its squandered potential, when I heard that it was becoming a TV series, I flatly refused to watch it. My best friend became a rabid fan immediately, and knowing my love for horror movies, could not believe that I wouldn't watch a single episode. I told him that the movie had scarred me for life as far as anything BUFFY was concerned, and he told me to forget that the movie even existed. He insisted that I give two episodes a shot: "Once More With Feeling" and this one.

Both of them are why I am a BUFFY fan today. He was right - I was hooked immediately. I have never seen a show with the guts to dare try an episode that has next to no dialogue, and nothing else could've pulled it off with the panache and the pure creativity of BUFFY. I think X FILES might've gotten away with it if they'd thought of it first, but I'm glad that BUFFY did it instead.

It is a credit to everyone involved that you are riveted for the entire hour, sometimes hanging onto the edge of your seat. And when it was all over, I craved to know more about every character. So I went out and bought the Season One boxed set. And the rest is history...

I guarantee you that if you've never seen it, either, you'll want to see more if you make this episode your first.

The only reason I'm not giving it 10 out of 10 is because I'm reserving that score for "Once More..."

Possibly the best episode of Season 4 if not the best episode of the entire series.

This episode opens with Buffy in a lecture; it isn't immediately clear but she is dreaming... this dream starts with Riley kissing her in front of the class, it then turns a little strange as she hear a girl reciting a chilling rhyme about 'The Gentlemen' and how their victims will die screaming but unheard. She mentions it to Giles and he agrees to investigate. Meanwhile Willow attends a group for fellow Wiccans but is disappointed that they don't appear to know anything about real witchcraft... one girl appears to show interest in her though. The next night as everybody sleeps The Gentlemen arrive in Sunnydale and somehow take everybody's voices. This leads to understandable panic which only escalates when two people are killed. Both Buffy and her friends and The Initiative are trying to stop them but without being able to speak it won't be easy.

'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' features many great episodes and to my mind this might be the best. It starts well; normally I'm not a fan of dream sequences but this works and as it is short and changes fairly randomly in the middle feels like a real dream. We then get some enjoyably lighter moments with Willow and the Wiccans, relationship discussion between Xander and Anya and general sarcastic wit from Spike. When The Gentlemen turn up they are genuinely creepy with their fixed toothy grins and the way they float rather than walk... not to mention how they cut the hearts out of their silently screaming victims (don't worry nothing to horrible is shown). The fact that nobody can talk both raises the tension and leads to some nicely comic moments. The cast does a really great job as they must communicate physically rather than in words... it is almost as if they are in a silent film for much of the episode. Overall this episode is just brilliant!