Sunday, January 08, 2006

I enter the Buffyverse

Sweetie last night got her first exposure to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and while she's not immediately enthusiastic about it, I think she'll come around if I try hard enough. I was the same way.

Having becoming an unabashed browncoated fanatic over Joss Whedon's brilliant but short-lived series Firefly and its miraculous movie sequel, Serenity, I have of course heard much about Whedon's previous (and far more successful) efforts, Buffy and its spin-off, Angel. So I took advantage the last week in December when the DVD set of Buffy's first season went on sale for $19.96 at (don't shoot me) Wal-Mart.

Within a week I had run through all 12 episodes and asked Netflix to start sending me Season 2. Rather than wait for Sweetie to catch up, I gave her a quick synopsis and we watched the first two second-season episodes last night.

"This is a weird show," she said. "It's a mix of teenage life and vampires, and why aren't more kids scared about all the monsters in town?" I have some of the same questions but am a little more willing to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the ride.

All told, she vastly prefers Veronica Mars, the current teenage life-mystery mix that seems to owe some of its sensibilities to Buffy. At this stage so do I, too, but I enjoy the Whedonesque turns of phrase and plot, and it'll be fun to see how he lets things unfold given 12 television seasons (between the two vampire series) as opposed to 14 TV episodes and a two-hour movie.

Of course, the adolescent nerd in me has fallen for Willow. I'm dimly aware she has some interesting character development ahead. I expect it to be fun; that much, at least is guaranteed when Whedon's at work.

2 Comments:

Blogger Wally Conger said...

I began watching Buffy from the get-go...and Deb and I were hooked throughout the run of the series, although we thought the show peaked at the end of its 3rd season.

Sorry to hear you've fallen for Willow. She's adorable early on but, methinks, becomes less so as the series progresses. On the other hand, the at-first-despicable Cordy becomes increasingly lovable thru the first 2-3 seasons of Angel, before she self-destructs entirely. Ah well...

5:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, Buffy! Sweetie and I were working our way through the series again (my second time; dunno what his count is) until the move separated us.

I partially agree with Wally's assessment; in some ways the show peaks then ... but in other ways it continues to improve. I love it when my daughter plays at being Buffy.

9:53 AM  

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