Better Late than Never
Mar. 11th, 2015 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightI managed to miss the eighteen year anniversary of the first broadcast of Welcome to the Hellmouth yesterday, but better late than never, right?
BtVS was, and is, a truly great show.
I'm feeling this very much at the moment. For one thing, I just watched the latest episode of Agents of SHIELD and it was very much not a great show. In fact, it was dire. Clunky, badly written, characters you couldn't care less about, and worst of all BORING!
BtVS, on the other hand, was never, ever boring. Even the worst episodes had something great in them. And, in fact, as I've been rewatching (now up to the end of season 4), I've only come across two episodes that I think are genuinely bad (they're Some Assembly Required and Bad Eggs, if you're interested).
Buffy herself is a seminal character, without whom probably none of the later (and for the most part vastly inferior) crop of 'strong female characters' (an overused and often misapplied description, IMO. Can someone think of a new one, please?) would even exist.
For that matter, Angel and Spike, though derivative of earlier vampire characters, are way, way better than all of them.
Not to mention, Giles, Willow, Xander, Anya etc - all wonderful, engaging characters. Then there's the dialogue, the whole metaphors for real life thing, the humour - even the rather slapdash world-building which gave the fans so much room to insert/invent/create their own take on things.
I believe BtVS is lightning in a bottle. There will never be another show quite like it. And I think those of us who became (and often remain) obsessed with it, are so for very good reason.
Which is not to say it's perfect, but you can't have everything, can you?
BtVS was, and is, a truly great show.
I'm feeling this very much at the moment. For one thing, I just watched the latest episode of Agents of SHIELD and it was very much not a great show. In fact, it was dire. Clunky, badly written, characters you couldn't care less about, and worst of all BORING!
BtVS, on the other hand, was never, ever boring. Even the worst episodes had something great in them. And, in fact, as I've been rewatching (now up to the end of season 4), I've only come across two episodes that I think are genuinely bad (they're Some Assembly Required and Bad Eggs, if you're interested).
Buffy herself is a seminal character, without whom probably none of the later (and for the most part vastly inferior) crop of 'strong female characters' (an overused and often misapplied description, IMO. Can someone think of a new one, please?) would even exist.
For that matter, Angel and Spike, though derivative of earlier vampire characters, are way, way better than all of them.
Not to mention, Giles, Willow, Xander, Anya etc - all wonderful, engaging characters. Then there's the dialogue, the whole metaphors for real life thing, the humour - even the rather slapdash world-building which gave the fans so much room to insert/invent/create their own take on things.
I believe BtVS is lightning in a bottle. There will never be another show quite like it. And I think those of us who became (and often remain) obsessed with it, are so for very good reason.
Which is not to say it's perfect, but you can't have everything, can you?
no subject
Date: 2015-03-17 03:25 pm (UTC)Well, it certainly looked that way in season 1. I was definitely expecting it, and pleased when it didn't happen, as it would have been kind of a cliche.
I wonder when they changed their minds? Certainly, in his episode commentary for Reptile Boy David Greenwalt hints that it's still on the cards.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-17 03:46 pm (UTC)Presumably though the Buffy/Angel romance took off in such a big way that they realised that the chemistry wasn't there with Buffy/Xander in the same way, there aren't really any B/X vibes by the time of season 3
no subject
Date: 2015-03-17 03:59 pm (UTC)I suppose if Angel had never come back from hell (which I suspect was how Joss imagined the story going, except that he wanted to do a separate show with Angel) then it might have been different.