Buffy - Season 6

To bring you up to speed, I didn't get into Buffy the Vampire Slayer until a year or two back (Hulu) and I have only subscribed to the comic for about a year or so. I intentionally curbed my Buffy TV intake so that I would have some episodes (well, seasons) left to enjoy. I am currently watching season six... and not enjoying it too much.

Seven years is a great run for any TV show and, with few exceptions, about the lifespan of one. I turned the show off after an episode or two the other night because I remember being unimpressed by, but still enjoying, the shows I'd watched so far, and thought my mood might be affecting my judgement.

Then an episode begins with Buffy and Spike getting all mushy... the dialogue was so stilted and saccharine, the situation so aggressively cartoonish, that it was embarrassing to watch! I literally turned it off. I was absolutely turned-off by the lack of quality, but I also felt kind of dirty -- I felt like I was reading really bad fanfic about Buffy and Spike getting it on. I felt cheapened and... dirty. Gone is the clever repartee, the comedic asides and witticisms, replaced by rote hackery and an obvious appeal to the lowest common denominator!

But, to be fair, it is a TV show and they live and die by their ratings. Around this time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer had serious competition on its own network, as well as from shows in syndication, and on competing networks. It lead the way, but by its sixth season -- Buffy had died twice, Angel was struggling, Charmed was doing well -- its best days were behind it.

I tried reading Season 8, but having not seen all of the TV series, I was lost and kept stumbling over spoilers, so I quit. I am collecting the comic book series in the meantime and plan on reading it from the start once I've finished the show. But I've read several reviews in which fans have said much the same about it -- that Whedon no longer has a handle on the character or where she's going.

It turns out that Joss Whedon passed on the Buffy reboot, and more and more people are now saying this is probably a good thing. I agree. However, I hope they follow the series' lead and drop any attempt at direct continuity while keeping the general mythos -- the way Buffy the Vampire Slayer the TV series follows the movie. Whedon's Buffy Summers deserves her own life, as well as a place in the general Slayer "history."

© C Harris Lynn, 2010