Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1: Thoughts and Observations

Flixing Buffy, I can see why I didn't like the series at the time. The first season is awful. Not merely not good, but really bad. The worst parts of Kolchak without any of the good parts of Clueless: Cheesy effects, outlandish plots that take more suspension of disbelief than I can muster, and no connection to most of the High School experience I had. The actors take a while to settle into their rolls. The movie wasn't very good, but at least it had the joke going for it: A self-absorbed Cool Girl is the one to save the world. The tv show throws away potential discordance for Room 222. I want to cleanse my palate with Welcome Back, Kotter.
( comments on episodes, mild spoilers )

Random observations: The theme music sucks. The direction is poor and the lighting horrible. The occasional good line doesn't make up for everything else. I must say: Everyone in Sunnydale is incredibly stupid.

DVD review: Only the two-episode pilot has commentary, and a few minutes of a Joss Whedon interview are scattered among the other disks. Still, it's nice to be able to turn on Closed Captioning to get all the dialog, and the aforementioned Pause comes in handy.

Season Two just moved farther down the queue, but isn't off.