Jennifer Ouellette is coming to campus this week to give a talk about her book The Physics of the Buffyverse. Having never been a Buffy fan, and not seen more than snippets of a few episodes here and there, I figured I should at least watch a few representative episodes before the talk, just to have some context. Accordingly, I got the first two discs of Season 1 from Netflix, and asked a colleague who is known to be a huge fan for recommendations (he loaned me his Season Five DVD's, and particularly recommended Episodes 5 and 12).
Kate and I watched the first two episodes last night. She didn't like the horror aspect, and so won't be watching more. My opinion is a little more complicated. An interesting thing about this is that it's impossible to watch the early episodes without knowing that there are seven full seasons of the show out there. Absent that knowledge, I doubt I'd watch any more, but knowing that it had a long run, I'll at least watch a couple of the Season Five episodes, just to see if it eventually works better.
More specific comments (with spoilers for people who haven't seen the show) below the fold.
I actually watched the original movie, way back in the day (I can't recall when or why, but I know we rented it at some point), so I'm familiar with the basic conceit, which has some potential. I liked the fact that the first episode of the show picks up after that, with Buffy already aware that she's the Slayer, thus sparing us from a full-on origin story plot.
For those who don't recall, the basic plot of the first two episodes is this: Buffy Summers arrives in the town of Sunnydale, having been kicked out of her previous school after burning down the gym in order to destroy a vampire infestation. She and her mother are determined to make a new start, and she settles into the standard teen process of making friends in a new school, etc. Unfortunately for her, Sunnydale turns out to be a mystical hotspot, and a large group of vampires living below the town are planning to bring about the end of the world.
The new school librarian turns out to be a Watcher, sent there to advise and keep an eye on Buffy, and she quickly befriends a couple of nerdy students, one of whom overhears her talking with Giles, the librarian, about vampire slaying. Her new friends are, of course, the first local teens grabbed by the vampires, and Buffy has to resume her Slayer role in order to save them and prevent the end of the world.
The basic premise allows for a good mix of humor and action, and there's potential there. The problem is, it's mostly just potential-- the execution of these first two episodes just doesn't really work that well for me.
First of all, everybody is much too cute. The actors playing Willow and Xander too obviously good-looking twenty-somethings trying to play high school outcasts, and they're much too polished to be believable. The snappy dialogue is way too snappy, and hugely overdone.
The mundane teenage stuff is moderately excruciating. I hate, hate, hate the cliche where the New Kid arrives in town and is provisionally accepted into the popular clique, but turns them down to hang out with the mistreated nerds and losers, and the version presented here is particularly bad. The Cordelia character is over-the-top awful, the stuff with the principal is just stupid, and the bit where Buffy's mother grounds her is completely pointless-- it feels like a scene that was stuck in because they were contractually obligated to give Buffy's mother a couple of lines of dialogue in every episode.
On the horror/action side, idiot plotting abounds. Buffy's supernatural abilities seem to come and go as required by the plot-- sometimes she has super strength, other times she doesn't, sometimes she knows kung fu, and other times she stands perfectly still and allows the evil vampire to punch her in the face. Stakes used to kill vampires dissolve into dust with the body of the vampire, except when they need to have a stake lying around for somebody to pick up later. The Intrepid Heroes casually discuss the looming vampire menace in the middle of the day in the school library, even though the whole reason that Xander got involved is because he overheard Buffy and Giles talking in the library.
And, really, the less said about the villains the better. The actors playing the evil vampires make the stilted readings of some of the heroes look like the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the special effects are just this side of Doctor Who.
Were I watching this on tv, as the premiere of a new show, I would say "OK, thanks, I don't need to re-arrange my schedule for this." Knowing as I do that the show ran for seven seasons, and is loved by some really smart people, I'm somewhat inclined to cut it some slack, and guess that they hit their stride sometime later in the run. Accordingly, I'll watch at least a few episodes from the Season Five DVD's, since I have them here, and see if that makes me think it's worth wading through the rest of Season One. This isn't a terribly promising beginning, though.
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Interestingly enough, I've been rewatching the first few seasons of Buffy, too, and I did notice that it starts out really rough. It does get better, but, having recently experienced the sublime perfection that is the first season of Veronica Mars, I don't think it ever really has a run like that.
I do think that it's worth sticking out, though -- there's some really good stuff scattered around in there.
The movie had Donald Sutherland. He gave the silliness some 'ethos' -- a concept lost on TV writers.
Ultimately all successful long run TV shows are soap operas. I think Buffy succeeded on that level perhaps.
The first season is pretty awkward. I don't think the series gets watchable until season 2, and it picks up pace rapidly. IMHO 2 and 3 are the best, although there are great moments throughout and season 5 has a fantastic ending (was originally going to end the series but they extended it for two more seasons). I don't know how well it would work to skip directly to an advanced season without any of the intervening character and plot development, though.
The first season is some good stuff mixed in with a lot of crap, and in no way explains why people like the show.
It gets much better in the second season, and then continues to be excellent for a long time -- plus, it does the kind of slow, meaningful character development that can only be done in ultra-long-form fiction, where the change happens subtly and naturally, but comparing the beginning to the end shows completely different people.
I definitely do NOT recommend watching random episodes out of context, because while the episodes may be (probably are) great, they're only great in context. Just watching them standalone is like hearing that Chapter 23 is the best chapter of a book and reading only that; it won't work, and you'll come out of it thinking, "Well, if that's the GREAT stuff, then fuck that."
Mike, very true about not watching random episodes. My friend is hugely into the show and has most of them on DVD. We decided to show a few of our other friends Hush, the Emmy nominated episode, to try to convince them it wasn't all crap writing. They couldn't enjoy it because it was all based around knowing the characters and story. The great writing was only possible because all the other work had been done by the rest of the series.
The first season is pretty awkward. I don't think the series gets watchable until season 2, and it picks up pace rapidly.
See, I can already see this turning into a Heinlein/ Bujold situation. Back in my Usenet days, people would occasionally wander into rec.arts.sf.written and say that they didn't like one of those authors, on the basis of having read a couple of their books. Invariably, the response from the fans was "Oh, but you haven't read the right books..." And that response was more or less independent of the specific books or even the number of books read by the original poster.
Seven television seasons is on the order of 100 episodes, which is to say 100 hours of time spent watching things on tv. Even two or three seasons runs to literally days of television watching. I'm just not prepared to wade through twenty or thirty hours of a show just to get to the point where the good stuff starts.
Many of the problems I had with the pilot were problems of execution, not problems of concept. I'm OK with the premise and the characters; I'm not OK with the idiot plotting and overdone snappy dialogue. Those are things that might plausibly improve over time, and watching a few later episodes is likely to tell me if that's the case.
If those issues get fixed, I might be willing to roll with the earlier episodes to see whether the overall story eventually grabs me. If those issues of execution are still there in the later seasons, well, I have better things I could do with a hundred-odd hours of my free time.
Bujold-Usenet thing: I'm arguably a bad person for this one, because I did hate Bujold through the first four books, and then found her books highly excellent.
Anyway, though, second season Buffy is the real test. If you don't like second-season Buffy, you can stop watching and ignore whatever anyone says. There are things that you may dislike in that season that people will say (correctly) aren't in later seasons, but fundamentally it's at a quality level that's not appreciably lower than the rest of the show.
But Season 1 is way, way worse than the rest; it's where they were still finding their feet and trying to figure out how the show worked. The villains are comically bad, the monster-of-the-week plots are highly silly, the characters still over-broad, and it's just in general awkward. (I don't know what you mean by "overdone snappy dialogue" as there's no such thing.)
Sounds like Star Trek: The Next Generation to me, where the first season is awful, and it doesn't really hit greatness til season three. I'm not a Buffy fan, but I'd just skip ahead to seasons 2 and 3 and watch whatever the fans say THE episodes are. Even out of context, if they are really great they should still impress.
Season 1 was a bit rough, but it set up everything else that developed in subsequent seasons. The best, IMO, were Season 2, most of Season 3, and Season 5 -- the latter in particular was much darker and more complex in theme and character development, appropriately so, as Buffy and her pals were out of high school by then and dealing with the onset of actual adulthood. :)
But the people are always way too pretty -- it was UPN show, and UPN is "the pretty people network." Must respectfully disagree with Chad about the writing critiques. The writing is brilliant, funny, irreverent. It's television -- of COURSE teenagers don't talk like that. Nobody on TV actually talks like that. You really can't expect TV dialogue to be anything other than sharp and entertaining.
It's hard to explain what sucks people in, but as much as I loved "Veronica Mars," and am enjoying "Heroes," neither one achieve the impact of "Buffy" and "Angel." Something can be uneven and imperfect -- occasionally maddeningly so (Season 6 kinda sucked) --and still be spectacularly effective at firing the imagination and drawing viewers in...
Chad,
I don't think it's just rationalization or a "No True Scotsman" fallacy (ah, but you haven't watched a true Buffy episode...) I think it's generic problem with many television series: it takes them a while to hit their stride. I was going to use Science Avenger's example next; I stopped watching ST:TNG partway through the first season because it sucked, but I was able to start watching again a couple seasons in. Babylon 5, IMHO, was rough in the first season, but was one of the best SF shows on TV. Outside of SF, I can barely watch first-season Simpsons, but it became a great show (before it tanked). Some show are great from the start, but that's pretty rare; usually they become great over time.
I agree with Mike's claim: you should be able to decide whether or not the series is worthwhile from season 2; it's one of the best seasons anyway.
If you want, just watch the last two episodes of season 1 for plot development, and skip directly to 2. (Ok, I'll be a little weaselly and say the most of the first six or so episodes of season 2 aren't that great either, but there is some necessary plot development there...) You'll miss out on some of the later in-jokes referencing earlier events, and might be a little confused at first, but if you're ready to give up on the series otherwise, it might be worth doing.
Must respectfully disagree with Chad about the writing critiques. The writing is brilliant, funny, irreverent. It's television -- of COURSE teenagers don't talk like that. Nobody on TV actually talks like that. You really can't expect TV dialogue to be anything other than sharp and entertaining.
It's a quantitative problem, not a qualitative one. I'm ok with people being sharper and wittier than in real life, but there's no dialogue in the first two episodes that isn't snappy. Even the lines that are meant to establish the hapless dorkitude of Xander and Willow are clever. It's wearying.
This is a very idiosyncratic thing, of course. I'm not always bothered by excessively-clever dialogue-- I enjoyed Ocean's Eleven quite a bit, even though George Clooney and Brad Pitt have an even higher Witty Line Fraction than the "Buffy" gang ("Ted Nugent called. He wants his shirt back."). Somehow, they carry it off with enough style that it doesn't bug me, where it did bug me in "Buffy."
Ambitwistor snuck in while I was typing with: I don't think it's just rationalization or a "No True Scotsman" fallacy (ah, but you haven't watched a true Buffy episode...) I think it's generic problem with many television series: it takes them a while to hit their stride. I was going to use Science Avenger's example next; I stopped watching ST:TNG partway through the first season because it sucked, but I was able to start watching again a couple seasons in. Babylon 5, IMHO, was rough in the first season, but was one of the best SF shows on TV.
Interestingly, I had a somewhat similar problem with Babylon 5 that I did with the first couple of Buffy episodes last night. The premise was interesting, the effects were good, but I kept running up against the scripts. B5 had the opposite problem from Buffy, in that Straczynski had a tin ear for dialogue the likes of which has seldom been seen outside of statuary. I watched it off and on for years, but I couldn't stand to listen to the characters talk.
I never had quite as much trouble with Star Trek because, well, it was Star Trek, and thus not to be taken overly seriously. The mere fact that Patrick Stewart didn't speed up and slow down like someone was screwing around with the playback speed on his dialogue was an improvement over the original.
I'm not sure this is turning into your "Heinlein/ Bujold situation", because I think it's nearly universal among Buffy fans to say that the first season is not as good, and the later seasons show a decline also. Seasons 2 and 3 are the ones that unambiguously get praise.
It seems to me like it's rare for a good television show to not have some problems early on that are gradually ameliorated as the writers and actors figure out the characters. But then there is Veronica Mars, which sprung perfect and fully formed from the head of Rob Thomas and gradually decayed from there.
Going from Season 1 to Season 5 can be a little jarring, especially the end of the first episode of Season 5. Just know in some respects it is a fresh start. The Body is built towards in Season 5 but can stand on its own as well. If you had the other seasons available I would recommend:
Season 2: Suprise/Innocence & Becoming Part I and II
Season 3: Anne, Faith Hope & Trick, Graduation I & II
Season 4: Hush and Restless
Season 5: Buffy & Dracula, The Body, Intervention, The Weight of the World, and The Gift
If you don't like snappy dialog, you're not going to like Buffy.
Tom Stoppard ("Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" guy) said he liked to "marry the play of ideas to farce. Now that may be like eating steak tartare with chocolate sauce, but that's the way it comes out. Everyone will have to decide for himself whether the seriousness is doomed or redeemed by the frivolity."
That's what Buffy is all about. The snappy dialog is the chocolate sauce, part of the farce.
The meaty part of it is the character arcs. I can't think of many fictional characters -- movie, TV, or written -- that I've ever cared about more than the Buffy characters. But that kind of investment takes a long time to develop. What's supposed to keep you watching in the meantime is the hilarious quips.
(And yes, I do think the first season is by far the weakest, and yes, I do think early Bujold and late Heinlein suck compared to their other stuff...)
It's hard to explain what sucks people in, but as much as I loved "Veronica Mars," and am enjoying "Heroes," neither one achieve the impact of "Buffy" and "Angel." Something can be uneven and imperfect -- occasionally maddeningly so (Season 6 kinda sucked) --and still be spectacularly effective at firing the imagination and drawing viewers in...
In my opinion, it's very much like the original Doctor Who. The sets were terrible. The acting was uneven at best. But in spite of that, it inspired an entire group of people. As Neil Gaiman wrote, it was a virus that infected so many people. Why? Because the subject captured the imagination. I think that's what Buffy did as well.
I know that Buffy caught my attention by capturing the feel of high school in the way they portray the demons they deal with. It also captured the imagination with the way it compared good and evil as well as attractive and ugly. Later seasons start showing gross looking demons that are not evil and attractive characters that are.
While I agree all the main characters are too pretty, they do eventually get around to exploring the concept of evil in a pretty package vs. good in an ugly one.
If you are only going to watch a few episodes, I think the list posted by ponderingfool is a good selection.
Darn it. That previous post actually quotes Jennifer Ouellette in the first paragraph. I need to practice my html more.
Personally, I didn't have major problems with B5's dialogue, it was the delivery of the dialogue that was my main problem with the show. But anyway, as Mary said, if you can't stand the snappy dialogue of Buffy, it's not going to get any "better" in that respect: it's pretty much the defining characteristic of everything Joss Whedon does.
I have to disagree with those who say that you should withhold judgement until after seeing Season 2. Yes, Season 2 is great, and is better than Season 1 in lots of ways. However, Season 1 really introduces what Buffy is all about. I can't imagine someone enjoying Buffy if he doesn't enjoy Season 1.
In contrast, I loved Buffy from the beginning. I loved the cliches and the characters and the dialog. The plots are really not the point. The details of exactly what evil is threatening the people of Sunnydale are not important. What is important is the way the characters respond to the threats; rising to the occasion (or failing), succumbing to or overcoming fear, balancing desire for love, success and fun with the demands of saving the day. Etc. I think it's great stuff.
The cliches and silliness are part of it. The mix of portentous talk of destiny, of horror, of high-school drama, of sitcom dialog is what makes it so much fun.
As for superhuman strength, Buffy is always stronger than a normal human, but I think the writers are inconsistent about exactly how much stronger. She's not Superman; bullets don't bounce off her. She can't pick up a car and toss it. I think she's supposed to be about at the level of the participants in those goofy ESPN "World's Strongest Man" contests. Only packed into a 100 pound girl instead of a 350 pound behemoth.
This conversation is an inversion of my (and many others) initial experience with the show when it first aired. I tried telling folks about the intelligence of the writing and the depth of the emotional reality to the characters, but they couldn't get past the title or the genre or the simple fact that it was a television show. Now, after years of rabid fans, critical study, books, and conferences dedicated to deconstructing Whedon in loving detail, folks who don't enjoy the show are put in a defensive position. Fundamentally, either interaction seems just wrong. The notion of arguing with someone about their personal reaction to entertainment doesn't make any sense.
(But as a rabid fan myself, I do look forward to hearing your thoughts again after you get past the awkward first season.)
It's funny what a strong reaction is invoked when someone says that they hate something that you love so much. "What do you mean, you don't like the Beatles? Have you listened to Abbey Road?" "How can you not like Phillip K. Dick? Have you read The Man in the High Castle?" "You didn't like Wonderfalls? How is that possible?"
For some reason, with me, anyway, there are certain things that I love so much that it seems as if something has gone wrong with the universe if other people don't like it as well. Here's a selection from my own list:
Buffy, Wonderfalls, Phillip K. Dick, The Beatles, Neil Young, Nellie McKay, Groundhog Day, Spirited Away, Freaks and Geeks, Monty Python.
I love Veronica Mars, Lost, Heroes, and Arrested Development, but they don't quite go into the same category.
Different people like or dislike shows for different reasons. For example, Daryl mentions "Freaks and Geeks". I think that I'm squarely in the target demographic of Freaks and Geeks, being a geek who grew up in the 70's/80's.
However, the show caused me almost physical pain because it hit too close to home. I couldn't watch it because of the flashbacks. (Junior high school was NOT a fun time for me)
Anyway, this has little to do with Buffy except to say that everyone has different experiences. This is stronger than simply "Different Strokes for Different Folks" or "YMMV". Even people with fundamentally the same aesthetics can react very differently to the same stimulus for seemingly unfathomable reasons.
I can't imagine someone enjoying Buffy if he doesn't enjoy Season 1.
Yo. I mean, I didn't HATE it, but I certainly didn't think it was anything worth going to the trouble of watching. I basically mocked it from the computer while my wife watched it, and not until Season 2 did I move over to the couch to watch along.
I'll reiterate what everyone's saying here: the first season of Buffy is awkward and uneven, too clever by half one minute, profoundly cliché the next, &c. What people haven't mentioned is that it's not that the clever dialogue persists, but that the ensemble learns how to inhabit it. Naturalistic, no, but by the first episode of the second season you can tell that the writers and actors have watched and re-watched the first season, taken what's worked and stuck with (and dispensed with what doesn't). It's a remarkable transformation, but one common enough when you have a cast as large as Buffy. I suspect (but, not working in television, have no proof) that this is a product of the fact that the director can't pay attention to everyone when working with a large cast.
As with #16: My suspicion is that you're not going to like the show, because the clever/snappy/over-the-top dialogue pretty much never goes away. (I liked it, but hey, that's my problem.)
I was not overwhelmed by S1 but I did fall in love with S2. But again, clever dialogue: if it's wearying now it'll just get worse.
Also, the inconsistencies (especially in worldbuilding) are an ongoing problem, and caused me to fling sporks at the screen on many occasions even after I fell in love with the show. So there's that, too.
Buffy's great.
Of course, it's no Rockford Files.
The thing is, I'm one of the people who liked the show from the very first episode.
And my usual answer when someone asks for my favorite season is "Seven-way tie". So we had very different reactions.
As far as Season Five is concerned, I suspect that the best policy is to watch the Season Five episodes in order until you either reach the end of the season or decide to stop. I suspect that, for a first-time viewer, most of the later Season Five episodes lose some of their impact if you haven't seen the earlier episodes in the season.
For Season One, since you only have the first two discs, if you only watch one more episode I'd suggest that it be Episode 7 ("Angel").
I should note again that the problem is not with snappy dialogue per se-- Steven Brust and Raymond Chandler are two of my favorite writers, and snappy dialogue is most of the hook in those books. What bugged me about these episodes is that they were trying too hard to be clever. It wasn't "Here's some clever banter to liven up the show," it was "Look at me! Am I cute enough to hug or what?"
I'm aware that the clever dialogue is a prominent feature of the show-- God knows, I've heard enough Buffy fans quoting bits of it over the years. And, for that matter, I've watched Firefly, where the dialogue didn't bother me as much. I'm willing to give later episodes a chance because of more or less what Scott says:
I'll reiterate what everyone's saying here: the first season of Buffy is awkward and uneven, too clever by half one minute, profoundly cliché the next, &c. What people haven't mentioned is that it's not that the clever dialogue persists, but that the ensemble learns how to inhabit it.
I don't expect the structure and writing style to change, but the execution might, as the cast and crew figure out what works and what doesn't. If I had the second season here, I'd watch some of that, but what I've got is the fifth season, and I'll try a couple of those tonight (Kate's out of town).
You prefer the snappy dialogue in Chandler to the snappy monologue?
It seems to me that when something like Buffy becomes a sort of cult, that it repels viewers who might otherwise be interested. I know that I often don't care to watch shows, of which I missed the start, that have a big cult following (currently, 'Lost' is a good example of that).
I love, love Buffy. And Angel.
Wolfram & Hart is probably the most hilarious take on law there is.
("Dial "1" for Virgin Sacrifices...)
Beyond that, what is there to dislike?
You'll get along- the pain that you feel you can only heal by ...living... :)
I find BTVS & Angel quite interesting as they were the first largely successful attempts to introduce a largely Buddhist style of supernatural realm into mainstream Western horror. (The failed attempts are of course legion and do not bear mentioning here.)
I'm struck especially by the similarity to Rumiko Takahashi's works; particularly in Angel, the Whedon-verse at times almost seems to be the Takahashi-verse extrapolated across the Pacific. (There was even a direct homage in the episode "I've Got You Under My Skin")
XPM,
What do you mean by a "Buddhist style of supernatural realm"? Are you talking Tibetan Buddhism? (I don't think there is any supernatural in Zen.)
I think the second season might appeal-- the snappy dialogue is more integrated, more organically coming out of tough situations. More like Chandler.
"Face it, Marlowe, you're not human tonight."
If you don't like season 2, don't even try the rest.
I've seen only a handful of "Buffy" episodes, all from the first season. But I have several friends, whose opinions I respect, who swear by it as a favorite. Based on that, my impression has always been that the show started out intentionally campy. After all, it was based on a film that was clearly and unequivocally a comedy, and a campy, ridiculous "laugh at the incredibly absurd premise" kind of comedy at that. It's only in later seasons that BtVS grew into something more serious, and occasionally downright daring as Joss Whedon took advantage of his situation to really push the envelope on what you could do on American series TV.
Babylon 5 is a unique case. With only a handful of exceptions, its quality went up and down, season by season, in direct proportion to how many of the scripts were written by J. Michael Straczynski.
I'll join the chorus that is saying reserve judgement until you can see some of Season 2, if at all possible. Failing that, there's always the Television Without Pity recaps:
http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/category_1227.html