I gathered, and we at Unfogged are happy to serve as the outlet for your perverse and aggressive urges (no, really, we are), but one can't be too careful, what with this Scott Peterson business.
Buffy was one of the greatest TV shows ever. Seriously. My brother watched from the very beginning, and I always made fun of him.
Until I was unemployed and living with my girlfriend last year, and picked up most of Season 1 on DVD. It sucked me in but good. Wonderful, amazing dialogue, characters who (outside of their various supernatural ablities) were as real as anyone I went to high school with.
The show dealt in metaphor and analogy better than anything I've ever seen. Take teen sex. The average show will be all moralistic and beat the "don't have sex until you're ready" bit over your head in The Big Sex Episode. In "Surprise/Innocence," Buffy loses her virginity to Angel, and he doesn't just bail on her in the morning--he loses his soul, compares her to a hooker the next day, and then starts slaughtering her friends.
The point isn't that they overdo it--they took a standard situation and applied the quirky world of the show to it, and weren't afraid of ripping the heart out of characters we loved. My ex would cry at every third or fourth episode, and she wasn't a crier. Season Two of Buffy is up there with any show, ever.
I actually thought you were going to go somewhere else with this....
I can sort of see how Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about "all kinds of love," but where I thought you were going to go was to suggest that Law & Order was appealing and sustainable because of how much they kept any "love" (or other emotion for that matter) out of the show.
Specifically, unlike Buffy, L&O rarely has any sort of multi-show plot. There's never a trist between one of the lawyers and one of the police officers. The characters exist merely as vehicles to tell the story of the particular situation. Once that story is over they move on. Just as Seinfield's characters were specifically crafted to never learn anything, L&O's are written to never change.
This stability has allowed the producers of the show in 14 years to cast 7 Detectives, 5 Asst. District Attorneys, 2 Executive Asst. District Attorneys. That's 14 actors filling the 4 core roles which have remained relatively stable throughout the show's history. And none of this takes into the account the producers' ability to launch virtually identical spinoffs such as "Special Victims' Unit" and "Criminal Intent," both of which are cast with similar stock characters.
In that way, L&O is the ultimate show for syndication. It doesn't matter what order the shows are aired in, it doesn't matter if you miss one week's episodes, there's no on-going drama that you need to pay attention to and stay on top of. In order to achieve this the show is almost entirely devoid of any meaningful emotion.
The most dramatic example of this lack of emotion came in a season finale several years back. In this particular episode they killed off Jill Hennessy as the female attorney in a car crash. The episode was striking because, instead of being about a case, the show was all about what happens to the characters after they go home. It was really disconcerting because it was 1) so full of emotion, and 2) so completely off the standard L&O formula. The characters were shown as all basically all had hollow, empty lives; it was as if their lives served as a metaphor for the show's own emotionless existance.
Now, Ogged, I don't know what this all says about you, and it may still be correct that you're into L&O because of the aspect of voyerism (although I'm not sure how they're present in L&O any more than a show like CSI), but it does seem that there are some more fundamental and interesting differences between Buffy and L&O.
That's a great comment, ED. I'll have to be brief, as I'm out the door, but you've helped me see something. You're right about the interchangeable characters, but that's not to say that they don't have personality. Orbach is enjoyable to watch because he's crusty, wounded, credible, in other words. The other characters too, if you watch the show enough, do have backstories and ongoing dramas. So we're not just watching masks.
Which brings me to what you've helped me see, which is that the DAs, Stone (Moriarty), then McCoy (Waterson), are basically the same character, and probably the other reason I find the show so congenial: they're trying to balance justice with mercy, their job with their conscience. In some sense, when each takes the hard line on the law, he's least himself--that is, doing the right thing, though it pains him. That's a powerful dilemma for me, and one I enjoy seeing and thinking about, I suppose.
Buffy is genius. Genius, I tell you. Your failure to recognize its genius is of a piece with your failure to appreciate Bleak House. I am just horrified.
I have no idea why people maintain that Buffy is some kind of masterpiece. It was a terrible show, constantly falling apart at the seams whenever it tried to jump genres. It attempts to be action, drama, comedy, and scifi/fantasy, and if it pulled any of those off it would've been an ambitious feat. Instead it merely collapses across the board into mediocre melodramatic slush.
I don't quite get saying Buffy's about all kinds of love. The only kind of love the show was about was Buffy's romantic relationships and, perhaps, Willows. I don't even believe the show was particularly about love per se. If one wants a show about all kinds of love, that should be Dawson's Creek.
Lungfish, no, it was a great show precisely b/c it pushed the genre boundaries and really demonstrating the importance of formalism. The writing was witty, like Dan said it usually used metaphor well, and it broke a lot of new ground. It's the nature of things that break new ground to be kind of a mess, sometimes.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is everything you would ever want in a television show & more. It's intelligent, doesn't pander to its audience but still speaks to them on their terms, and maintained a solid foundation & fan base for several years, even switching networks in the process. People who have misconstured notions about Buffy, in my opinion, fall into one or more of the following categories:
a) Have never seen the show
b) Saw the horrible horrible movie & think that the television show is a continuation of the foulness attributed to anything Kristi Swanson and Luke Perry attach themselves to
c) Think because a television show has the name Buffy in it, it must be stupid
d) Saw one episode, didn't get it, & therefore trash the entire series
e) Think anything that has anything supernatural is ridiculous
Good thing she won't be around anymore.
Why?? What did you do to her?????
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:25 PM
She's just moving away, Mitch.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:27 PM
I know, I'm just willfully misreading everything you write.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:32 PM
I gathered, and we at Unfogged are happy to serve as the outlet for your perverse and aggressive urges (no, really, we are), but one can't be too careful, what with this Scott Peterson business.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:34 PM
Law and Order: Artistic Intent.
The question is, why is she moving away?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:38 PM
She's tired of it here; what with having just spent many years working on the dissertation, and what she wants to do next is best done elsewhere.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:42 PM
Who you calling aggressive, Big Nose???
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:45 PM
Buffy was one of the greatest TV shows ever. Seriously. My brother watched from the very beginning, and I always made fun of him.
Until I was unemployed and living with my girlfriend last year, and picked up most of Season 1 on DVD. It sucked me in but good. Wonderful, amazing dialogue, characters who (outside of their various supernatural ablities) were as real as anyone I went to high school with.
The show dealt in metaphor and analogy better than anything I've ever seen. Take teen sex. The average show will be all moralistic and beat the "don't have sex until you're ready" bit over your head in The Big Sex Episode. In "Surprise/Innocence," Buffy loses her virginity to Angel, and he doesn't just bail on her in the morning--he loses his soul, compares her to a hooker the next day, and then starts slaughtering her friends.
The point isn't that they overdo it--they took a standard situation and applied the quirky world of the show to it, and weren't afraid of ripping the heart out of characters we loved. My ex would cry at every third or fourth episode, and she wasn't a crier. Season Two of Buffy is up there with any show, ever.
Posted by Dan | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 2:53 PM
Buffy is fake in a comic book way. However it is so fake and all encompassing that it fools you into thinking you are reading a book.
A good book.
Posted by abc125 | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 5:38 PM
I actually thought you were going to go somewhere else with this....
I can sort of see how Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about "all kinds of love," but where I thought you were going to go was to suggest that Law & Order was appealing and sustainable because of how much they kept any "love" (or other emotion for that matter) out of the show.
Specifically, unlike Buffy, L&O rarely has any sort of multi-show plot. There's never a trist between one of the lawyers and one of the police officers. The characters exist merely as vehicles to tell the story of the particular situation. Once that story is over they move on. Just as Seinfield's characters were specifically crafted to never learn anything, L&O's are written to never change.
This stability has allowed the producers of the show in 14 years to cast 7 Detectives, 5 Asst. District Attorneys, 2 Executive Asst. District Attorneys. That's 14 actors filling the 4 core roles which have remained relatively stable throughout the show's history. And none of this takes into the account the producers' ability to launch virtually identical spinoffs such as "Special Victims' Unit" and "Criminal Intent," both of which are cast with similar stock characters.
In that way, L&O is the ultimate show for syndication. It doesn't matter what order the shows are aired in, it doesn't matter if you miss one week's episodes, there's no on-going drama that you need to pay attention to and stay on top of. In order to achieve this the show is almost entirely devoid of any meaningful emotion.
The most dramatic example of this lack of emotion came in a season finale several years back. In this particular episode they killed off Jill Hennessy as the female attorney in a car crash. The episode was striking because, instead of being about a case, the show was all about what happens to the characters after they go home. It was really disconcerting because it was 1) so full of emotion, and 2) so completely off the standard L&O formula. The characters were shown as all basically all had hollow, empty lives; it was as if their lives served as a metaphor for the show's own emotionless existance.
Now, Ogged, I don't know what this all says about you, and it may still be correct that you're into L&O because of the aspect of voyerism (although I'm not sure how they're present in L&O any more than a show like CSI), but it does seem that there are some more fundamental and interesting differences between Buffy and L&O.
Posted by EastDakota | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 5:45 PM
That's a great comment, ED. I'll have to be brief, as I'm out the door, but you've helped me see something. You're right about the interchangeable characters, but that's not to say that they don't have personality. Orbach is enjoyable to watch because he's crusty, wounded, credible, in other words. The other characters too, if you watch the show enough, do have backstories and ongoing dramas. So we're not just watching masks.
Which brings me to what you've helped me see, which is that the DAs, Stone (Moriarty), then McCoy (Waterson), are basically the same character, and probably the other reason I find the show so congenial: they're trying to balance justice with mercy, their job with their conscience. In some sense, when each takes the hard line on the law, he's least himself--that is, doing the right thing, though it pains him. That's a powerful dilemma for me, and one I enjoy seeing and thinking about, I suppose.
Wish I could say more, gotta go...but thanks!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 6:02 PM
Buffy is genius. Genius, I tell you. Your failure to recognize its genius is of a piece with your failure to appreciate Bleak House. I am just horrified.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 7:47 PM
I have no idea why people maintain that Buffy is some kind of masterpiece. It was a terrible show, constantly falling apart at the seams whenever it tried to jump genres. It attempts to be action, drama, comedy, and scifi/fantasy, and if it pulled any of those off it would've been an ambitious feat. Instead it merely collapses across the board into mediocre melodramatic slush.
Posted by Iron Lungfish | Link to this comment | 12-10-04 8:11 PM
I don't quite get saying Buffy's about all kinds of love. The only kind of love the show was about was Buffy's romantic relationships and, perhaps, Willows. I don't even believe the show was particularly about love per se. If one wants a show about all kinds of love, that should be Dawson's Creek.
Posted by Dan the Man | Link to this comment | 12-11-04 7:22 PM
Lungfish, no, it was a great show precisely b/c it pushed the genre boundaries and really demonstrating the importance of formalism. The writing was witty, like Dan said it usually used metaphor well, and it broke a lot of new ground. It's the nature of things that break new ground to be kind of a mess, sometimes.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-14-04 12:30 PM
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is everything you would ever want in a television show & more. It's intelligent, doesn't pander to its audience but still speaks to them on their terms, and maintained a solid foundation & fan base for several years, even switching networks in the process. People who have misconstured notions about Buffy, in my opinion, fall into one or more of the following categories:
a) Have never seen the show
b) Saw the horrible horrible movie & think that the television show is a continuation of the foulness attributed to anything Kristi Swanson and Luke Perry attach themselves to
c) Think because a television show has the name Buffy in it, it must be stupid
d) Saw one episode, didn't get it, & therefore trash the entire series
e) Think anything that has anything supernatural is ridiculous
f) Just don't get it
Posted by Missuh | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 4:17 PM
misconstrued
My bad, as are the switching of verb tenses & the ending a phrase with a preposition. My editor is on vacation.
Posted by Missuh | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 4:18 PM
http://www.villagedusexe.com/soft/verbatik/peemovies/creampie/bizarre.html garyhoodlumnow
Posted by honda | Link to this comment | 01-22-06 7:25 AM