I’m caught up on all the Severance episodes that have aired so far so now I think it’s time to go way back and do another rewatch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer1!
I never actually saw it at the time it was airing on TV, but I remember being over at a friend’s house and there was a random episode on and I thought “Huh this looks cool.” I got the first season on DVD for Christmas in 2004, absolutely devoured it and then immediately bought as many of the rest of the seasons as I could get my hands on. 😛 It was the first “Unassuming woman absolutely wails on fucking everybody and kicks their arses” show I’d seen and really established my love for that trope (see Faith also from Buffy, Max from Dark Angel, River from Firefly, Echo from Dollhouse, and I’m sure a whole lot more I’m forgetting right now).
The absolute standout episode for me would have to be Season 5’s The Body, I don’t think a TV show has ever gotten me in the feels that much, I was legit crying. Season 4’s “Hush” where a group of monsters come and steal everyone’s voices has only seventeen minutes of dialog in the entire 44-minute episode was fantastic too, plus Season 2’s “Innocence” where Angel loses his soul. And Season 6’s “Normal Again” really fucked me up, the Wikipedia page describes the plot as “a demon whose hallucinogenic venom makes Buffy believe that her implausible and nightmarish life as vampire slayer has actually been her own elaborate hallucination as a mental patient, catatonic in a hospital for the past six years.” It was so well done, I felt just somehow subtly off for a good day or two after watching it.
I watched the first episode of Season 1 tonight, and man I’d forgotten how wonderfully 90s campy it was. And this is from my actual original ripped DVDs rather than the absolutely dismal 1080p “remaster” that Fox clearly did as cheaply as possible. Given I’m watching it on my 11″ iPad while I use the elliptical the standard definition resolution isn’t nearly as noticeable anyway.
For how much I love the show, I do definitely remember there being a number of clearly filler episodes, which I guess isn’t that surprising given how damn long seasons of TV shows were back in the day compared to now! I’m also going to slot in alternating episodes of Angel when I start Season 4 of Buffy, I really enjoyed that as well, it was good to see Cordelia becoming a much more capable character in her own right. And one of my absolutely favourite moments in “Holy shit this person can act” was Amy Acker’s transformation from the bookish and nerdy Fred into the absolute evil badass that was Illyria. Just everything changed, all the subtle mannerisms, her voice, even though it was clearly still Amy Acker you honestly couldn’t see them as the same person, very similar to Tatiana Maslany’s absolutely incredible performance as five entirely distinct and clearly separate characters in 2013’s Orphan Black (well, more than five but those were the primary ones).
[EDIT] Thanks to @[email protected] for pointing out this recommended viewing order that someone put together, once I get to the point that the Buffy and Angel episodes are intertwined! I don’t trust a random Blogspot blog to remain around so I’ve tidied the HTML up and uploaded a copy to my website.
- Yes I know Joss Whedon turned out to be a huge piece of shit, but Sarah Michelle Gellar made a point of saying “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon… I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out.” So I’m content to enjoy the show and recognise that the creator is a fuckwit. ↩︎