Five Reasons that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Could Be The Best Show of All Time
Submitted by xfanatic50 on Wed, 08/04/2004 - 01:18
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- Hush - Proof of Joss Whedon's brilliance as a writer, and of his defiance of expectations. People praise him for his dialogue, so he writes a genuinely scary, atmospheric and beautiful episode with almost no dialogue, that still manages to make a brilliant point about the way people communicate in life.
- Once More With Feeling - The songs are catchy, funny and give true insight into the characters thoughts, the acting and singing is surprisingly good given the circumstances and the entire thing is explained and thought out in such a way that the episode never feels forced, or like a "very special episode". If it were any other show, the episode would have been godawful, but not only did Joss Whedon pull it off without looking foolish, it was one of the best episodes the series ever did.
- Graduation Day Part 1 and 2 - Brilliant. The arc of the entire season comes together. Buffy was the only show I've ever watched where I was never sure whether the main characters would live or die. Suspenseful, with a terrifically menacing and creepy villain, the city's mayor. The brilliance of Buffy villains was that you always felt by the end of the season that there was no way the characters were going to be able to defeat them, despite the logical thought that the show wasn't ending, so everything must work out. So many great storylines wrapped up (Angel leaving, Faith vs. Buffy, the actual high school graduation), plus the genius of having the high school blown up to end that era for the show.
- Restless - So brilliant. So prophetic for everything that would happen later. So beautifully and bizarrely shot. I actually watched it and thought 'this is exactly what real dreams are like'. It perfectly captured the bizarre dream-state. Plus, the insights into the characters, their motivations and hopes, are so amazing. It's basically like a psychological look inside all of the character's minds. Plus, it still makes sense in the show's universe... the episode has an actual plot and isn't just a pretentious "hey look what we can do" kind of an episode.
- The Body - No soundtrack. No actual real plot. Just a moment to moment study in grief, with no distractions. And a reminder to those watching that not everybody dies in a spectacular show of heroism. Sometimes death is just sudden and without sense. The scene in which Anya tries to comprehend death is television at it's finest.
Author Comments:
Just wanted to add my two cents about why Buffy is amazing, and why Joss Whedon should be given an entire TV network to do what he wants with.
Great list. I agree with every single choice. I also love your comments. Ever so much better than my rushed ones.
Ya know, even thinking about some of the episodes of Buffy make me teary. Stupid, but true.
I've watched half of one episode of Buffy, and it sucked ass, big time, so I never watched it again. I'm assuming these things listed are episode titles - if I could only tolerate watching one, which one should it be?
One half of one episode? Come on man.
Listen, unlike many TV shows, Buffy has a huge backstory, and many of characters won't make a lick of sense unless you give it time.
What happened in the half an episode you saw?
Oh, I would pick Hush. It takes the least amount of prior knowledge and is still interesting.
I disliked it for other reasons than not understanding the characters. The scene I saw was one in a field at night and Buffy kicked some Vampire ass in terrible close-up shots that showed nothing, and cardboard pieces of the ground opened up and 'swallowed' one of the vampires or something. Then somewhere else Buffy and some hunk-ish guy exchanged some really terrible dialogue
You know I would actually say that the early first season of the show, and even some second season stuff was really cheesy and campy... i did not like Buffy with Angel... (all fans can stone me now :)) But AAA's right, if you have to watch just one... watch Hush. Or if you'd really like to know what the fuss was about, watch or rent just the fifth season... that was the one that hooked my mom and made her a fanatic, and she hated Buffy before that.
This is one pruning of a much larger rant on many things Buffy. [Please note: “Neophyte” is used in only the most positive sense of the word.]
Asking for a prescriptive episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer to watch is a fruitless endeavor.
In episodic television it is difficult for a fan of a show to completely convey the nature of the love that she has for the series. A large part of the fan's emotional investment is tied up in the development and evolution of the show's characters and plot. For her to then explain to a neophyte which episode is her favorite and why it is her favorite requires far too much back-story and exposition to satisfy either party.
BtVS is a show about high school (and then beyond) dressed up in the metaphorical world of vampires, demons and the supernatural. It starts when high school sophomore Buffy Summers moves to a new school in the small town of Sunnydale only to find that the town exists on the edge of the Hellmouth, the source of all evil. Even if you have lived in the same town all of your life I think that we all know exactly how Buffy feels. And that is just the jumping off point.
By the end of its seven seasons BtVS had created a rich, wide-ranging and honest universe for its characters. For regular viewers it was quite common to see the show and think to oneself, “That happened to me!” Whether it’s having your first boyfriend leave you to “find himself” as a werewolf might very well do, dating a guy whose personality totally changes once the two of you sleep together as a vampire who loses his soul to a curse would, just being confused, overwhelmed and frightened by falling in love as a thousand year-old vengeance demon would be when she becomes human or any other of a number of life experiences it all was played out brilliantly in Joss Whedon’s “Buffyverse.”
Not only did each show speak in metaphor but each year also had its own narrative arc in the form of “The Big Bad” or evil force, which underpinned the plots that made up that particular season. Over the course of BtVS characters would grow, age and change in real ways due to events around them. For a show that was all about Good vs. Evil there were very few characters that were pure, unadulterated evil and there were absolutely no characters who were completely good. Like real life it was complex, messy, confusing and things were not always as they appeared to be. The dialogue, however, was much better and funnier than any in real life.
In this Dickensian world finding a “favorite” show is akin to choosing the best chapter in Great Expectations. It can certainly be done but to truly appreciate the choice made one should know the context from which it comes. This is all a high-minded, long-winded way to say that no BtVS episode stands in isolation, they are all part of a continuum woven together. BtVS is the polar opposite of Law & Order where each case and each character are interchangeable and the episodes are all self-contained. It is also, in the end, just a television show... of which my favorite episode (and prescription) is "Once More, With Feeling.”