If Amber Benson had come back for "Conversations"

[tkts]

Do you think you would have liked "Conversations With Dead People" more or less if Amber Benson had come back for the episode -- if The First had taken on Tara's appearance instead of Cassie's, as originally scripted?

(You can read the original script here.)

I think Tara's presence would have made Willow's already heartbreaking scenes even more powerful. But I wonder if they would have become too hard to watch. There's always that thin line between pushing the comfort zone and pushing it too far. Even knowing that she was really The First, if we saw Tara one last time but had to watch her being cruel to Willow, would it have been too much?

[CourtneyDax]

I think it would've been the lowest thing Joss had ever done if he made Tara the evil first, but even with that knowledge, I would've wanted her there.
It would be like taking Tara's wholesome image of purity and happiness and destroying it with a really big hammer....buuuuuuut, I missed Tara and I would've loved to have a few more scenes of the happiness between Willow and Tara again.

I'm extremely biased, but there's the two arguments I guess...

[Jaz ♀♀]

i'll repost my thoughts on this matter from what i said on the BuffyTube part of the forum instead of retyping it all....

Dec 24, 2009 4:56:05 GMT -5 Jaz ♀♀ said:

I think Tara would have been the perfect and only choice for Willow. Cassie did a great job and I remember the first time seeing it and in the beginning actually believing Willow was talking to Tara, i remember those scenes completely brought me to tears. Especially hearing Cassie/The First telling Willow the private moments Willow and Tara shared (Strong like an Amazon). The fact that the scenes were simply just Willow and Cassie and not having Tara in it at all and it still having it bring me to tears, omg I can't even imagine how harder the impact it would have on me if I really did see Tara there. As a hardcore Willow/Tara fan, it would have been beyond torture to then realize that it was the First and not Tara talking to Willow. At least with Cassie, for me, the pain of Willow not talking to Tara was a lot less.

So if Amber did come back and Joss's plan was to torture us Willow/Tara fans with heartbreak of seeing Tara as the First, it would have been an even more definite success....I don't think I would have liked it (because of my reasons above) but I won't be ignorant to the fact that I do honestly believe it would have been an even better heart-wrenching scene to have seen than with Willow and Cassie.

[Randi Giles]

I never doubted for a second that it would have been better and more intense if Tara was there, but we didn't get that and that sucks. Considering the fact that he had to scramble to find a replacement I don't think Cassie was a bad choice. Thats just my opinion.

[PJ]

hmmm. well i think we should have sceen a few more familar faces, not just for that episode but for season 7 in general. maybe the first could have been kendra, or jenny at one time or another. but answering the question, I think it would have been really mean of joss to bring tara back just to be evil. i did however hear that joss wanted to bring tara back to life in season 7 in an episode about buffy getting one wish to change something that had happened in her life, but because of schedule conflicts they couldn't get amber for the role so they had to change the season to a whole new idea.

[Randi Giles]

Dec 26, 2009 19:08:10 GMT -5 PJ said:

i did however hear that joss wanted to bring tara back to life in season 7 in an episode about buffy getting one wish to change something that had happened in her life, but because of schedule conflicts they couldn't get amber for the role so they had to change the season to a whole new idea.

I remember hearing that and thinking it would have been either cheesy or awkward considering Kennedy and all for a finale. Plus too good to be true.