Buffy the Vampire Slayer

So, why is it that people look at me funny when I tell them that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best thing on tv?  There are a number of tv critics out there who agree; at least, it's on lots of magazines' top ten lists this year.  And yet, one feels the need to wink and explain.  Must be the name, or the fact that it's a show about high school kids, or maybe it's the horror element.

Okay so, why Buffy?   If you watch, you already know.  Because this is a show that presents a far more realistic picture of the stresses of growing up than any of the so-called realistic high school shows.  (Okay, we make a possible exception for My So-Called Life, which I confess I sometimes found tedious but which I know really resonated with teen viewers.)  It's not exactly news anymore that Buffy uses the supernatural as metaphor -- pretty much everyone who's written on the show has made mention of that.  However, it works.   When Buffy loses her virginity (on her 17th birthday), she has the same fears that pretty much everybody has -- what if he changes?  What if this ruins everything?  Of course, for Buffy, it's a little more apocalyptic than him just not calling, or turning out to be a jerk.  Buffy's vampire boyfriend Angel loses his soul, reverts to his vampiric ways, and starts trying to kill off her friends.  But still, it's that fear, magnified a hundredfold.

Like Emma Peel, Buffy's in all the fight scenes.  Correction, she dominates them.  Now, I'm not in favor of violence in real life, but this has got to be empowering for girls growing up today.  The thing about Buffy is that she's trying to balance being the Chosen One with having a normal life.  She likes clothes.  She likes dating.  She hadn't been doing all that well in school, but her SAT scores rocked, so we know she's pretty solid in the brain department, just distracted by having been Popular Girl before, and the Slayer after.  I don't really see Angel's appeal myself, but it's about loving what you can't have; the appeal of the forbidden.  The Slayer and the vampire?  It's the good girl-bad boy thing writ large.

This is Rupert Giles, Buffy's Watcher, who's played by British actor Anthony Stewart Head.  If I had to pick a favorite character, which is hard, he'd be the one.  When I first started watching the show, I was going through a pretty tempestuous time in my personal life, and Giles, the tweedy, bookish British librarian, seemed so kind, so supportive, so intellectual, so . . . safe.  Then we find out that he had a major rebellious past, which only made him all the more intriguing.  And a tragic romance -- the woman he loved (Jenny Calendar, another very cool character) was killed by Angel in his evil phase.  I think he's really cute, which may tell you something about me, probably that I'm getting old.

On the other hand, this is Spike, one of the bad guys, played by James Marsters.  I think he's really cute, too.   So maybe the watchword is diversity.

Or possibly, cheekbones.  Spike's a vampire, he does menace awfully well, but he's also funny as hell.  Oh, and he's completely devoted to his nutjob girlfriend Drusilla.  Gotta love Spike.  He's not a regular this season, which on the whole was a wise decision, I think.  If you have the same villain every week, things get predictable fast, and one thing Buffy is not, is predictable.  But his one third season appearance so far was amazing, and we've been promised more.
 

Still to come:

-- selected Buffy links
-- a guide to Buffy fan fiction
-- Buffy rambles 1