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Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Officially Over
tstoneman writes "Say it ain't so! Yahoo has an article says how SMG herself confirmed the rumors of the series demise. Even though it is clearly in its twilight, it's still one of the vest best shows on TV. It however points to the fact that a spin-off will emerge, hopefully one that is more successful than Angel."
After dealing with some sub-par allegory and poor storytelling in the third to sixth seasons, I'm kinda happy that the series will end with this season, where the writing has appeared to improve despite Joss Whedon's attention to Firefly.
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
She's killing Buffy so she can make more Scooby Doo movies? This season doesn't feel like it's the end of the story. It's too soon to call it quits. Besides, look at the movies that SMG has made. They're all crap. She clearly should not be allowed on film, unless (maybe) it's a Buffy movie. Note that she said "in this incarnation" (though she could have been referring to the comics. Oh, well. I blame Prinze for this. And cancer.
I hope Gellar's salary for seven years of Buffy was pretty good, because, truth be told, I can't see her movie career lasting her very long. I mean, crossing over to a movie career from TV is hard enough as it is. Doing it when, frankly, one of your main assets is that you're young and sexy just doesn't seem like a long-term career move. It's not as though she isn't already typecast. And I just can't see her movie career hitting it in the handful of years she has left as a really bankable star. Quite frankly, I think she'd have made more money with two or three more seasons of Buffy. Then again, one doesn't have to read too many interviews with her to get the idea that she's not the brightest crayon in the box.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
"It however points to the fact that a spin-off will emerge, hopefully one that is more successful than Angel."
More "successful" does not mean "better".
Hell, Survivor was a "sucessful" show, but it was basically mindless voyeurism.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Remember when Sliders was left with only Remy as the original member of the cast on the show?
:-)
No, because I stopped watching not long after Rhys-Davies was replaced by Kari Wuhrer*, and they started blatantly ripping off sci-fi movies for their alternate earths and/or plots.
A show with a rabid fanbase is better off going out on a high note. Besides, why overextend the show's lifespan when you can milk it much more effectively selling episode DVDs to aforementioned rabid fanbase?
~Philly
*Sure, Wuhrer was a piece of ass (though it was Sabrina Lloyd who really melted me), but she couldn't act for shit-- and when you've got bad material to work with, that only magnifies the overall crappiness.
Then FX started showing all the episodes in order - two a day. Let's just say "thank God for Tivo."
About three months later I'd seen almost every episode from the first five seasons. And I loved it. The writing was often excellent, and the casting was perfect. The first three seasons did a great job capturing the real essence of high school, instead of the Utopia often portrayed in network shows about those awkward years.
It's certainly not perfect, but even the worst episodes were often way above average, which is more than we can expect from the boob tube these days. And when BtVS was at its best, it held it's own with anything on TV - Buffy was nominated for an Emmy for Best Writing in a Drama, and the other nominees were two episodes each of "West Wing" and "The Sopranos". Not too shabby.
Anyway - before you make fun of it too much, it's worth checking. I'm pretty sure FX is still rerunning the series in order. It's definately worth waiting to start with the first season, as the show has a great mythos that later episodes rely on.
As for the silicon, I dunno, cyborg Buffy could be kind of cool. SiliCONE, on the other hand, is no good (granted, silicone does contain silicon, but I'll be pedantic anyway).
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Dude, Kari was the best thing about Sliders :-) I don't care if she can't act when someone like that is on the show heh
Funny that, I didn't start watching Buffy either till it was well into in its fifth season, and I did it just to see what the hoopla was about. The first episode I saw was the last show of season two (as I later on found out).
I was surprised that there was a lot of character depth and emotional intensity to it which I really didn't expect, especially given the frivolous title name. I'm not the addict of the show that some are, but I do think that there's a lot of stuff there that resonates with people. Clearly a lot of people relate to the emotions and human interaction, even if the storylines and action are completely unbelieveable.
I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that Stephanie Romanov is right up there with Charisma. (Okay, so she's evil and wants to enslave the world to her demon masters, but who's perfect?)
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Some geeks flock to SMG and vampires I guess, others flock to Farscape
And the more discerning of us ignore both of those lousy shows and watch mostly Law and Order reruns and the Discovery science channel...
Now that's some mighty fine viewing.
A brilliant, three-dimensional villain who wanted to become a giant snake and eat people... but who had hangups on germs and profanity. A slayer who was destined to rid the world of vampires and got a taste for killing people instead. And what about Buffy and Angel's relationship? It had survived monsters, demons and an apocalypse or two, but in the end it couldn't survive the sobering truth that ultimately, they just weren't compatible.
It's these grey areas that make the show so brilliant. The bad guys aren't bad for no reason, the good guys have their weak moments, and the romance is relentlessly true-to-life. No other season represented that better than the third, IMO. It's out on DVD now, btw.
Plus, females get fingerbanged by Hollywood. The only thing they're good for, it appears, is to be rescued. I don't know about you, but female empowerment is sexy
"But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
Buffy is primarily camp. It pokes fun at itself, and is always keenly aware of it's deficiencies and detachment from reality. Something that's been missing from sci-fi since the original Star Trek and Batman series. If you think they're just a bunch of Gen X, whiners, you're missing the point.
Eventually all the things that can be done within the confines of a series, get done, and the series gets stale, particularly on character-driven shows like Buffy. (Law and Order, for example, is easier to sustain because it doesn't depend so much on character, more issues which they often pretty much rip out of the newspaper). With Buffy, they have done well to sustain things by letting the characters grow up, introducing and killing off other characters, and so on, but, still, it would be much easier to write for a new series where there's still room to flesh out the characters and play with new relationships, and produce better results.
So don't just think of what you're gaining from the umpteenth series of your favourite show, think of what you're losing by having your favourite writers struggle to take the characters places we haven't already seen before.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I am a latecomer to the Buffy fanbase, but that makes me no less ardent. For years I held disdain for the show, specifically because of SMG. Its the same reason I hated Led Zepplin for so long, because I hated Robert Plant. But I learned to appreciate Led Zep and tune out that godforsaken racket they passed for vocals, and as such I learned to appreciate Buffy. What surprised me however, is that for the first time I didn't hate SMG. In fact, I was quite impressed by her.
... I wish Joss Whedon good in all he does, because I know I can trust that I'll enjoy it. Beyond the great acting and the intensely detailed characters brought to life by the entire cast, Buffy is really more of a vibe. I feel it. Do you feel it? Come on, you know you feel it.
I could go on about the writing, the depth of character and plotline, the deft self-awareness and irony, the throwaway quips that were gems of pop culture gone wrong, but I'd just be rehashing what everyone else has already said. Whoops, I did too.
But seriously, check out the Buffy listings on TV Guide or TitanTV or something. Buffy is on in full effect, y0, and y00z bitchez b3tta b3 sh0\/\/in' r3sP3ct!
and the DVDs will keep on coming
I've become too long winded. But rest assured that Buffy isn't going away any time soon. Even Knight Rider is back on the air. Even if Buffy goes away, she'll ALWAYS be back! That's the great part about retro. And the retro cycle is getting shorter and shorter. Pretty soon, all of society will have witnessed the drama, comedy, learning, and healing that Buffy brings. And, like Bill and Ted before them, become icons for the future, building generations on sound morals, excellent taste, and a penchant for witty banter to be reckoned with.
You just wait.
Seems to me it's this same mentality of dismissing the show based on it's premise that keeps Buffy from Getting an emmy.
Try watching a couple episodes.
"But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
People didn't notice how skinny she was in the early seasons of Buffy, because she wore a padded bra on the show in those days, which created the illusion of a healthy figure. Once she became a big enough star to insist that she didn't want to wear fake boobs anymore, it became very obvious what a skinny woman she really is.
I'm right there with you on this point. You can keep the Jenifer Garners and Calista Flockharts of the world. They're all knees and elbows. I like woman-shaped women. I like soft curves. Can I get a witnes?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The SNR of television is so incredibly low, that I can understand why you think that. But there are actually a few gems that play out well on television.
The strength of TV is that the medium allows you to have a visual novel. Movies suffer from incredibly flat characterizations, because there just isn't time for your to learn who people really are in two hours. The except to this are character movies, movies which pushes everything aside and make you learn who the people are.
You can develop complicated storylines and have complicated people. The problem is, many shows don't.
Why? Because it is much easier for someone flipping channels to stop and watch episodic shows that fall into a nice formula and don't depend on continuity. As in, it's not too confusing for the casual viewer. It's hard to plan your life around the television schedule.
So on the other side, continuity heavy shows are completely incomprehensible to all except the core fans because they rely on the knowledge of years of development of both plot and character for the meaningful payoffs.
Friends is (was) a good example of a show that managed to play both sides of the game. They kept continuity between episodes and continually changed the status-quo. They would trade apartments, date other people, even get married. Yet the stories were told in such a way that, if you watch carefully, you'll notice that they recap the key events in the first few minutes of conversation without feeling like "Last time on Friends..."
Buffy, Angel, 24, Alias, these are continuity heavy shows that can lock out the casual viewer. They do require a heavy commitment to fully appreciate. In just last week's Buffy episode, they made a passing reference to a season one episode when a girl started to disappear when nobody payed any attention to her.
And then there's the noise, everywhere, all the time. Shows that make you watch someone eat worms, or are ads for trading cards, or just plain insult your intellegence.
But there is better stuff out there, if you care to give things a chance.
Why does the premise of a girl who doesn't need to be saved turn you off?
I've dated some tough women in my time. They are FAR more interesting than the ones who "need" a hero.
I saw an interview with Joss Whedon wherein he explained the genesis of BtVS. A scene in the series pilot embodied Whedon's vision: a pretty girl walks into an alley alone, followed by a Creature of the Night. In a traditional horror film, the girl would become Monster Chow. But Whedon and crew make their living by turning convention on its head.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a tribute to, and satire of, the Horror genre. It is written by really smart people who assume that their audience is intelligent and literate.
Hmm... here's some interesting anecdotal evidence. (Counting on fingers...) 75% of the people that I know who are "die hard" Buffy fans are Macintosh users. Mangle that statistic as you please.
There is no program on American prime-time TV that comes closer, in content or tone, to Japanese animation:
A young school girl is a chosen warrior to fight vampires and demons. She has friends who use magic to help her. Comedy, melodrama, and action are freely mixed within almost every episode. Most of the stories are alegorical tales about growing up. There were even several cases of girls being attacked by tentacles, and Buffy was nearly raped by a disembodied demonic spirit two weeks ago, so you even have similarities to the Hentai stuff.
How could there even be room to question it? Buffy, in essence, is live-action anime. What could possibly be geekier than that?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The show often falls into the realm of being overly formulaic. Monster appears, Old Giles dives into the books, support team of Lesbians etc sometimes help, sometimes get stuck in situations but generally lead a charmed life waltzing around. Buffy wins whilst making often unfunny 'perky comments'. Ever played the xbox? her wisecrax (and I mean crax) are the worst part of the game.
;) .. its a bit hard to watch quality programming like sopranoes and then watch that and find anything 'subtle' about it. Everybody is so pathetic in it. If you really like it thats cool, just I doubt its revered for any other reason than the obvious reason.
Don't try to fool us.. if it has any "cult" status with the geeks its for the lesbians and/or POONTANG
Hello??? You must not be a regular watcher of Buffy or Angel.
Just because someone's been stabbed nastily on these shows does not necessarily mean they are dead (as a human) yet.
You'll have to see next week what the official outcome is. Cordelia could eventually become good or come back and restore Wess's toy...
And just because someone's dead doesn't mean they stay that way. I wouldn't be surprised if sufficiently high-ranking Wolfram & Hart employees get special "life insurance" benefits.
Cordelia could eventually become good or come back and restore Wess's toy
Heh, I always thought he was her toy.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
The show often falls into the realm of being overly formulaic. Monster appears, Old Giles dives into the books, support team of Lesbians etc sometimes help, sometimes get stuck in situations but generally lead a charmed life waltzing around. Buffy wins whilst making often unfunny 'perky comments'. Ever played the xbox? her wisecrax (and I mean crax) are the worst part of the game.
;)
I liked it for reasons i stated in another post. Most episodes affect the characters in later episodes, it can be dark but funny, etc. You can see the characters changing as time goes on, unlike your average show.
You can acuse most shows of being formulic, just like you you can with games. All RPGs are you fight some baddy, find out there's a bigger baddy, and you need to gain experience and find special items so that you can win. So that arguement holds little weight with me. I'd rather look at the story generated by the 'forumla' and decide if like that or not.
Don't try to fool us.. if it has any "cult" status with the geeks its for the lesbians and/or POONTANG
I'm sure thats part of it, but if thats all it was i doubt anyone would like it.
its a bit hard to watch quality programming like sopranoes and then watch that and find anything 'subtle' about it. Everybody is so pathetic in it. If you really like it thats cool, just I doubt its revered for any other reason than the obvious reason.
Sopranoes? Please. I watched an episode, and found it highly boring. That show became popular overnight, and i think i know why. It was the current fad. A few people started raving about it, so other people watched, already convinced it was a great show. All good shows start off really bad. The simpsons, Star Trek TNG, Buffy. They were all corny or just not very good. Even as bad as some of the current Simpsons episodes have been, they are not as bad as its first season. But sopranoes started off great? Somehow i doubt that. Not saying its not possible, just saying its likely that it was a fad thing, like SUVs.
It's sad in a way, but all things must come to an end. SMG has been working 80 hour weeks on it for 7 years now, since she was 19. No matter what you do or how much you get paid for it, that's gotta wear you out. Sure, the show made SMG the star she is, but she also made the show the star it is. In the hands of a less talented and hard working actress, who knows what it would have been. I doubt we'd be discussing it here.
Neil Youngs Law states that "it is better to burn out than to fade away", and I would so much more want to see a grandiose mindboggling finale to top all finales - and I can't see Joss Whedon going for anything less - than the heart breaking Alzheimerish multi year decline of X-Files and Xena.
Buffy showed that you can make stunningly novel and smart TV, and have it be successful. All you need is a freakishly talented genius. Joss just went ahead and invented a new genre - the horror-comedy-action-drama-soap opera. Anyone would have told you that that is impossible to pull of. Until he proved it.
I watch TV differently now. I still appreciate a good comedy - but why was there no acrobatic kung fu action? A good heart wrenching drama? Fine, but it could have used some side splitting laughter to spice it up. At it's best, Buffy delivers an hour that is at the same time high quality drama, comedy, action, horror and soap opera.
Life will go on. And the half full is that all the talented people will still be around to do other work. Alyson Hannigan is very good at saying "pussy" on American Pie. Nothing wrong with that, but it's just 5% of her range. She can do anything, and I'm sure we'll see her prove that. SMG seems determined to make a name in the fart comedy movie world. I can see how she'd need a change of pace... But she'll be back in the serious acting world where she belongs in a while. Eliza Dushku, the one star to come out of Buffy in my book, can be as big as she wants to be. If she wants to spend the effort. And so on.
And whatever Joss does after this, it will not be nothing. He's incapable of that. And it will not be boring.
So, don't be sad. This is only the beginning.