Because it created conflict, one of the bases of interesting characters. There was little in Buffy that was completely black and white.
Well then color me clueless with a yellow crayon because I don’t understand what you mean.
A quick glance at the IMdB shows you to be correct. I’d felt fairly certain of my recollection that at the very least, Hush had won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing, but I see now that it was only nominated. Thanks for the correction.
Color me with a blue crayon- I look better in blue, but am just as confused as Otto.
But I will just restate that there is infinitely more academic commentary regarding a show like All in the Family then Buffy will ever have. Not a knock on Buffy, I like the show, but Buffy was not, and will not be listed among the heavyweights in the academic review field. Even among current shows, it would fall behind a show like The Simpsons.
The secondary material on All in the Family, Simpsons, etc., seem to be primarily about their importance as pop culture touchstones; more about their place in the culture, etc.; context. Much of the academic work on Buffy is more about what it says than how it says it. Content.
As an extreme example, no one would question the cultural, contextual impact of, say, the work of Leni Riefenstahl. Its content, on the other hand, has, it’s universally agreed, little real value of its own, unless you’re a neo-nazi.
Jerry Springer has great cultural significance, but zero significant content.
Not that Simpsons or All in the Fam are comparable to Springer and Riefenstahl; those are extreme examples to demonstrate what I mean by distinguishing content from context.
Simpsons and AitF certainly have more valuable content than either of those examples, but their academic secondary material tends to be more about their cultural impact than about the actual “literature” of the shows. Buffy’s, on the other hand, is far less about the show as a cultural phenomenon than it is about the show’s content as a worthy and original work of television literature.
You’re more likely to hear a Buffyhead comment on what brilliant coming of age story it is, for example, than its cultural significance as an oracle of the zeitgeist such as Simpsons or AitF.
Another answer answer to Cardinal’s question about why vampires didn’t use firearms: from what I’ve seen of the series, Buffy tends to do a lot of her patrolling in cemetaries, to catch vampires FOTG (fresh outta the grave). This makes sense, because it means she can fight them while they’re still weak and hungry from freshly awakening. And, of course, they won’t have had time to get prepared, with, say, shotguns.
As for demons, well, they usually have so much physical strength and magic that I’m sure the thought of using human weapons would seem like a step down for them…
Also, how many shows would have had the balls to remake one of the masterpieces (allegedly) of mid century surrealistic filmaking. (The exterminating Angel by Luis Bunel)
Not to mention bringing two charachters from the Wild Bunch back as vampires.
Fnoof, I would humbly like to add a fine point to your OP. It ties in with point 4 and vaguely with point 1 as well.
Buffy was a show where actions had consequences - sometimes ones that only showed up a full season later (sometimes more). We also saw the aftermath on the show. The regular formula for television is so commonly void of consequences that South Park created a character to spoof that one particular cliche. Buffy was so successfully self-referential because threads ran from season to season, not just episode to episode (example: “This isn’t Madam Butterfly, is it? 'Cause I have a whole problem with opera.”). This is what made the show delightful and bittersweet (Remember when Jonathan was macked on by Ampata? How would S6 have gone down differently if he’d been turned into “human a la SunMaid”?).
As for fighting other demons and whatnot, the show vaguely explained this by mentioning every week that Sunnydale was on a Hellmouth, and attracted all kinds of baddies. Other Slayers didn’t necessarily have to contend with this, just the underworld of vampires (which presumably exists all over the Earth). And Buffy fought them because she had the ability to do so. One of the moral nideas presented on the show is that it is wrong to stand by and allow terrible things to happen, as long as you have the power to stop them. (For more on this, go Here )
I have nothing to contribute to this thread except to say that that show rocks, and I’m glad I never watched much of it before so now I can see it for the first time on DVD.
Carry on.
I watched Buffy starting midway through season 3, and sort of liked it, kind of, until one scene that made me rethink the show entirely.
Buffy and her friend Willow were sitting in a cemetery gossipping about their various love lives. Buffy’s was going badly, and she made some lame joke about “With friends like these, who needs undead lovers?” or something. It was a dumb joke.
But the thing was, halfway through the joke, Buffy realized it was dumb. And she changed the humor to match: instead of relying on the punchline for humor, she grimaced and slowed down her speaking, such that the humor came from her mocking her own lame joke.
And it turned a stupid joke into a funny scene. It was a very interesting interaction of actor and script, a way of turning what could’ve been bad writing into a clever scene that built Buffy’s character as a wry, self-aware, intelligent teenager.
That’s when I knew I was gonna love the show. Other stuff – throwaway references to William Burroughs, twisting the Queen’s English until it whimpers, manipulating me based on my expectations of how TV shows work – those all came later. It was seeing the actor and script work together that cemented it for me.
Daniel
I was a latecomer to Buffy: had only seen scattered episodes before I saw The Body. I remember what made me sit down and take notice, and put it on my regularly scheduled program, was the way the camera showed only the EMT worker’s mouth when he was explaining to Buffy about her mother being dead. Wouldn’t notice it in a movie probly, or if I did might even find it cliche, but that is SO not the way television tends to unsubtle stuff right up, and it indicated to me that someone behind this show was actually thinking about stuff and not just connecting the dots and picking up a paycheck.
I never watched Buffy when it was on the air. Seriously. Not one full episode. I think I may have inadvertently watched the ending of “The Gift” while channel-surfing because I thought Spike was kinda hot. However, something spurred me to get the Season 1 DVDs from Netflix, and I got addicted. You know, like addicts do.
I’ve seen all of Seasons 1-4 in order, and have been taping the daily showings on FX since we got full cable again. I know the release date for the Season 5 DVD set. I’ve moved beyond being slightly embarassed by this, and I maintain that BtVS was one of the most entertaining shows of the past ten years.
I think that if BtVS had aired on a traditional network, it would have won more Emmys.
Of course, by “more”, I mean “any”.
I just remembered an episode of… oh… what was that show? It was a “Behind-The-Scenes” spoof about kids doing a show about kids at a high school. They had SMG play herself. One of the leads heard that SMG had asked the writers to put in a same-sex kiss between her and the lead. This and other things led Leadgirl to think that SMG was hitting on her, but when it all came out SMG said; “Oh god no, I’m not a lesbian. This is my only shot at winning an Emmy! You think I’m ever going to get one just doing my show? Ha!”
Terrible show. Great guest appearance. Also funny, because it’s true.
KFL, is the show “Popular”? I haven’t seen it (unfortunately, I know), but I think that’s the one that SMG guest-starred on.
I never watched it until the last season was in full swing. If not for the recommendation of a co-worker, I might still have never seen it. Fortunately, I found the reruns on FX this spring, and I’ve now seen most of the episodes.
I think that if it had aired on a more mainstream network, it might not only have garnered more Emmys, it might have reached a larger audience more quickly. I know that at the time Buffy debuted on WB, that network was synonymous in my mind (and I’m sure in the minds of many others) with bad television; IIRC, that same season, WB inflicted “Homeboys In Outer Space” on the world.
Sadly, I think had it aired on any other network, it would have not made it past its first half-season.
From what I’ve heard, it was touch-and-go after the first season, anyways. A while ago, I read a page archived from the Bronze board, during the summer of '97 (I think, whatever the year the show started was), and people were unsure if the show would be picked up for another season. I don’t have any primary sources for this, though.
Like many posters to this thread, I never saw a full show before it ended, just one half of one episode of the last season. Willow was in some kind of freak but that’s all I remember. But something spoke to me a little bit, dunno why.
I know why now. As it happened the very first episode was being repeated on FX the following day and I’ve tivo’d the series ever since. I was equally lucky in that FX is finally airing the last season chronologically with the first six. In a couple of weeks it’ll be over and I’m likely to just do it again.
I’m a 43 years old male. I’ve never, EVER found anything on television that consistently affects me so hard emotionally. The characters have so much depth, the writing is so consistently great and frequently brilliant, the story lines are so compelling, the actors and their direction so terrific. The show has so much humor, but at the same time I can’t watch too many episodes at once or I just start bawling.
Mark my words: Just as Star Trek never found much beyond its cult audience in the late '60’s, Buffy is not dead. The stars are still young, Joss Whedon is still brilliant and for better or worse, BTVS conventions are just around the corner. Buffy theatrical film(s) WILL happen, and this time they’ll know what they’re doing, and this time everyone will make the money they deserved when the show was running.
Wanna introduce someone to the show and get them to pay attention? Give them just a little bit of backstory then put on “Once More With Feeling.” It’s grabbed everyone I’ve showed it to.
The entire run is close to genius. 130 hours of it. On television!! How did they DO it??
Bsanut, if you can rent the show’s DVD’s or videos from somewhere, you should try to do that. FX cuts the show to make room for more commercials.