Buffy!?!

Woebot

Well-known member
Never seen a single episode. However, wondering in an offhand manner why the Cultural Studies establishment got so excited about it (it LOOKS like drek!). Anyone care to enlighten me?
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
It's not genius or anything, but some of it is very, very sharp. But the basic coolness of it doesn't extend much further than "girl has to save the world while also going through teenage stuff". Not that much different to Tony Soprano's "man heads massive crime empire but his kids are still giving him hell". But in each case, the contrasts and contradictions are done exceptionally well.
 

johneffay

Well-known member
WOEBOT said:
Never seen a single episode. However, wondering in an offhand manner why the Cultural Studies establishment got so excited about it (it LOOKS like drek!). Anyone care to enlighten me?

Call me cynical if you like, but if you were in Cultural Studies and wanted ensure you had good numbers, wouldn't you be sticking Buffy on the curriculum?

I know quite a few people whose opinions I usually respect who think that Buffy is a work of genius, but even they admit that the stuff written about it in academic journals is drek.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
johneffay said:
Call me cynical if you like, but if you were in Cultural Studies and wanted ensure you had good numbers, wouldn't you be sticking Buffy on the curriculum?
Lol. I had this strange notion, picked up from im not sure where, that there was some tie-in with the Buffy series and it's online fans, whereby they influenced the series direction. Some feedback loop. Maybe I invented this? Not that it makes the series intesresting per se....
 

jimet

Active member
Some of the senior writers on Buffy and Angel used to show up on buffy talkboards, and there was certainly a complex relationship; some writers were very clearly pandering to the fans, while others made deliberate efforts to break the cosiness that had grown up. This was complicated by that fact that some buffy fans are insane even by UKIP standards, and any creative decision the writers made would cause ripples across the world. Towards the end writing Buffy scripts must have been like publishing theological texts during the Reformation - whatever you do, you're going to get burned in effigy by legions of fruitcakes.

But that's one of the least interesting aspects of Buffy. The more fun stuff was the way it evolved from a rickety collision of John Hughes and Roger Corman to this huge Tim Burton soap opera.
 

cozen

Active member
when I'm home next weekend I'll see if I can fish out the issue and type up the article for ye.
 

Ned

Ruby Tuesday
Buffy is so, so, so great. Intelligent, exciting, funny, inventive, and occasionally moving. Nothing for years has come close in terms of pure pleasure.
 

puretokyo

Mercury Blues
Buffy's mainly just an intensely fun soap opera. But from the end of Season 3 onward to the end of Season 7, the series really developed some very strong and interesting takes on teenagers and some extremely good explorations of real-life experiences - death in the family, sibling rivalry, moving out, university, dropping out, working at McDonalds, so on and so forth.
 

MBM

Well-known member
I must sadly admit that this year I watched every episode of Buffy (144 in total).

There was plenty of rubbish, quite a lot of good fun and 4 of the most adventurous bits of TV formalism (i.e. Hush, Relentless, The Body, Once More With Feeling).

It's very, y'know, likeable.

I'd tried to do the same with Angel but got as far as ep. 4 and binned it. Bloody neo-gothic waste of space...
 

puretokyo

Mercury Blues
MBM said:
I'd tried to do the same with Angel but got as far as ep. 4 and binned it. Bloody neo-gothic waste of space...

Mate, if I might, I suggest delving a little further...

Angel Season 1 - atrocious
Angel Season 2 - amazing
Angel Season 3 - take the good with the bad
Angel Season 4 - fairly solid except for fucking Cordelia yawn
Angel Season 5 - picks up where Buffy 7 left off, really. Except for the annoyingly quick wrap-up at the end due to cancellation.

They really depend on Joss Whedon's involvement at the time.
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
I used to rish home early from the lock in at The Freedom on Friday nights to catch Buffy.

The wife turned me onto it years ago -- I was determinedly slagging it off but she chipped away at me.

One day I'll watch all the series, especially the later ones, but not back to back...
 

Melchior

Taking History Too Far
Buffy is surprisingly clever, hidden behind what certainly looks increddibly bad.

Angel I also have to agree starts terribly, but becomes very funny and interesting.

Firefly I also really liked, but I'm a big sci-fi nerd.

But as to your question Matt, I don't know why that grabbed attntion more than a lot of other things. I mean the Sopranos is certianly just as clever. But I guess it is, once you give it a go, about as clever as any other fictional tv show currently. And the way that Whedon was willing to experiment with the form was completely insane.
 
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