Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1: Thoughts and Observations

[barondave]

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.

The two-part pilot would have turned me off; I don't remember when I sampled the show. The third episode, "The Witch", was okay. The season ends stronger than it began. "Nightmares" doesn't really work, but some good elements are present. "The Puppet Show" was good; still not great, but at least it was a nice turn on a classic horror plot.

The second-to-last episode, "Out of Mind, Out of Sight", is the one where Cordelia's character is developed. She never rises to the righteous "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" indignation ala Shelly on Northern Exposure, but the episode shows flashes of something more. I've started writing this on the last shot of the show, a page from a book in an FBI classroom. No spoilers, so only fans will no what I'm talking about. I just want to mention that the text of the page is the mangled lyrics to a bunch of songs on the second side of The Beatles' Abby Road. Hooray for Pause! I'm very happy I waited for the DVD.

The season finale, "Prophecy Girl", is the best of the lot. Written and directed by Whedon, it has camera angles and people crying and stuff. Still, nothing made a lot of sense. Despite the emotion, I didn't really feel for any of the characters. I kept wanting to yell at The Master for being such an idiot. He had all this time to plan his escape and doesn't know when to pounce. Probably just as well, I suppose, but I hate dumb villains more than I hate dumb heros.

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.

Comments

[wyngarde.livejournal.com]

I'm watching 'Roswell' and it's growing on me. This has also got me thinking about giving 'Buffy' another try...Neat how your review came up at such a time...

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Rosewell has more of a Battlestar Galactica tie-in, iirc.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Different strokes. I thought Buffy's Season 1 was one of the best seasons, despite, yes, that the cast was still growing into the roles. I enjoy the stories; they don't take themselves or the genre too seriously: the blend of traditional horror themes with comedy-soap character development really worked for me.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I disliked the movie, which I thought a clever idea but abysmally directed, and thus initially ignored the TV show. My friends started raving about it during the second season, and I started watching partway through the third. I was quite surprised to find myself liking it a great deal. Much better writing, acting, and directing than, say, Babylon-5, which was the only other sf/f show I'd been watching in recently previous years.

By now I've watched everything in BTVS I missed, and in retrospect I kind of like the first season, partly because it's so low-key compared to what came afterwards. Whether I'd have liked it without the context of the later shows is more doubtful.

But in the judgment of most Buffy-ites, including myself, second and third seasons are the best. If you haven't watched them, I'd certainly recommend it. Watch the whole thing in order, don't take too many episodes at a sitting, and avoid spoilers if you possibly still can at this late date, because the plots are full of surprises.

[laurel]

I liked season one better than you did, but I agree that it's not so hot.

Seasons two and three are where it gets good, I wasn't won over 'til season two. And I think I saw later episodes before I watched season one which actually may have helped (I was already won over by some characters).

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

Season two has much improved acting and writing; I don't know anyone, I think, who feels Season One is anything but the worst.

Season three is brilliant and is many folks' favorite.

what is buffy

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, a Buffy virgin. I envy you. What a wonderful journey lies ahead. If you make it to the end of the series it will likely be life changing.

I agree that season one is incredibly weak--the show is still finding its legs and building mythology that weaves through the remaining six seasons. Season two starts slow, too, but ends in a bang. If you don't "get" Buffy by the end of sesson two then it's best to switch to ESPN, because the show formula is pretty much set at this point. You will either understand what the writers are trying to say or you wont. Hint: the monsters are secondary, and are there just to move the plot along. They are the spectacle. The gloss. That's why the terrible special effects never bothered me that much, because _that_ layer of the show is not what the show is about. It's about the message. It's about Buffy's relationships, and the choices she makes. It's about Buffy growing up.

I agree that there are a lot of visible "seams": the lighting could be better, the audio sometimes fades out or reverbs, and the CGI is many times laughably bad. I think it's charming. They shot each episode in only 8 days, and some of the episodes approach movie caliber in the later seasons. Instead of harping on the nits, I've learned to appreciate what they were able to accomplish given such a short schedule. I know I couldn't have done any better.

Yes, many of the plots seem stupid and unbelievable. But here's the twist: the plot isn't about real-world events, it's about Buffy's inner mind represented as a totally fictional world where anything can happen. If you are trying to map the Buffyverse to the real world you are missing most of the story. It will never make sense that way. Each episode is a metaphor, and every monster symbolizes something in real life. It's left up to the audience to try to figure it out.

In a warped and twisted way, Buffy is like baseball. Baseball is deadly dull most of the time if you don't know the players and are not a very good baseball manager. If, on the other hand, you know what each of the players are capable of, and know how to manage a baseball game, then the game becomes much more interesting. Buffy the show is kind of like Baseball the Show. On the surface it's mostly superficial, and only a teen audience is able to enjoy it on this level. But if you can follow what's happening both on and off the field, and why the manager is moving his players around the field as he is, then it becomes much more enjoyable, and, if you are lucky, you just may learn something.

The reason why the spectacle, the show, doesn't seem to make sense at first is because the characters and events are symbolic. Willow represents Buffy's spirit, Xander her heart, and Giles her intellect. Whedon writes to show how these parts of Buffy learn to become an adult. The monsters are almost secondary.
If you want to learn more about some of the symbolism, you may want to check out
http://www.atpobtvs.com/existentialscoobies/archives/aug04_p05.html
(and then search on "spiritual journey" within this page)
It disects Prophecy Girl and explains why the spectacle doesn't always seem to make sense, but the symbolism does. And if you have any inclinations towards becoming a writer, a couple of effective writing techniques are explained.

I agree about the closed captioning; i keep it on all the time, too.