The In Praise Of Buffy Thread.

[Grifman]

Whatever happened to the Buffy reboot that was planned? Did Wheddon's issues put an end to it? That said, rebooting one of the univerally acknowledged best shows ever on TV doesn't strike me as a bright idea.

[Blackhawk]

Although I'd love to see them follow it up with a '20 years later' type deal, maybe a limited series and some members of the original cast.

[Unagi]

Are you anywhere near Vigo County, IN?

This all makes me think of poor Zander (Nicholas Brendon).
I hope he turns his life back around.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... tion-drugs

[Pyperkub]

Whatever happened to the Buffy reboot that was planned? Did Wheddon's issues put an end to it? That said, rebooting one of the univerally acknowledged best shows ever on TV doesn't strike me as a bright idea.

Seems as if it may still be in the works at Disney:

Rather than focus on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a TV franchise, Disney instead seem to be focusing on developing it through transmedia. The comic book license is currently held by Boom! Studios, and they've introduced Buffy's multiverse - the "Slayerverse" - as a way to tell original stories.

[El Guapo]

Whatever happened to the Buffy reboot that was planned? Did Wheddon's issues put an end to it? That said, rebooting one of the univerally acknowledged best shows ever on TV doesn't strike me as a bright idea.

Seems as if it may still be in the works at Disney:

Rather than focus on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a TV franchise, Disney instead seem to be focusing on developing it through transmedia. The comic book license is currently held by Boom! Studios, and they've introduced Buffy's multiverse - the "Slayerverse" - as a way to tell original stories.

God, you know every mediocre studio executive is trying to get a multiverse for their IP. "Hey, what if we introduced a multiverse to the James Bond universe??"

[Blackhawk]

Are you anywhere near Vigo County, IN?

This all makes me think of poor Zander (Nicholas Brendon).
I hope he turns his life back around.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... tion-drugs

I get my groceries at the store where he was arrested. We didn't find out about it until the next day, but that likely happened while we were there.

[Octavious]

Sad at 50 I find it unlikely he's going to turn it around. Would love to be wrong.

[Unagi]

It's like I literally want the Scooby Gang to come and rescue him.

[Pyperkub]

Whatever happened to the Buffy reboot that was planned? Did Wheddon's issues put an end to it? That said, rebooting one of the univerally acknowledged best shows ever on TV doesn't strike me as a bright idea.

Seems as if it may still be in the works at Disney:

Rather than focus on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a TV franchise, Disney instead seem to be focusing on developing it through transmedia. The comic book license is currently held by Boom! Studios, and they've introduced Buffy's multiverse - the "Slayerverse" - as a way to tell original stories.

God, you know every mediocre studio executive is trying to get a multiverse for their IP. "Hey, what if we introduced a multiverse to the James Bond universe??"

Well, Spiderman No Way Home did break Box Office records with an excellent method of multiversing... Currently the #3 grossing movie of all time and still in theaters and during the Omicron explosion...

[Freyland]

It's like I literally want the Scooby Gang to come and rescue him.

No, I think that's his real face.

[El Guapo]

Whatever happened to the Buffy reboot that was planned? Did Wheddon's issues put an end to it? That said, rebooting one of the univerally acknowledged best shows ever on TV doesn't strike me as a bright idea.

Seems as if it may still be in the works at Disney:

Rather than focus on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a TV franchise, Disney instead seem to be focusing on developing it through transmedia. The comic book license is currently held by Boom! Studios, and they've introduced Buffy's multiverse - the "Slayerverse" - as a way to tell original stories.

God, you know every mediocre studio executive is trying to get a multiverse for their IP. "Hey, what if we introduced a multiverse to the James Bond universe??"

Well, Spiderman No Way Home did break Box Office records with an excellent method of multiversing... Currently the #3 grossing movie of all time and still in theaters and during the Omicron explosion...

Yeah, I know. That's a big reason why mediocre studio executives are going to be forcing writers to shoehorn multiverses into every show and movie now. "Ok, I love your cooking show, but could you make a cooking show...set in a MULTIVERSE??"

[Max Peck]

Conceptually, all shows/films/books/etc are already in one big multiverse. Heinlein covered how that works in The Number of the Beast.

[Kraken]

We just finished the (in)famous musical episode.

The first time I saw it, lo these many years ago, I was like "wtf did I just watch?"

Tonight, I'm ! What a brilliant and daring move for a 6-year-old show...and beyond the creative novelty, it advanced the characters. Everyone revealed a secret. Even more impressive -- Joss Whedon wrote all the lyrics and music.

[Blackhawk]

it advanced the characters.

It absolutely blew open every hidden plot point and secret and laid it all out in plain view. It had red wedding levels of plot impact. It was an incredible and ballsy story beat.

[Unagi]

Yeah. That episode is pure genius.
I bought my wife a collector’s vinyl record of that ‘musical’.


https://mondoshop.com/products/buffy-th ... feeling-lp

[Baroquen]

I love "Once More with Feeling". The songs are better than they have any right to be and the fact that what should just be a gimmick episode integrates with the long term plotlines is just crazy. I've got the sheet music book. Really fun.

[Max Peck]

Once More With Feeling is one of my favorite episodes. I even went to the trouble of making a bootleg audio CD as a Christmas present for a friend way back when.

Apparently I have a weakness for shows that do one-off musicals. My favorite episode of Lexx was Brigadoom.

[Blackhawk]

I don't think there is a single song on that soundtrack that I don't know the words to.

That episode is also great as a stand-alone background show when you're working on something else.

Also, Allison Hannigan hates sing, and did her utmost to avoid singing, while SMG can't sing. They originally planned to have her voice dubbed (rumor is by Jewel) but she insisted. Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn) had a good amount of formal dance training, which shows in her scene with Sweet (the heart-headed demon.) James Marsters had (and still has) a band with multiple albums. Anthony Head (Giles) is a professional singer, has had albums, and even did a stint as Rocky. His brother also had some hit songs.

[disarm]

How crazy is it that arguably two of the best episodes of a seven season show are a musical where almost every line is in song, and an episode where noone speaks for most of the time (Hush)?

[Kraken]

We just decided to watch it again tonight. We'll almost certainly never go through Buffy again after we finish this run, and who knows if we'll ever encounter that episode again. It's worth watching twice.

[Pyperkub]

Wife and I are watching Buffy and Angel in their entirety again, and it still holds up pretty well. As you said, S1 is weak and S2 takes some time to find its footing. This being the era of 22-episode seasons, there are too many freak-of-the-week episodes, some of them just awful (like the notorious "Beer bad!" episode). But Joss Whedon was a master at writing characters and dialog, and they're still enjoyable today.

Yeah, for Halloween last year, I started re-watching the series, as well as (re) playing the original xBox Buffy game that I never finished (and finished it, with game 2 - Chaos Bleeds queued up for sometime in the future), and diving back in was a joy. Buffy, Angel, Giles and the Scoobies are all so great, and when Spike/Drusilla show up and replace "The Annoying One" (as Spike so awesomely puts it), it really gets fun. I did stop partway through s3, as the 1st Game takes place then (around ep 7/8), as the equivalent of a lost episode (or episode arc, given how it's rather longer than an episode).

Finished the Original Buffy game on xBox (backwards compatible on the 360 I keep around) - that was pretty fun to complete (finally!). They had a lot of the original cast (everyone but SMG, apparently, but with a great impersonator) doing their voices, and the theme music is always great.

I also finished off season 3, and that was a lot of fun - Faith, the Mayor, etc. (Love the Mayor!)

Mrs Kub and I are watching s4 now, and actually including s1 of Angel, which we never watched for the crossovers. Here's the blog post with the correct order to watch them if desired.

in spite of our convenient access to these two brilliantly interconnected shows, anyone who attempts to watch Buffy and Angel side by side will encounter continuity problems in a conventional viewing schedule.

Many episodes from the two shows either aired out of chronological order of each other's respective plot lines, or simply aired on slightly divergent timetables. At one point, the two shows began to air on completely separate networks, further complicating any attempts at nailing their joint continuity. And on occasion, one episode of one series will expand on a single day for several episodes while the other series jumps over more time.

[Kraken]

Watching them sequentially in parallel, as we did before and are doing again, also works fine. They don't sync up exactly but it's easy enough to follow anyway.

We usually watch one episode of each every night, but sometimes we'll surge ahead an episode or two with one or the other if there's a particularly exciting story arc.

[Pyperkub]

I just have that page bookmarked on the phone so I can quickly check.

I also have the second xBox Buffy Game - Chaos Bleeds - queued up, but apparently it takes place in s5, so I can get more time into Elden Ring first!

[Blackhawk]

I should also point out that there are additional, fully canon seasons for each show, written by Whedon (and others) in graphic novel form.

[Kraken]

We'll reach the ends of both series within the next month or two, and I'm feeling bittersweet about it. On one hand, I wish Buffy had gone on forever or spawned more spinoffs. OTOH, it's time to move on to something else, such as resubscribing to Paramount and catching up on their ST shows. When I mentioned to Wife that The End Is Near, she said "Let's watch them again in 10 years." I love that woman.

[Blackhawk]

such as resubscribing to Paramount and catching up on their ST shows.

This is where I'm at, although I've been going through the existing shows as well. I am planning on trying them in chronological order to the limits that I can with series that are still airing. I do understand, though, that Discovery kind of breaks that unless I want to watch it split, and watching ~40 seasons of Trek in between two specific seasons of Discovery might not be great for following the story. I haven't looked too deeply into it yet, though - I'm still working on Enterprise.

[Pyperkub]

We'll reach the ends of both series within the next month or two, and I'm feeling bittersweet about it. On one hand, I wish Buffy had gone on forever or spawned more spinoffs. OTOH, it's time to move on to something else, such as resubscribing to Paramount and catching up on their ST shows. When I mentioned to Wife that The End Is Near, she said "Let's watch them again in 10 years." I love that woman.

I thought this was cute:

Billie Eilish was asked Wednesday by a fan on Instagram who her childhood celebrity crush was. In response, the “Happier Than Ever” singer posted an image to her Instagram Story that included the fan’s question alongside a photo of Sarah Michelle Gellar in her titular role in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — stake and all.

[coopasonic]

...and Billie Eilish moves up on my list of favorite modern artists, which is difficult since she was already at the top.

[Skinypupy]

Anthony Head (Giles) is a professional singer, has had albums, and even did a stint as Rocky.

Head was great in "Repo: The Genetic Opera".

[Pyperkub]

I went looking for a Buffy model to 3d print and didn't find one, but did see some Buffy game part holders, which sent me down the rabbit hole, and these arrived this week...

[Pyperkub]

Just watched Hush again. Such a fantastic episode!

[Pyperkub]

One thing I love about Buffy is the Intro/Title Theme. It is just so great, and gets me going every time.

While also watching Angel now and bouncing between them, I'll (almost) always skip the Angel Intro/Theme, but ALWAYS watch the Buffy Intro for the Theme.

One interesting item is that the Angel theme does effectively sound like a precursor to Firefly's theme, but w/o the lyrics, isn't the same...

Extended(?) Firefly lyrics:

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me.

Leave the men where they lay
They'll never see another day
Lost my soul, lost my dream
You can't take the sky from me.

I feel the black reaching out
I hear its song without a doubt
I still hear and I still see
That you can't take the sky from me.

Lost my love, lost my land
Lost the last place I could stand
There's no place I can be
Since I've found Serenity

And you can't take the sky from me.

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes ... yrics.html

[Kraken]

Well, we finished the last episode of Angel last night, and with it the whole Buffyverse. I'd forgotten how unsatisfying that ending was.

After those hundreds of hours of programming I'm both sad to leave and glad to move on to something else. I think tonight we're going to pay $4 to stream the original movie on Prime, even though I know it isn't very good.

[Blackhawk]

Big Tooth Pee-Wee?

[Pyperkub]

Big Tooth Pee-Wee?

His death scene and Rutger Hauer kind of made that movie. SMG was such a better Buffy.

We're still on Season 6/3 in our watching, and we never got this far in either.

Saw Once More with Feeling finally. That was really as good as I'd heard. Loved seeing Hush again too!

[Kraken]

That was more fun than I remembered it being. Hillary Swank is a scene stealer when you know where her career eventually goes. There are flashes of Joss Whedon, but I understand that he lost control and left in disgust halfway through production, so his influence is not obvious. Still, it was worth four bucks.

[Pyperkub]

Season 5 of Angel has had some fun episodes - specifically Cordelia's farewell and Smile Time, with

Spoiler:

Muppet Angel

[Jaymon]

"To the Angelmobile!"

[Pyperkub]

A nice interview with SMG:

supernatural teen drama, her first instinct was to let the dead lie. “I was like, ‘I’m not reading it,’” she says firmly. “Werewolves? No, thank you – been there, done that.”

After all, 20 years after Gellar laid down her stakes and scythe, audiences are still obsessing over Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The TV show, which ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, inspired an academic discipline, with journals, conferences and scholars known as “Buffyologists”. Now, the #buffy hashtag has nearly 400m views on TikTok, as younger generations connect with “the chosen one”, Buffy Summers. The other characters, too – father figure Rupert Giles, Willow the lesbian witch, platonic best friend Xander – have left an outsized mark.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer cast in season one: Anthony Head as Giles, Sarah Michelle Geller as Buffy, Nicholas Brendon as Xander and Alyson Hannigan as Willow

The series’ enduring appeal feels “amazing”, says Gellar. “As an actor, you hope you do something that holds up, that people still watch and that still means something to them.”

But, while Buffy’s following has grown since the finale, Gellar herself has opted to avoid the limelight since a string of high-profile roles (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, Cruel Intentions, Scooby-Doo, The Grudge) around the millennium.

[Kraken]

The episode of Farscape that I watched last night tossed in a Buffy reference. The shows overlapped in production, and Farscape's Crichton is always tossing out pop culture references. Made me laugh.