remembering buffy

All the buzz a new vampire flick is getting made me think about Buffy and how she is truly missed. I didn't start watching the show regularly until the famous, mostly silent, "Hush" episode, and came in through the back door, sort of - I watched Angel first.

The Buffyverse, as the fictional world created by Joss Whedon is called, was full of great characters, lots of Brit-inspired wit, pop culture references and good old teenage angst, which most of the time made for great TV and has led to comic books, endless fanfic and hopes for a reappearance of one (or any) of the characters in some form.

What really took the show above and beyond the average fantasy (or any genre) television show was the gradual reveal of the show's mythology, which deepened (much like the hellmouth) and grew over the course of the series. Also taking a pithy, simple metaphor like "high school is hell" and literally and creatively bringing it to undead life. But especially great was the dialogue:

Buffy: "Cordelia, your mouth is open, sound is coming from it. This is never good."

Buffy: "I haven't processed everything yet. My brain isn't really functioning on the higher levels. It's pretty much fire bad; tree pretty"

Spike: "If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock"

Spike: "We like to talk big... vampires do. "I'm going to destroy the world." That's just tough-guy talk. Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I _like_ this world. You've got...dog racing, Manchester united. And you've got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here. But then someone comes along with a vision. With a real... passion for destruction. Angel could pull it off. Good-bye, Picadilly. Farewell, Leicester-bloody-Square."

Xander: "You are one crazy troll! I'm not choosing between my girlfriend and my best friend. That's insane troll logic."

Giles: Demons after money? Whatever happened to the still beating heart of a virgin. No one has any standards any more"

Angel; "She made me feel like a human being. That's not the kind of thing you just forgive"

Cordelia: Oh please. I don't mean to interrupt your downward mobility, but I just wanted to tell you that you won't be meeting Coach Foster, the woman with the chest hair, because gym was cancelled due to the extreme dead guy in the locker."

Willow: "Well, I like you. You're nice, and you're funny, and you don't smoke. Yeah, okay, werewolf, but...that's not all the time. I mean, three days out of the month, I'm not much fun to be around either"

I was standing on line at the grocery store the other day and one of the grab and go items was a "Spike" dvd, a compilation of some of the best Buffy episodes to feature that zany vamp. I'm not sure whether I would just prefer to revisit the show via dvd, or to actually see some of these characters again in new adventures. I do know that in Buffy, it was mostly a whitebread world. Angel tried to remedy that a little with the character of Gunn. If Whedon were ever to resurrect Buffy he would need to reflect the Obamaverse.

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