My current Buffython has brought me to Showtime. I realise now that I was unduly harsh in my assessment of series 7 last year. (I think it was coloured by my multiple media disappointments). Historically, it's been the non-arc Monster of the Week episodes that I prefer, and Help and Him can hold their heads up in the company of Lie To Me and Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. I particularly liked Him for its televisual grammar - the split-screening and Xander's explicit flashback to B,B&B. Joss Whedon says that he doesn't like to play tricks with form too often, so when it does turn up in Buffy, it's particularly enjoyable.

Selfless is more of a flawed gem. I didn't like the rewriting of Anya's back-story. To me, Anya was strangely literal (speaking with an unnatural evenness and choosing her words a shade too carefully) because she had forgotten what being human was like. The idea that she was like that to start with seemed unnecessary and a bit, well, literalistic.

I was more ambivalent about the revisiting of Once More, With Feeling in this episode. I would have told them 'You created a masterpiece in OMWF. Now walk away from it! It belongs to the ages!' On the other hand, that jump cut between Anya the bride-to-be and Anyanka with a sword through her chest was possibly worth it. Stark. Harsh. Wholly symbolic of the synthesis of the sublime and the ridiculous which makes Buffy worth watching.