I know when someone knows their Buffy
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
I'll say this: I know when someone knows their Buffy or not--anyone who loves it has explored it thoroughly for subtext, and anyone who hasn't can't really be a fan. On the other hand, I never know where someone who's quoting DeToqueville is coming from, since its so easy to pin the tail on that particular donkey and get a prize out of it.
A lot of people say they like the third season of Buffy best, and I have to admit that it's tighter than the fourth season and the seasons preceding it. That is to say, it's a lot more like a 22-hour movie, with plot turns and misdirection sliding into place like the functions of an intuitive computer application. It reformulated an element central to the Buffy universe; that anyone can be demonised or find themselves gone over to demonhood simply by working too hard, or too unhappily, as with Faith the Slayer's unhappy plot arc, or by a simple twist of fate, as in the alternate universe in which the shy, vulnerable Willow has long since been turned into a neck-licking vampiress. (Incidentally, non-military alternate universes are my favorite fantasy staple, as per the Chris Claremont X-Men, of which Joss Whedon is apparently a fan, because they fulfill a need for comparison we rarely get but deeply need.)
On the other hand, the fourth season seems to be everyone's least favorite--all the familiar landscapes have been blown to dust along with the familiar and handy school library, in which at least 70 per cent of the first three seasons were held and which served as the show's set. Buffy goes on to college, a holy grail of middle-class striving one step removed from the forced microworld of high-school. There, she walks into a library far too vast to ever be considered private enough for arcane research. She suffers a loss of identity and becomes vulnerable to more obvious charms than action and adventure, like boys who sleep with her and then don't call back. It's an alternate world she can't back out of. The writers obviously struggled during this chapter of the show's existence to keep the show on track, but in uprooting the world of the show they made a decision that bolstered the show's strengths. Plus, Season 4 brought us the best show of the Season, "Hush," a beautifully gaudy, affected spectacle in which all the characters lose their voices and find themselves reacting to a silent Mernau-scape somewhere between Nosferatu and Sunrise (which is a great idea if you think about it, and something that would never get done on the big screen unless John Maddin were involved). Plus the cast--and Whedon, the director--must have had a great time doing it, because it's palpably there on the little screen.
posted by Greg Purcell @ 9:17 PM,
