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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."
"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.
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.
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
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.
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.