![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I saw most of Buffy as it aired. Not all of it: I came in with "Surprise" and "Innocence", and saw through the end of season 2 before borrowing someone's tapes to catch up. But the rest, and Angel (and Firefly) too. I liked it all. I used to own the DVDs, before the Great Purge, but never got around to sitting down with them.
I'd learned IMDB has some movies and TV shows, and when I checked it told me Buffy and Angel are free on Amazon Prime. I don't think that was the case when I'd checked before! So suddenly I want to re-watch them, while I can.
I've seen the first three episodes (the opening 2-parter, and the Witch) and I'm pleasantly surprised to find them pretty solid. Might not have been the case, for things watched when I was much younger, early things in a show known for its campiness, but no, they're *good*.
One strength of "Buffy" was Buffy's dreams. We (almost) start with her Slayer nightmares, and they're not like the later dreams, just jumbled images, but intriguing. I think there's a short of Darla's date busting through the window (the actual start of the series), and what looks like Vamp Xander (hint of a dark future if she messes up?)
Luke is very memorable for a villain who lasted literally two episodes.
Harking back to my recent post about litfic and unlikable characters: the show establishes Buffy's kindness very quickly. You see her noticing Cordelia's meanness to Willow, and you see her not liking it. She hunts down Willow later ostensibly for study help, but she calls it out: "Cordelia's been very nice... to me, anyway..." And there's the sweet moment in the Bronze when Buffy leaves to talk to Giles, Willow says "oh, you don't have to come back", and Buffy repeats that she will come back. That's not how I came to the franchise, but if it were, it would have won my heart.
(Technically Buffy doesn't come back but that's because Willow leaves with a vampire first.
And of course she starts out trying to Refuse the Call, yet she'd brought a stake to school even before anything had gone wrong, and she investigates when there's a corpse.
Giles makes it sound like the Slayer should be either super-sensitive or outright psychic, "reach out with your mind", in detecting vampires. We never see this on any Slayer, I think; maybe he's optimistic, or they dropped it. Then again, she does clock Willow's vampire for bullshit sartorial reasons, and while that's probably a deliberate joke, Buffy having very accurate hunches is a recurring thing. It's like she's psychic but doesn't know it, with her sense manifesting as superficial or irrational grudges. (Ted! Her college roommate!)
You do see her being smart; she may not be a genius but she can put together clues as well as the audience can, which is nice.
"The Witch" has Catherine Madison, who I think even after 7 seasons remains one of Buffy's most dangerous opponents. Like Superman Buffy is vulnerable to magic, taken down by a simple spell. An opponent with telekinesis is no fun either. Buffy survives through luck and situational awareness. (Luck in another way: dealing with Catherine if she hadn't taken herself out would have been very messy. I'm not sure there's a real option short of killing her, and that would be killing a human.)
I'll light a candle for Amy as she was at the end of the episode, and not the disastrous Amy of season 6.
...Of course, when I say the episodes are solid, there is the awkward bit of how Cordelia can face a vampire and lose her pupils to magic and still be a 'mundane'. You just have to roll with that.
I'd learned IMDB has some movies and TV shows, and when I checked it told me Buffy and Angel are free on Amazon Prime. I don't think that was the case when I'd checked before! So suddenly I want to re-watch them, while I can.
I've seen the first three episodes (the opening 2-parter, and the Witch) and I'm pleasantly surprised to find them pretty solid. Might not have been the case, for things watched when I was much younger, early things in a show known for its campiness, but no, they're *good*.
One strength of "Buffy" was Buffy's dreams. We (almost) start with her Slayer nightmares, and they're not like the later dreams, just jumbled images, but intriguing. I think there's a short of Darla's date busting through the window (the actual start of the series), and what looks like Vamp Xander (hint of a dark future if she messes up?)
Luke is very memorable for a villain who lasted literally two episodes.
Harking back to my recent post about litfic and unlikable characters: the show establishes Buffy's kindness very quickly. You see her noticing Cordelia's meanness to Willow, and you see her not liking it. She hunts down Willow later ostensibly for study help, but she calls it out: "Cordelia's been very nice... to me, anyway..." And there's the sweet moment in the Bronze when Buffy leaves to talk to Giles, Willow says "oh, you don't have to come back", and Buffy repeats that she will come back. That's not how I came to the franchise, but if it were, it would have won my heart.
(Technically Buffy doesn't come back but that's because Willow leaves with a vampire first.
And of course she starts out trying to Refuse the Call, yet she'd brought a stake to school even before anything had gone wrong, and she investigates when there's a corpse.
Giles makes it sound like the Slayer should be either super-sensitive or outright psychic, "reach out with your mind", in detecting vampires. We never see this on any Slayer, I think; maybe he's optimistic, or they dropped it. Then again, she does clock Willow's vampire for bullshit sartorial reasons, and while that's probably a deliberate joke, Buffy having very accurate hunches is a recurring thing. It's like she's psychic but doesn't know it, with her sense manifesting as superficial or irrational grudges. (Ted! Her college roommate!)
You do see her being smart; she may not be a genius but she can put together clues as well as the audience can, which is nice.
"The Witch" has Catherine Madison, who I think even after 7 seasons remains one of Buffy's most dangerous opponents. Like Superman Buffy is vulnerable to magic, taken down by a simple spell. An opponent with telekinesis is no fun either. Buffy survives through luck and situational awareness. (Luck in another way: dealing with Catherine if she hadn't taken herself out would have been very messy. I'm not sure there's a real option short of killing her, and that would be killing a human.)
I'll light a candle for Amy as she was at the end of the episode, and not the disastrous Amy of season 6.
...Of course, when I say the episodes are solid, there is the awkward bit of how Cordelia can face a vampire and lose her pupils to magic and still be a 'mundane'. You just have to roll with that.