Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series) (17 page)

I
AM A
B
UFFY
TRAGIC
. I have been an avid follower and, of late, scholar of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
since the first season. It’s the first television show I’ve ever been obsessed with, the first time I’ve found myself in the role of a fan. A particularly strange shift for me because I’ve spent a large part of my scholarly career writing about fans without actually being one. Now I am. I watch the show. A lot. I read and write about it online, in magazines, fanzines, journals, books. I’ve lectured about it. I’ve been interviewed about it for Australian TV, radio, and print media.

There’s a long list of reasons why so many people love
Buffy
. Reasons that have been given by fans and scholars and reviewers and others consuming vast tracks of the Internet and print in the form of articles and reviews, poems and stories.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
captured me in the first place because it was a genre TV show that took the rules of the genre seriously, understood them, was metaphorically
resonate, cared about continuity and consistency, engaged in fabulous world-building, was intelligently written and acted, and had a sassy self-awareness that was not sly or annoying. It is both funny and sad, often at the same time.

My obsession involves watching the show repeatedly, devouring DVD and other commentary by the writers, particularly Joss Whedon, and thinking long and hard about the show. This intense engagement with a set of interlocked texts as complex and as well-executed as
Buffy
is extraordinarily pleasurable.

My increasing obsession and professional engagement with
Buffy
has found me frequently called upon to defend the show. Not to the large unwashed hordes out there who will never watch or understand the show (and frankly, who cares about them?) but to other
Buffy
fans. Ever since the fourth season, when Buffy and the Scoobies left Sunnydale High behind, there has been a vehement rain of
Buffy
fan backlash.

Like relationships with other human beings, fan relationships with TV shows sometimes thrive on a mix of love and hatred, none more so than
Buffy
. For the past few seasons, my role of defender has meant I haven’t always admitted to my own dissatisfactions with
Buffy
. I love
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
more than I’ve ever loved a TV show (hell, more than quite a few people in my life) but there are times when I hate it too.

I loathe defending
Buffy
to other fans. I feel like I’m defending a close relative. I want to tell them, “If you can’t say anything nice, then shut up.” I am not rational about it. While defending the show I will say anything, no matter how illogical. I will frequently contradict myself. I don’t care. If a particular writer is attacked I will dredge the record for good episodes or lines they’ve written. I will airily wave aside complaints about plot holes as a clever play with the tropes of the genre. I’ll make stuff up: “That was not a crap line. It was a direct reference to Cansino’s last film,
The Widow in the Shadows
, made for RKO just before he was
blacklisted. Had a limited release in 1962. Nope, not available on DVD. Though apparently there’s a French bootleg video.”

I cannot stand fans being so narkily and pickily critical of the show. Don’t they understand how tight the TV-land budget of time and money is? Don’t they understand that certain actors aren’t always available? Don’t they
want
to enjoy the show? Anyway, why does everything have to be about whether each episode or season was good or not? Don’t they realize that you can’t possibly decide that until you’ve watched it at least five or more (often
way
more) times? I wish they would embrace proper criticism, that mystical process whereby you can write thousands of words about the object you dissect without once revealing whether you like it or not.

Of course, I also can’t stand fans who (like myself) defend
Buffy
against all criticism no matter how just. Or who like it for the wrong reasons. The show is not perfect. There have been bad episodes. I know that. I just can’t stand to hear others say it.

The first murmurs of “They’ve lost it” and “
Buffy
’s going down the toilet” began with Angel’s return at the beginning of season three. He was dead. How could they bring him back? What a cheap gimmick. Like some trashy afternoon soap opera. When a character’s dead they should stay dead. (Hmmm, I pointed out, you mean like Buffy’s death in “Prophecy Girl,” 1-12?) His return from Hell, the critics muttered, undermines the tragic arc of the second season. Of course, by the end there was far less murmuring about bringing Angel back, and many fans now believe season three is the best ever.

Buffy
had been criticized by fans before, but only for less-than-great episodes. “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” (1-11), “Bad Eggs” (2-12), and “Beauty and the Beasts” (3-4) had all been slammed, but season four was the first time a sizeable number were trashing a whole season. What was it about season four? I have friends who say it was Angel’s departure. These same people prefer
Angel
to
Buffy
. As they are clearly insane, I’ll discount them. (They also think “Once More, With Feeling,” 6-7, is the worst
Buffy
episode ever, so you can rest easy with my dismissal of their opinions.)

Most of the criticism boiled down to unhappiness with the Scoobies leaving high school. The show, many said, just doesn’t work once the central literalized metaphor—high school is hell—is lost. When the Scoobies are in college or working various odd jobs, or unemployed, there’s no easy overarching metaphor that binds the show together. Being a young adult, trying to find yourself; life after high school is
more complex. But it
does
resonate. The Scoobies’ search for adult lives and adult identities is certainly more emotionally real than any number of so-called realist shows about everyday life, such as
thirtysomething
.

Another criticism aimed at season four is its preponderance of arc episodes. I have a friend who is convinced that more arc episodes than stand-alone means that a show is “decadent.”
Buffy
, he says, has been irretrievably decadent since that dreaded fourth season. The references to previous incidents, once clever and witty, now overwhelm the show, making it an indulgent exercise playing to the in-crowd.
Buffy
is so dependent on internal references, this friend maintains, that it is now a soap opera.

I disagree. Strongly. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe it
is
a soap opera, but one screened in prime time with brilliant writing, fabulous acting, and far less than sixty pages of script filmed a day.

Some other criticisms of the show I’ve had to deal with:

None of Buffy’s lovers since Angel have been worthy of her. He was her one true love.
My response is to try not to roll my eyes. Angel is, in fact, my least favorite of Buffy’s partners. Even Riley is better (despite the writers apparently not knowing how dodgy it is for a T. A. to sleep with one of his freshman students). Their relationship was particularly interesting toward the end, when Riley’s doing the whole vampire drug/sex thing. Ah, sweet tragedy. Buffy mooning after the wooden Angel was tedious, overdone (a big uggh to their theme music), and lasted way too long. It only became interesting after he became Angelus. The more compelling (with way better dialogue) season two relationships were between Spike and Drusilla and Cordelia and Xander.

They’ve neutered Spike. He hasn’t been a decent character since season two.
Oh, how many ways can I disagree with this one? I love Spike with a chip. I love Spike with a soul. I adore him tragically in love with Buffy. “Fool for Love” (5-7) gives every Spike episode an extra layer—oh the fun of looking for William (I-may-be-a-bad-poet-but-I’m-a-good-man) in badass Spike.

All the villains have sucked ever since the Mayor was toasted.
Why does no one remember how lame the Master was? Worst villain ever. (And unfortunately he had the same name as the villain in
Doctor Who
, who was way less lame.) The Initiative was a great idea. Glory is underrated. The Trio was mostly silly but had many interesting moments.

The writing has just gotten worse and worse (also known as the why-can’t-Joss-write-every-episode complaint).
There are just as many shithouse, badly written episodes in the early seasons. “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” (1-10), anyone? Or “Inca Mummy Girl” (2-4)? (Can’t help with the Joss complaint. I wish Joss wrote and directed every episode too, although with the proviso that I don’t think every episode he writes on his own is pure gold. “Lie To Me” 2-7, “Anne” 3-1 and “Family” 5-6 are nowhere near the level of “Prophecy Girl” 1-12 or “The Body” 5-16. One episode Whedon co-wrote is amongst the worst
Buffy
episodes ever: the aforementioned “Out of Mind, Out of Sight.”)

Season four was going to be hated even before it first aired.
Buffy
tragics (like me) sat down to watch the first broadcast of “The Freshman” (4-1) with a great deal of fear in their hearts. Would the show be as good as it used to be? Is it all over? That fan fear has remained. Can the best TV show of all time stay good after so many seasons? Every episode is watched with an eye for evidence of decline. And every
Buffy
fan I know has turned to me to prove to them that the end isn’t pretty seriously nigh.

The fear is in my heart, too. In my position as defender of
Buffy
to the once faithful, I watch each new episode with mounting terror. Is it a crap episode? Is it a crap season? Should I be heckling along with everybody else? Is Buffy’s inability to kill Spike a sign of decadence? Is Willow’s evil turn amateurishly handled, and her recovery even more so? Are they lamely recycling villains? Am I ever going to be able to watch a new episode of the show and simply enjoy it?

BUFFY MINI-FESTIVALS,
OR HOW DVDS SAVED MY LIFE

No, I will never again enjoy an episode the first time through. I’m too nervous, too absorbed with anticipating criticisms and how to respond to them. I’m not capable of enjoying an episode until I’ve watched it several times. And it doesn’t become pure pleasure until the DVD set comes out and I’ve watched said episode in the context of the whole season (including all the writer/director commentaries) in the space of two or three
Buffy
-packed days.

Oh the glories of DVDs. Episodes that I hated when I first saw them are transformed. “Ted” (2-11) turns out to be a chillingly good episode, not the dreaded movie-of-the-week number I remembered. Even less-than-great episodes like “Some Assembly Required” (2-2) with its
spectacularly lame plot—boy reanimates dead sports hero brother (with his high-school-science know-how) and then builds him a mate out of spare dead-girl parts—turns out to have wonderful arc development and priceless exchanges between the Scoobies. It’s a rare episode that doesn’t have at least a moment of fabulous dialogue or a gorgeous setup for events a season or more later.

Joss Whedon’s commentary over “The Body” (5-16) confirms every worshipful thought you have ever indulged about the guy’s writing and his attitude to making the show. The creators think about what they’re doing:

Although watching a whole season back-to-back is excellent, there are stomach-tightening moments when horrible suspicions about a given episode or story arc are confirmed. Yep, it is as bad as I feared. But there is a solution—a beautiful one, which has salved the wounds suffered while watching and defending
Buffy
. I create my own
Buffy
mini-festivals! I recommend it as the very best way to ensure your
Buffy
viewing is stress- and anxiety-free.

All that’s required is some judicious episode selection. Start with the obvious, say a series of relationship festivals: Spike & Buffy (first “School Hard,” 2-3; next “Halloween,” 2-6; and so forth), or Cordelia and Xander (“What’s My Line, Part 2,” 2-10; “Ted,” 2-11; “Bad Eggs,” 2-12; and “Innocence,” 2-14; etc.). Or you could have a Jonathan festival (“Inca Mummy Girl,” 2-4; “Reptile Boy,” 2-5; etc.) Or a Ripper retrospective (“Halloween,” 2-18; “Band Candy,” 3-6; etc). Then you can graduate to the less obvious: the Anya’s-Afraid-of-Bunny-Rabbits festival, the Conveniently-Located-Axe festival, and the Slutty Clothes festival.