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BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’S PIVOTAL SIXTH SEASON, NOW ON DVD,
PUTS THE BITE ON SUMMER RE-RUNS.
BY MONICA S. KUEBLER
 I
have a confession to make: I really wanted to hate this show. After
all, it was a television series based on a feature film that bombed
(pulling in a meagre US$16 million at the box office). Furthermore,
it revolved around a hokey premise that didn’t seem sustainable
in a long-term weekly format. Twenty-two episodes a year about a flighty
teen fashion plate cum vampire slayer? It seemed ludicrous.
Not believing I was missing something that shouldn’t
be missed, I successfully avoided the series for years, despite the
growing legion of diehards and critical praise. Then a bout of insomnia
left me with two choices: late night infomercials or Buffy. My
choice is the reason I am writing this confessional now. One episode
and I was hooked.
So how does a box office flop become a TV hit? Home
video rentals elevated the original 1992 film starring Kristy Swanson
to minor cult classic status. When the money started talking so did
the film’s director (Fran Rubel Kuzui) and executive producer (Gail
Berman), who subsequently approached the film’s writer (Joss Whedon)
about turning his letdown feature into a more realized TV series. Unhappy
that his first big screen effort deviated so profoundly from his original
vision (it was never meant to be an all-out comedy), Whedon practically
leapt at the chance to make things right, even if it meant climbing
aboard as creator and head writer, as well as executive producer and
sometime director.
The fledgling series entered WB’s roster in 1996
as a mid-season replacement. Finally debuting on March 10th, 1997, it
pulled in one of the highest ratings in the network’s brief history.
An intense ad campaign did precede its launch, but there was something
about Buffy that couldn’t come across in publicity stills
or 30-second commercials featuring TV budget-sized monster makeup effects
- the series was clever. Written with a sense of humour and enough cocksure
balls to laugh at itself, it brought to the idiot box an ass-kicking
but fallible heroine (played in this incarnation by young soap opera
veteran Sarah Michelle Gellar), a loveable "Scooby Gang" of
unlikely sidekicks, and the cool sense to poke fun at both pop culture
and monster mythos.
The first season was liberally populated with "monster
of the week"-style episodes that often borrowed their pacing from
the then popular X-Files. It worked so why not milk it? Thing
was, what gave The X-Files its eerie atmosphere wasn’t destined
to make Buffy great. Buffy needed that offside humour
to balance the spook with the spectacle.
As acclaim poured in and BTVS embarked on its
second season, character development and relationships intensified.
The show’s guiding myth arc became more concrete, including Slayer
lore, the Big Bad(s) and everything else that bubbled up or was drawn
to that which lay beneath them. (Buffy’s new hometown, Sunnydale,
after all, was situated directly over the Hellmouth.)
The ensemble cast, rounded out by Nicholas Brendon
(Xander), Alyson Hannigan (Willow) and Anthony Stewart Head (as the
Slayer’s ‘watcher’, Giles), was joined by James Marsters’
punk rock/pure sex/bad vamp villain Spike. Initially he was to have
been dusted several episodes into the season but was given a new lease
on undead life (and a proper contract) thanks to overwhelming public
response. Spike provided the final piece of chemistry: a villain the
older (mostly female) audience wanted to shag as much as loathe.
Whedon knew that any show out for success and longevity
would have to grow alongside its viewers. Life lessons were served up
in spades with a brash edge often shied away from by teen-angled network
television. How many genre shows would dare put one of its heroines
(Willow) in an open and positive homosexual relationship? Or kill off
main characters with such realistic portrayals of grief (‘The Body’,
Season 5)? Whedon did not apologize or make excuses for the series’
violence, not even in the face of WB’s eleventh hour decision to
postpone the season three finale (which sees the decimation of Sunnydale
High when the students rise up to fight evil alongside Buffy and her
friends) in the wake of the Columbine shootings.
Network pressures continued to mount in subsequent
seasons, reaching a fever pitch in season six right as the show changed
networks to UPN after several months of financial politicking between
Fox and the WB. The sixth season in the Buffyverse was perhaps the most
downtrodden and depressing to date. Purists complained that fewer monsters
and more overly emotional talking heads stripped away the show’s
integrity. But if you look beyond the formulaic changes, it was really
a season about growing up and facing the impending burdens of adulthood.
With a heavy overlying theme of consequences and bad decisions, it came
as no surprise that season six’s Big Bad, Willow, was born from
within the Scooby Gang’s own ranks.
In the DVD commentary for the season’s two-part
opener (‘Bargaining – Parts 1 & 2'), scribes Marti Noxon
and David Fury discuss how, from the onset, Whedon was determined to
"earn it" when they resurrected Buffy. Furthermore it was
vitally important that they "explore the weight" of her being
torn from heaven and thrust back into the world. Gellar puts in a genuinely
noteworthy though perpetually brooding and bitter performance, particularly
in her character’s self-destructive and abusive dealings with nemesis-cum-lover
Spike. For the first time in the show’s history we are catapulted
beyond a peripheral level into how unhealthy relationships truly can
be. What is between Spike and Buffy is raw; it’s sex as an expenditure
of emotion to feel something besides suffering. Yet, even knowing this,
it was still bloody red hot to watch. Their first coupling is arguably
the most delicious romp ever aired on prime time television.
The kiss that sets their destruction in motion takes
place in the seventh episode, the much lauded musical episode ‘Once
More, With Feeling’, which first aired (with an extra eight minutes)
on November 6th, 2001. This singing "character confessional,"
which served to move the season’s plot along substantially, took
an estimated six months to write and several more weeks to orchestrate
and rehearse. Like season four’s ‘Hush’, it pushed the
boundaries of what could be done on a prime time series, and while certain
Internet pundits claim this is where BTVS finally ‘jumped
the shark’, many others, including Time Magazine, declared
it one of the "top 10 TV highlights of 2001." ‘Once More,
With Feeling’ went on to be nominated for numerous awards, something
I don’t think Whedon expected when he first dreamt up the idea
during an impromptu sing-along that broke out during one of his cast
and crew Shakespeare readings.
Clocking in at 990 minutes, the recently released
sixth season, six-disc DVD Buffy-box serves up six commentaries,
including Whedon himself discussing ‘Once More, With Feeling’,
as well as several featurettes, outtakes and a DVD-ROM Buffy Demon Guide.
One might say that season six (and in fact, the whole
series) is an ode to female empowerment and becoming the person you
were meant to be despite hardships presented and mistakes made –
a heady message for something I once, before viewing, dismissed as a
trite and juvenile excuse for an hour-long genre show. For seven years,
BTVS kept fans glued to the TV, and spawned a veritable merchandiser’s
paradise including action figures, T-shirts, video and role-playing
games, as well as a successful TV spin-off (Angel) only recently
cancelled. Whedon had been known to tell his staff not to watch the
original film. Much like the last song in ‘Once More, With Feeling’,
it’s not where you’ve been, it’s "where do we go
from here?"
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