Buffy - A Simple Matter of Practicality

I told you about how I am just now getting into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a decade after everyone else. And let me just say this about that: I tried Angel, and still watch it from time to time (it comes on very early in the mornings), but I never cared for it. I was busy doing other things in life when Buffy the Vampire Slayer originally ran and missed the whole series (with the exception of a handful of episodes, none of which I paid much attention to). After being so disappointed by Angel (which I only learned about when it was canceled and they were picketing outside the studios), I didn't bother with Buffy until I decided to give it a shot on Hulu. And I love it!

But I do have a problem.

This problem is, on the one hand, a simple matter of suspension of disbelief; OTOH, it's also a simple matter of practicality: no one outside of the core stars has any acumen or memory, and - and this is the most disconcerting and by far the bigger of the two - messes seem to clean themselves up without even trying.

The former is why I say it's a matter of suspending one's disbelief; obviously, if all of Sunnydale "remembered" the vampires they constantly come across or the werewolf in the middle of a school dance (which actually happened in season two), the series would have a pretty steep hill to climb. It could be done - in fact, last week's Supernatural had a play on this very theme, with the Ghostfacers duo (which - like everything Supernatural does - was just brilliant, but again, not the point) - but it would be tough and too much time would be lost explaining the whole thing to viewers, especially recapping it every episode for new and infrequent viewers. So we'll let the acumen, "collective memory" subject lay, as it is everyone's gripe about such fare and we're not here for that.

My real gripe, while along the very same lines, is a bit more pragmatic: despite the literal mountain - avalanche - of physical evidence left behind, absolutely no one ever mentions it, notices it, or even cleans it up!

In a single episode, a solid, blown-glass globe (like a snowglobe) was smashed against a chalkboard (which I'm pretty sure would shatter both), an entire computer system was wrecked, and a warehouse burned to the ground. Mere episodes before, a very ornate church was completely wrecked and then set ablaze. Now, not only is no one ever questioned as to these events, etc., it's as if they never happened at all by the very next episode! And I'm not just talking about the characters or dialogue; the chalkboard and computer system are both replaced, the ashes of the burned ruins apparently swept away, and no one receives so much as a stern talking-to!

I've said as much before about the whole "arc" thing so prevalent in modern serial work. When a storyline ends, a plot resolves, the characters should not "reset" to their pre-plot selves. In fact, that is specifically what should not happen in good fiction; that is literally opposed to good fiction - to shorthand it, without a change in characters, no plot resolves. And that is really these creators' only saving grace as far as I'm concerned - they can always lean back on the serial fiction saw, and claim the plot needs to resolve without change to the characters in order for the larger story (the series) to continue.

But this is above and beyond that: the actual, physical setting has not even changed! It is a whole new level of "suspension of disbelief" - it's "just shut-up and enjoy the ride" - and I think it's a cop-out!

If you cannot find a way to tell the story you want to tell without upsetting the status quo which must remain completely unchanged, then you need to either get better or put the idea on the backburner until you do. Further, some stories simply do not lend themselves to serialized form - such as those in which the main character(s) die. Again, even this rule can be gotten around (the X-Men were "dead" for dozens of issues in/around the #220s), but not by a pedestrian talent.

I have personally avoided doing certain stories, pictures, whatever, that I know are "in" me - that have never disappeared, never been forgotten - simply because I knew I wasn't good enough to do the work justice. And sometimes, I wish I had just bitten the bullet and done the work, warts and all. However, I also take solace in the fact that I have been able to pull many of these works out of their incomplete state years later and actually do them justice. Whether or not they were successful, I personally got more from the work and developed more as an artist because I wasn't able to say, "I gave it my best."

There really is something to be said for patience, though I doubt the correlation to divinity.

At any rate, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has to be one of the worst offenders in the last few decades. Like I say, it's one thing to suspend disbelief, it's another to be asked repeatedly to do so against all reason! It's a lot more coercion than it appears on the surface. But I'm not going to let Whedon and crew off that lightly, because Angel was an even more egregious offender!

Seriously people, this is so simple that there is literally NO excuse for it. The slightest of mentions, the least perceptible of nods:

• Buffy's principal says, "And you still have yet to explain what you were doing there the night that church burned to the ground," during one of his famous lectures
• Willow mentions how she and Buffy stayed up late the night before, getting "their story" together
• Someone says something along the lines of, "You know, where that old warehouse that burned down used to be"
• They bother to switch classrooms, instead of carrying on in the damaged one
• OR, again so simple, a character just says, "At least they got that mess cleaned up"

I'm not obtuse; I understand sets cost money and I understand writers and creators need to eat and pay rent, but this matter of continuity is so easy to maintain that the creators' inability to do this amounts to a simple matter of laziness. I mean, at the end of the second season, the vampires set Buffy up to take the rap for murder and assault - this was their Big Plan - and all of this should have happened at least once innumerable times before... sans work!

Still, a great show and loads of fun. I can just imagine how much better it would be if I weren't constantly reminded it's a show that's loads of fun.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009