February 23, 2005
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
During the late nineties the Soong household pretty much swore off TV (partly due to demand at work, and partly due to other obsessions like MTG and German games), so the first few seasons of the whole Buffy phenom kinda passed us by. My regular gaming friends then all lived in the same house (all three of them, plus Phil who visits on a regular basis), and are ALL rabid fans of the show. They even have a mini shrine dedicated to Sarah Michelle Gellar (actress who played buffy). I've always thought them a bit juvenile, I mean just how good can a teeny bopper show be?
After a while "serious" media outlet like Salon begin to rave about the series. Since Johan already has the first three seasons on tape, I figure, why not?
The upshot is: the series is good (although IMO the first three season alone does not warrant the iconic status that it was attributed), but not enough to get to to follow the show week over week (since we don't believe in scheduling our lives around tv shows). So after another two seasons (4 & 5) of sporadic watching on regular TV showtime, we dropped off again.
About a year ago we joined Netflix, the online DVD rental service. We decided to finish watching the whole shebang on DVD since the show is long over the all the discs are available for rental. It's only last week that we finally finished the WHOLE seven seasons (and that's rewatching season 1 through 3 again).
What follows are some random observations (hopefully SPOILER free).
1. It's Genre bending: Is it a horror genre show? A comedy? A teeny bopper soap opera? It's all of the above, the the show keeps you constantly guessing.
2. It's daring: The first lesbian kiss on television? Got it. People getting tortured and flayed alive? Ditto. Marathon sex session that keeps an entire frat house imprisoned? (yes this is not porn, but something shown during prime time). How about a musical episode or an episode without any dialog? How about death, substance abuse, emotional co-dependency, obsession, and financial dire straits? If you want bleeding edge TV in the last few years, this is it.
3. It's got emotional richness: It's only after about three seasons of the show did I figure out that this is mainly a show about the principal characters and their emotional growth and less about the campy plot prograssion. Now some may consider that too "soapy" for their taste, but the characters are so well crafted that they are more real than many drama on the tube. (I think this aspect is more true in later seasons than earlier ones, since more character development has taken place and there are more interesting emotional terrain to explore).
All aspect of emotional exploration are on display, between lovers (either straight,gay, or inter-species), between mother and child, teacher and pupil, and most importantly betwen friends. The friendship depicted between Buffy, Willow, and Xander is as rich as any that has ever graced the boobtube.
4. One gets to learn about the consequences of his/her choice: Every action taken on the show (I can't find any exception yet) will generate a consequence that the character has to deal with. There ain't nothing as a free lunch in buffyverse.
5. Life is tragic: Despite the heavy dose of comedy (many good quatable lines from the show), the show is ultimately tragic. No relationship ever escapes unscathed (between lover, family, friends, enemy, what have you). At the end of the day this can depress the hell out of you, but the vividness of the characters is what make it bearable.
6. It's an ensemble show: Despite its title, I didn't think Buffy (or any other singular character) is that good of an actor, but taken as a whole they are better than the part.
All in all, there are weak episodes and even seasons, but taken as a whole definitely a highlight for TV in the last decade. If you haven't seen it, but are wondering what the fuss is about, you owe it to yourself to rent the DVD to check it out for yourself (granted it's easy to giveup after the first 2 seasons since the show is still trying to find itself, but one will be rewarded if he makes it through all seven seasons).
Posted by msoong at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack