buffy the vampire slayer

i was in middle school when this show first aired. i was a HUGE fan of the original movie & i remember begging my mother to let me stay up & watch the show when it premiered on the WB. we struck a deal in the kroeber household. my brother & i could each choose one night to stay up later than usual to watch a television show. kurt chose the wayans bros & i chose buffy the vampire slayer (which was ultimately a better deal because his show was only 30 minutes long!)

i was a pretty die-hard buffy fan during the early years. i was already pretty into vampires when the show aired (i even had my own stake & other vampire supplies stashed away in a drawer in my room just in case) so the show only fed into my obsession. however, despite my love for buffy early on, i admit that i wasn't a very loyal fan. by the third season, i was no longer into it. once they left high school, i stopped watching altogether.

when i graduated high school in 2003, the show went off the air (after surviving for two final years on UPN). when i was in college, i saw buffy become a cultural phenomenon. there were midnight showings of the musical episode (i ended up seeing this episode at comic-con this year & walked out after no lie, five awful seconds). there are self-proclaimed "whedonites". & there are even college courses dedicated solely to this show.

throughout the years, i became increasingly fed up with buffy & rather disgusted that people thought it was "good" enough to dedicate a fandom, nevermind college courses. i liked the show when i was TWELVE, sure, but boy did i grow to hate it as i got older.

so when i went back to watch it now, eleven years after the fact, i did so with mixed emotions. i wanted to recapture the love i had for it when i was a kid, but i knew i was coming back to it with the baggage i've acquired over the years. i was expecting to cringe at the stupid dialogue ("what is your childhood trauma!?"), buffy's annoying talky nature, & xander's unrequited puppy dog love. i was looking forward to spike & oz, but sadly neither appears on disc one.

but to be honest, i didn't flinch even one bit. it sort of worked, in that 90s, overly-talky kind of way (think: dawson's creek). the characters are a little annoying, but only because i really don't find myself able to relate to any of them. & the plot, well, the plot is what made this show good to begin with. disc one alone deals with vampires, a potential apocalypse, a witch, & a giant (substitute teacher-shaped) praying mantis.

i mean, that's a pretty solid first four episodes.

even though i was expecting to re-watch buffy the vampire slayer & see the error of my twelve-year-old ways, my reunion with this show wasn't so negative. nor was it completely positive. i do have to admit that i can see why this show was so popular. it's pretty dark & edgy, but just fun enough to attract teenage girls (& goth boys) of all shapes & sizes. but there's just not enough there to keep me properly engaged for an extended amount of time. it's a semi-fun show, but there's really not much to it past that.

i guess my interests have changed.

i mean, i no longer keep a stake hidden in my bedroom.

it's not that i've stopped believing, i guess maybe now i just feel better prepared to take on the world without supplies.