Into Each Generation a Slayer Is Born

Very rarely do I ever do I start watching a show after it’s started, twice to be exact. The second time was when I stayed tune to watch the post-Super Bowl Alias. They had me sold with Jennifer Garner prancing in her underwear to Back in Black so I instantly queued the seasons I missed and watch them at mass. Unfortunately the show didn’t live up to the hype and I have yet to see the last season. But the only other show that I started watching during its run definitely lived up to the hype and that is why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

The main reason why I skipped the show in its initial run was mostly because of the horrendous movie of the same name with Dylan McKay and Pee Wee Herman in his first acting appearance since, well, he opened the Video Music Awards. So there was no way after wasting and hour and a half of my life watching the movie would invest a whole hour every week for the a serialize version. But after all the praise the show received, I got a second chance when FX bought the syndication rights and started airing the show from the beginning around the start of the fifth season.

So every weekday for two hours I watch obsessively until I was fully caught up in about two months. And then the withdrawal started, going from ten episodes a week to just one was a big jolt. What really drew me into was the writing with it’s overly sarcastic characters and enough pop culture references to keep you scouring the internet each week to figure out the one’s you didn’t catch. The writing was so good it was even able to hind Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sub par acting skills (and before anyone what to argue that fact, go rent Simply Irresistible, The Grudge, or any of the Scooby Doo movies, then try to argue). And while all the fanatics fawned over the Buffy/Angel pairing, I gravitated more to Xander and the follies of his love life. Although sometimes those follies hit too close to home but luckily I never ran into a Vengence Deamon (that I know of).

But what drove the show year in and year out were the annual Big Bad’s who would make Buffy’s life miserable every year. It seemed that every Big Bad was badder than his or her predecessor. Well until we got to the nerd trio in season six, but what they lacked in scariness they definitely made up in comic relief. And who would have guessed in season six that Andrew would be the most entertain part of the last season as well as a great guest spot on Angel the following year? Thanks to the greatness of the Big Bad’s, one of the best scenes ever was the closing season of season seven’s premiere with Spike being haunted by all the other Big Bad’s.

Speaking of Spike, there is another great aspect of the show in that you never knew when a character would pop up again. Not even death kept some characters from making more appearances most notable Harmony who was actually more entertaining dead than alive and of course the previously mentioned Andrew who went from an obscure character from season one’s brother to the best part of the last season.

Unfortunately it’s not all fond memories for the show as Buffy remands the main reason why I avoid spoilers when I learned way too early that Tara would die causing Willow to become the Big Bad at the end of season six somewhat ruining that season for me. But the good definitely out weigh the bad with some iconic episodes like Hush where everyone on the show lost their voice for most of the episode. It’s weird to think that the show is now a decade old (well technically it will in March) but the episodes have aged well even with all the pop culture references and that is why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the first induction into the SHoF for 2007. Unfortunately the Buffyverse has been on hiatus since Angel ended a year after Buffy and a Faith based show and Spike centered movies have since failed to go past planning stages but it was recently announced by Joss Whedon that he will doing a season eight of the series in comic book form so look out for that.


As I write this, you can currently get all seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Amazon.com for 19.97 (that’s $0.91 per episodes of seasons 2-7) and below are my three favorite seasons. You can also download the first two seasons at iTunes.