Et tū_Buffy?

I made an appearance at FRED a few weeks ago (after a long hiatus), and in the middle of a conversation, I mentioned that I liked bufffy the vampire slayer. I was a bit surprised at the chorus of groans and derisive comments that came in reply. "oh, you just want the bouncing babes", and other such comments came my way. In afterthought, I probably shouldn't have been all that surprised. -- but consider this: The BBC is looking at doing a spin-off mini series based on one of the Buffy characters. Usually it's the Americans doing cheap knock-offs of British shows, so something interesting must be going on on this show.

When the original "Buffy" movie came out, I went to see it, and quite thoroughly enjoyed it as what I would describe as a very good bubble gum film. My description was "Valley Girl meets Lost Boys (never having Valley Girl) -- so when I heard that they were going to do a TV series based on the film, I thought "TV is bad enough as it is. A TV series based on a buggle-gum film is going to be almost unwatchable. This is going to be worth avoiding".

Avoid it I did, for a number of years -- but when I heard a positive review of Buffy after it had been playing for almost 4 years, I started getting curious. Finally, last fall, I sat down in front of the TV and watched a couple of Buffy episodes -- I was quickly hooked.

Buffy is definitely not your average TV fare. It got a good set of actors, a tight production crew, and excelent writing with word play, inuendo, character development and plot twists that sometimes take multiple seasons to play out. In the middle of all this, they are willing to take on social commentary and personel issues as well (with twists... all hell really can break loose in your relationship when your girl-friend is an ex-demon!). On the more serious side, the relationship between Willow and Tara is probably a far more realistic investigation of the issues around being lesbian than the oft-celebrated Ellen ever was.

I guess that what I saying is "give the series a chance". If you really want to knock the series, then watch a few episodes and then knock it on its merrits. I expect that you'll find very little to actually complain about.

Written by

Stephen Samuel (samuel@bcgreen.com)

Sun Sep 01, 2002
Originally written Fri, 31 May 2002 02:02:20 -0700
Stephen Samuel (samuel@net.result.com)
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