Buffy; A Defense

Cafe Society
1

I wrote the folling in response to the charge, issued on a different BBS, that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was “90210, with vampires.” I think this more than covers this misunderstanding, but I also think it’s a pretty good nutshelling of the whole series, which will prove a rigorous response to any curt dismissal of the show. You’d actually have to watch the show to be able to mount any kind of counter-argument, and then we can really get down to cases if you want.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the most intelligent show ever made. The dialogue is sharp, verbally witty, playing sophisticated word games while at the same time revealing unique characters, and efficiently advancing the plot. As for the plot, it’s compellingly epic, but made up of episodes that are touchingly human. Multiple story arcs are seamlessly interwoven in a way that still allows for individual episodes to stand on their own, because each episode has its own thematic tenor which plays out on multiple levels, creating a resonance among subplots and disparate characters.

The show does not create artificial dramatic irony by making intelligent characters somehow too stupid to figure out what is obvious to the audience. Characters figure out what’s going on as soon as enough information is available to them, and the audience only gets ahead of the characters when we have been shown something the characters have not seen. It doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence by overexplaining the plot, the jokes, the relationships among characters.

The writers show a keen facility with storytelling – not only how to do it, but how it is traditionally done, especially in film and television, which they use to play clever games with the viewer’s trained expectations. They set up familiar dramatic and comedic tensions that invoke Pavlovian responses from the audience which then anticipates the familiar story arc, but that arc is then twisted, subverted, or altogether replaced by delightful suprises.

And if that’s not enough for you (and how could it not be?) the show also features hot chicks who kick ass.

2

Oh gag me with the rotting remains of Steve Allen. :rolleyes:

3

<leaps to feet, applauding wildly>

Bravissimo!

Brilliant!

Absolutely!

Yes!

4

JDeMobray

Look up there. That’s at least 250 words in respose to a thoughtless dismissal of Buffy. If you feel Steve Allen is being unfairly disregarded here, why not respond the way I have?

5

Well, I’d take his rotted remains over the living person anyday. I’ll take angsty vampires over that pseudo-vaudeville crap any day of the week.

6

Jesus, that was a remarkable redundant comeback. I seem to be off my game today.

Or maybe I should stop trying to play CivIII and post to the SDMB at the same time. But everytime I go to the Pit, I see the CivIII thread and I must…play…more…Civ… <Shaking a defiant fist in the air> Damn you, John Corrado.

7

Buffy is a good show, I’m not interested in debating that. There’s nothing wrong with Buffy, and nobody should be ashamed of liking the show. It’s fine.

However, proclaiming it the most intelligent show ever made goes beyond the bounds of simple hyperbole and into the realm of insult.

Steve Allen’s rotting remains were simply the first, most evident and most humorous thing that I came up with to gag myself with.

Had Buffy not moved from WB to UPN, it is unlikely that it could even lay claim to being the most intelligently written show on its own network. Gilmore Girls is right now better written, and the rookie Smallville has shown flashes of brilliance which exceeds anything that I’ve seen from Buffy in the time I’ve been viewing. (Since graduation, if you’re curious). Moving to the other networks, The West Wing, aside from having the critical acclaims is also popularly considered and widely recognized as being the smartest show on network television. Fox’s ‘24’ is, by neccesity, more tightly written and contiguous than Buffy (although it isn’t my cup of tea as far as story or acting but that is just MHO).

This is, of course, only considering other hour long drama series. I don’t imagine that anyone wants to argue about how Buffy stacks up to Meet The Press or other ‘smart’ non-fiction shows since it would be like comparing the sports highlight quality vis a vis Sportscenter and King of Queens.

Buffy is significantly better than any of the Star Trek series, but really that’s like being the smartest kid in summer school. A case can be made that Buffy is the best written science fiction series on television today, however considering all time shows I believe (again MHO) that Babylon 5 displays each of the qualities you prescribe to Buffy in greater quantity and with greater overall effect.

The show is not, IMHO, especially innovative either in plots and twists or in the broader technical sense, but few television shows can claim to have created anything of their own. The ironic twisting of events which you tout highly in your final paragraph were popularized in the ancient times by pioneers like the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits.

Buffy, to close my observations, is a good show. It is certainly one of the top science fiction programs on the air today. However, in the thirst of many fans to deify the show and its creator, some of the shows qualities may be exagerated and other shows to which B:TVS owes a great deal may be overlooked.

8

JDeMobray:

That’s more like it. I take back the claim that Buffy is the most intelligent show ever – it couldn’t, in principle, ever be proven. I think I have given more than enough reason to claim that it is well above the standards of the medium on a number of important counts, and certainly ill-deserving of association with mere titilating teenage melodramas. On that point, we don’t seem to be importantly in disagreement.

There are a couple of minor points I would quibble with, though. First, the comparison between Babylon 5 and Buffy is almost, but not quite, too close to call. In my opinion, Buffy wins, though obviously not by every single benchmark.

By comparing my discussion of the use of plot to The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, you make it unclear whether you missed my point or not. I suspect that I probably shouldn’t have used the word twist' because that will tend to conflate the subject with the kinds of things that are still called plot twists’ long after the tradition inherited from The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits has made them the automatic and obvious developments. On the other hand, you could say that all Buffy does is play the same games with modern viewer expectations that Serling played with those of the fifties.

I don’t have a whole lot of examples I call pull out off of the top of my head, but here is an instantiation of the kind of subversion I’m talking about:

The tradition: We know the eerie sound being investigated will turn out to be a shutter flapping in the wind, and the hero will relax just before the vampire strikes.

Buffy: The eerie sound turns out to be a vampire trying to close the window shutters which keep flapping open in the wind when he takes his hand off of them, and he ends up being suprised as the hero strikes.

9

Not most intelligent TV show ever, but certainly more intelligent than the original movie.

Took me a long time to give the TV show a shot, the movie scarred me so badly with its idiocy.