Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series)
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All that’s required is some judicious episode selection. Start with the obvious, say a series of relationship festivals: Spike & Buffy (first “School Hard,” 2-3; next “Halloween,” 2-6; and so forth), or Cordelia and Xander (“What’s My Line, Part 2,” 2-10; “Ted,” 2-11; “Bad Eggs,” 2-12; and “Innocence,” 2-14; etc.). Or you could have a Jonathan festival (“Inca Mummy Girl,” 2-4; “Reptile Boy,” 2-5; etc.) Or a Ripper retrospective (“Halloween,” 2-18; “Band Candy,” 3-6; etc). Then you can graduate to the less obvious: the Anya’s-Afraid-of-Bunny-Rabbits festival, the Conveniently-Located-Axe festival, and the Slutty Clothes festival.
Here are some of my favorites:
THE PERFECT BUFFY FESTIVAL
There’s at least one perfect episode of Buffy every season. Watching them together gives me a happy. The following are my current choice of most perfect from seasons one to six:
“Prophecy Girl” (1-12): What is so fabulous about “Prophecy Girl” is not that Buffy beats the tedious arch-villain but that she does it with the aid of the entire ensemble cast. The episode is the distilled essence of everything that had been keeping me watching the show up to that point: the fabulous sharp dialogue between the characters (“You’re looking at my neck,” says Xander to Angel on the way to rescue Buffy), the rip-roaring plot that barely lets up, the beautifully drawn friendship between Buffy, Willow and Xander, the tragedy of sixteen-year-old Buffy walking knowingly to her death. All the promise of the season comes to fruition. Before “Prophecy Girl,” I thought Buffy was a pretty cool show with some great moments, way better than anything else on the box. In its wake, I was an obsessive Buffyholic.
“Innocence” (2-14): the episode where the Buffy and Angel romance finally got interesting. I adore the moment when you really know Angel is bad: not simply because he bites into the woman’s neck, but because he blows out a plume of her cigarette smoke. Angel’s smoking. He’s a villain now. This is a perfect arc episode, because it turns the action up to eleven.
“The Zeppo” (3-13): By season three, the fans were completely familiar with the standard Buffy plot, so clearly it was past time for the creators to mess things up a bit. They did so delightfully. Buffy deconstructs itself by making the A plot into the B plot. Angel and Buffy snatch a moment alone together, the music swells up, Xander walks in, the music goes away. It’s the first time the writers really played around with the structure of a Buffy episode, and it’s, well, perfect.
The perfect episodes of seasons four through six are, of course, a no-brainer: “Hush” (4-22), “The Body” (5-16), and “Once More, With Feeling” (6-7).1 Not just perfect Buffy but perfect television.
WILLOW & TARA FESTIVAL
Okay, this is a pretty obvious festival, but I adore these two, and their relationship illustrates one of the many things I love about Buffy the Vampire Slayer: it endlessly builds on itself. Casual dialogue from early seasons start to become more resonant in the light of later events. “Willow’s not looking to date you,” Xander says to Buffy, “or if she is she’s playing it pretty close to her chest” (“Prophecy Girl,” 1-12). Then, two seasons later, in “Dopplegangland,” (3-16), vamp Willow comes on to Willow with the traditional face-licking method. “I think I’m kinda gay,” says Willow, somewhat perturbed by the whole experience.
Seeds are planted and then they grow. It’s glorious to watch. Especially when they grow into Tara and Willow having the best metaphoric sex ever shown on television. When these two women do spells together, then whoosh. From the hand-holding vending-machine propelling of “Hush” (4-10) to the unbelievably sexy spell of “Who Are You?” (4-16): Tara’s thumb to Willow’s forehead, lips and sternum, they begin to chant, they start to breathe heavily, their hands touch, their breathing becomes even heavier, they glisten with sweat, their eyes half-close, a magical circle rises around them, they stare into each others’ eyes, Willow falls back gasping. Oh my. But there’s more to come: the superlative “You Make Me Complete” scene from “Once More, With Feeling” (6-7). Sigh.
ALL-CHARMING-PRETTY-BOYS
WHO-AREN’T-VAMPIRES-ARE-BAD FESTIVAL
I always knew that, but thanks to Buffy for proving it over and over again. Watch Tom in “Reptile Boy” (2-5), Ford in “Lie to Me” (2-7), and Parker Abrams in “Living Conditions” (4-2), “Harsh Light of Day” (4-3), and “Beer Bad” (4-5). They’re all variations of the same guy and they’re all bastards. But cute bastards.
DREAMING BUFFY FESTIVAL
I love the way the show uses dreams. Instead of the gorgeous though not especially informative Twin Peaks’ dream sequences (nicely referenced with the red curtains in “Restless,” 4-22) Buffy’s dreams are not merely beautifully done but provide acres of plot and character exposition. In fact, the very first time we see Buffy, she’s in bed dreaming about the season’s villain the Master (“Welcome to the Hellmouth,” 1-1). Turns out, Buffy dreams a lot and those dream sequences just get better and better. The moment when Giles suddenly turns to strangle Buffy while Willow and Xander sit by obliviously (“When She Was Bad,” 2-1) startles the viewer and instantly conveys just how much Buffy has not recovered from her ordeal with the Master. The predictive dream sequences of “Surprise” (2-13) and “Graduation Day, Part 2” (3-22), with its references to Dawn’s arrival in Sunnydale two seasons later, are the beautiful seeds that grows into the all-dream episode of “Restless” (4-22). How much do I love “Restless”? My love is bigger than the ocean. I cap off this festival with the mostly delusional “Normal Again” (6-17). Delusions, dreams. Same thing.
TRAGIC BUFFY FESTIVAL
I love the sheer heart-wrenching pleasure of tragedy, and Buffy is the most tragic show on television. Hours of joyous pain and many damp tissues. A single line of dialogue can set me off, from Buffy’s plaintive “Giles, I’m sixteen years old. I don’t want to die” (“Prophecy Girl,” 1-12) to Jonathan’s speech when he presents Buffy’s Class Protector Award—“Most of the people here have been saved by you” (“The Prom,” 3-20). “The Prom” makes me tear up no matter how many times I see it. So does “Innocence” (2-14); “I Only Have Eyes For You” (2-19), with its haunting use of an already creepily haunting song; and “Seeing Red” (6-19) with Tara’s death. Of course, “The Body” (5-16) and “The Gift” (5-22) (“Don’t do it Buffy, let the brat jump!”) make me howl.
Buffy’s life (like those of Hamlet and Odysseus) is one continuing train wreck that affects everyone around her. At the end of season six, there’s not a cast member who is not in some way a tragic figure. I love it.
But, as I’ve mentioned several times, there are times when I hate Buffy. Here are two festivals that show why:
“ACTUALLY, THEY’RE ALL STUPID” FESTIVAL
Unfortunately, there are a handful of episodes where the Scoobies seem to have collectively or individually lost all claim to even the intelligence of a gnat. Most don’t involve some spell that explains the idiocy away. Buffy spends most of “Triangle” (5-11) crying in an unconvincing, vaudevillian, over-the-top way. What the hell was that all about? I bought that kind of acting in “Something Blue” (4-9) ’cause, well, there was a spell.
Worse still are the episodes when the entire cast, director, and writing team are rendered moronic. “The Inca Mummy Girl” (2-4) has an even lamer plot than “Some Assembly Required” (2-14), with no cool Scooby dialogue or arc plotting to save it. It’s ineptly written, directed and, sad to say, acted. The story could have been lifted from a Goosebumps book. Kids go to museum, scary mummy comes to life. The plot holes are large enough to drive an eighteen-wheeler through. The South American exchange student is staying for two weeks with the hugest trunk you ever saw—conveniently big enough to stash a body in. Everyone keeps doing things purely for plot reasons. There’s dead time. When Xander picks up the Incan mummy girl from Buffy’s place there’s an endless, pointless filler conversation between them and Joyce and Buffy. It’s like watching As the World Turns. The dialogue between the Scoobies is awful: “Do we have to speak
Spanish?” asks Xander. “Cause I don’t know much besides ‘Doritos’ and ‘Chihuahua’.”
“A VERY SPECIAL BUFFY”
This is the worst of all possible festivals, suitable for viewing only by the very brave. I hate it with a fiery, burning passion when an episode of Buffy turns into “a very special Buffy,” something Whedon has explicitly promised would never happen. In these episodes, some kind of heart- (or rather stomach-) wrenching problem comes up and is dealt with and we learn a lesson. You know what, kids? Domestic violence is wrong (“Beauty and the Beasts,” 3-4). Sick kids are sweet (“Killed By Death,” 2-18). Death is sad (“Help,” 7-4). These episodes are vile. I have to pinch myself. Am I watching some horrible cross between Charmed and 7th Heaven?
“Help” (7-4) does appallingly badly everything that “The Body” (5-7) did brilliantly. We’re supposed to care about some kid we’ve never seen before who talks in breathless meant-to-be-wise-beyond-her-years psychobabble. Die already. The penultimate scene consists of the Scoobies sitting around discussing their tragic loss as heart-tugging music swells around them. (Whedon specifically didn’t use music in “The Body,” because it’s too easy; he didn’t want to let the audience off the hook.) Buffy says she wished she’d saved the kid: “She was special.” Yeah, the kid’s horrendous teenage-angst poetry sure was special. In the last scene Buffy is back in her counselor’s office. Gee, kids, looks like even our superhero Buffy can’t save everyone. Though, hang on—isn’t that the lesson learned from Joyce’s death? The last two scenes of “Help” are just like the wrap of some sitcom or Touched by an Angel. It was all I could do not to throw up.
But even worse is the “very special Buffy” arc of season six: Willow’s magic addiction. Or, gee, could it be a metaphor for drug addiction? Just in case you haven’t caught on, there’s a poster-boy drug dealer with hippy clothes and long hair called Rack, who talks slow, and lots of scenes of Willow being all spaced and, ooh, kind of stoned-looking. The sight of Willow in “Wrecked” (6-10) (which gets my vote for worst Buffy episode ever), in the junkie waiting room causes me physical pain. Drugs are bad, man. Just say no. I wished I’d been stoned watching it, which would have at least eased my pain. Man, the Buffy metaphors used to be a tad more clever and emotionally resonant. As in, you sleep with your boyfriend and overnight he turns into a monster.
I hate Willow’s becoming Dark Magic Queen all the more because the writers blew it. The setup for Willow’s descent goes all the way back to her first tentative steps with magic in season one. They did not need to belabor the drug addiction metaphor with Rack and Amy and Willow’s AA (or is that MA?) total abstinence. (Especially as Giles’s approach at the beginning of season seven seems far more sensible.) I have rewritten that arc in my head a hundred times. First I put together a mini-festival of Willow’s use of magic which includes Giles’s angry remonstration with Willow after she brings Buffy back (“Flooded,” 6-4), and Willow’s chilling speech to Dawn in (“Two to Go,” 6-21). In the versions in my head, Willow’s complete descent into blind grief, rage, and madness, does not turn her into an after-school-special villain mouthing ludicrous lines like “There’s no one in the world who has the power to stop me now!”
WAY MORE LOVE THAN HATE
Ultimately, the brilliance of Buffy makes the occasional falls from grace that much harder to stand. Knowing that every episode of Buffy could be a work of genius on the level of “Who Are You?” (4-16), or “Restless” (4-22), or “Once More, With Feeling” (6-7), makes the occasional sub-Charmed-level hour a stab to the heart. Why can’t Buffy be produced like The Sopranos, with time and money to burn?
Buffy is both good and bad; wonderful and excremental. Even the very worst episodes have moments of gold (well, okay, almost all do). And, even a few good episodes have a cringe-worthy moment or two. A great deal of criticism and other writing about Buffy has gotten caught up in dichotomous thinking: it’s good or it’s bad, it’s feminist or it’s misogynist; it’s racist or it isn’t. Buffy is all of these.
Buffy is certainly obsession-inspiring. That’s why I fervently hope that season seven is the last season of Buffy. Frankly, I can’t take any more. I pray that the show will end. I want to watch television without a stomach full of knots. Seven seasons is plenty. More than enough to keep me happy with endless reprogramming of my Buffy festivals. If it all stops at the end of this season, then I can rule out the possibility that there will ever be an entire bad season that is nothing but episodes like “Killed by Death” (2-18), and “Wrecked” (6-10), and “Help” (7-4). I want a finished, no-longer-unfolding text. I don’t want there ever to be a set of Buffy DVDs that I can’t do anything with.
CODA: WAY MORE HATE THAN LOVE
The balanced, temperate words above were written only a short way into season seven, before I realized how horrifically Buffy the Vampire Slayer had gone off the rails. It’s many months now since I have made any attempt to defend the show. Instead I have taken to bitterly muttering about how much better it would have been if they’d finished in the sixth season, making “Normal Again” (6-17) the final episode. I’m now one of those people I used to defend the show against. There is no one more bitter than an ex-true believer. Color me narky and picky.
I’m writing this coda a week after the season finale and to be honest I’m still in shock. On the one hand, I’ve gotten my wish: season seven is the last season of Buffy. On the other hand, I’ve also gotten what I most feared: a set of Buffy DVDs I can’t do anything with.
Everything I write in this coda is flying in the face of my assertion that you really can’t have a coherent opinion about a Buffy season until it’s come out on DVD and you’ve seen it at least five times. I’m not saying I won’t change my mind, but right now I’m looking forward to watching season seven on DVD about as much as I look forward to a 24 hour plane ride in cattle class.
Season seven was a nightmare. Only three episodes I would describe as good (forget about looking for any works of genius—a “Once More, With Feeling”, a “Hush”—there weren’t any): “Selfless” (7-5), “Conversations With Dead People” (7-7), and “Chosen” (7-22). Each of these episodes had problems. “Selfless” added all sorts of resonances to Anya’s character, setting up exciting possibilities for future development. None of them went anywhere. The rest of the season trundled along as if “Selfless” had never happened. The rationale for Tara’s not appearing to Willow was lame in the extreme. Why would Willow be persuaded, even for a second, by the annoying ditz from “Help”? “Chosen” felt exactly like what it was: an episode butchered to fit its hour time slot. Everything except the tedious Spike & Buffy love story was short-changed (I sure wish Faith and Robin Wood had gotten a bit more of that screen time). Anya’s death, which should have been tragic (especially in light of the groundwork laid down in “Selfless”), managed to elicit little more than a “bummer, man” expression from Xander. Hardly anyone else even noticed.
No episode of season seven made me cry. Well, okay, except for tears of disbelief that the show could possibly have become so bad. The worst failing of season seven has been the writing. Overall it’s been shocking. The humor was forced, and the characters all developed multiple personalities, none of them believable. The Buffy and Spike relationship become as wet and annoying as that of Buffy and Angel. Since when was Buffy a humorless bitch? Had the Scoobies learned nothing that they would so easily turn against her yet again? Since when did these people speak in a series of tedious speeches:
Buffy to Faith: “Don’t be afraid to lead them. Whether you wanted it or not, their lives are yours. It’s only gonna get harder. Protect them, but lead them” (“Empty Places,” 7-19).
And yet, after all, it is Buffy. This is the nasty divorce, but we may in a year or two become friends again. There’s always a chance that those DVDs will work their magic and I’ll be able to come up with a whole new set of Buffy mini-festivals. (I can’t help noticing that “Selfless” is the perfect end to the Anya’s-
afraid-of-bunny-rabbits festival.) Right now, though, I’m just so relieved it’s over.
Justine Larbalestier is a Sydney-born researcher and writer. She has written a radio show about the end of relationships, a short film about the Midas legend, and extensively on American science fiction culture, particularly in the 40s and 50s as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her first book is The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction (Wesleyan University Press, 2002).
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1 See the coda at the end of this article for feelings about season seven.
Jennifer Crusie
DATING DEATH
How does Joss do it? How does he, in the midst of horror, action, and comedy, manage to create love stories that ring true, that touch us, time and time again? For the answer to this question we look outside the SF genre and turn to a leading romance novelist, Jennifer Crusie.
ROMANCE WRITERS TEND TO LOVE Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it’s the only show on TV that gets the dynamics of falling in love right most of the time. Whedon and his writers seem to have an instinct for the messy part of romance, the off-the-wall, over-the-top, why-am-I-doing-this? insanity that makes love such a pain in the neck, whether somebody’s biting you there or not. The reasons for this are many and varied, and all the more telling when the people at Mutant Enemy get it wrong. Watching Buffy is an education in how to write romance.
A look at how Buffy Summers meets and mates gives the first part of the answer as to why Buffy makes the best love on TV. Buffy has had three loves in her seven-year fight against the Hellmouth, and three of these relationships followed the basic psychological progress—assumption, attraction, infatuation, and attachment—which is why they all felt true emotionally, even if some viewers were less than pleased with Buffy’s choices.
The first move in establishing a relationship is assumption: gauging, consciously or unconsciously, if this person is somebody desirable, somebody it is possible to love. Is the object of potential desire physically attractive? Smart? Strong? Funny? These are all clues that the object is genetically a catch, physically and mentally healthy; it’s DNA shrieking “Pick that one, I want to live forever!” Since Sunnydale is populated almost entirely by beautiful, verbal teenagers, this is not a difficult stage for the Scooby Gang, their angst notwithstanding. But Buffy as Mythic Heroine is going to need more than just a knee-jerk jock of the week, so Whedon ushers in Angel, the Heathcliff for the turn-of-the-millennium. He’s strong (he can hold his own with the Slayer), he’s smart (he knows the evil world she must learn about in order to fight it), he has a mordant sense of humor (even more effective because Angel is not a happy man), and he’s physically attractive, or, as Buffy puts it after she first meets him in “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (1-1), “dark, gorgeous in an annoying kind of way.”