Buffy-The Show That Was Not Supposed to Die
A Eulogy

"You know I could ride you at a gallop until you pop like warm champagne and you beg me to hurt you just a little but more. And do you know why I don't? Because it's wrong."
Buffy (actually Faith posessing Buffy)

And now I think we need to take a moment away from Bunni and her dating exploits to talk about one of the few shows that has kept me sane for the last two years. Buffy started in 1997, which is the same year I graduated from NYU. I didn't have a tv at the time, and if I did, I wouldn't have bothered to watch Buffy. Then IT happened and I bought a tv, and I found that Buffy was one of the few shows I could stand, probably because all of the relationships were so tortured. And slowly Buffy became a staple of my tv viewing. I would watch reruns in the mornings of FX before going to class. And here is the wierd thing, watching Buffy kick the ass of all those beasties right before going to teach made me feel better.

"I love you and not because I can't have you and not because I want you."
Spike

Growing up we only had one tv in the house. We didn't get cable until I was almost in high school. Although there were shows that I liked: "the Dukes of Hazard", "Simon and Simon", "Magnum P.I.", "MASH", "Barney Miller", and "Soap" (Billy Crystal's "big break" as a suicidal homosexual). Although I watched these shows, sometimes religiously, I was not really emotionally invested in the characters or the outcome. I enjoyed watching, but I wasn't involved.

"You know that face I showed you,Scully? I'm making it right now."
Mulder- The X Files

There were later shows in high school that I cared about notably "the X Files" and "Twin Peaks" (I ask myself at moments like this why I spend so much time researching links that no one will follow?) Twin Peaks lost a lot of viewers after Laura Palmer's killer was revealed. But with that show I got a taste of what happened tonight. The last season started to slip and then suddenly the last month it became fantastic again. And then at the absolute height of suspense (Agent Cooper becomes possessed by Bob) the SHOW ENDED!!!! And the film "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (Oh look it up on IMDB, you lazies) was a prequel. And thus what the hell happened (and I would still like to know because it is intriguing as all hell) was never revealed.

"If Buffy can read my thoughts, and my thoughts are my being then Buffy holds all that I am, and Buffy becomes me." Oz

"The X Files" had a slower dissolution. It became like a bad relationship. You watched because you felt you should, even though you didn't like it anymore and half the time you were reading or making faces at the screen. maybe you watched just to bitch about it with your friends, how dissappointed you are about how things ended up after such a promising start, such a sustained passion. But then it crosses the line (jumps the shark) and you realizes that you just don't have it in you to forgive anymore. You have been giving and nurturing long enough. It is time to move on. That's what happened for me on the X-Files. I gave up on that show about the time the movie came out. I saw the movie and pretty much stopped watching. So for me the "X-Files" went from a show I was really invested in, to a show I didn't even talk about or follow over a long period of time (the X-Files started when I was in high school and ended when I was in grad school. How is that for a long run?) Don't get me wrong, I watch the reruns sometimes on TNT and SCI-FI, but the old fire, the suspense, the involvement isn't there. Now its just about figuring out what season it is from Scully's hair.

"What's a girl to do when her dead ex-boyfriend asks her to the senior prom?"
Toffee Giles in Zombie Prom

With Buffy, there was really an emotional investment that I made here. The show really worked for me like none other. (Other fans seem to also like Dawson's Creek and Felicity two shows I can't, and never could, stand.) What I liked about Buffy is that there was a lot of symbolic content there for us archetypal psychologists (Joseph Campbell The Hero With A Thousand Faces a must read for Star Wars and Matrix fans). For example, this final episode here, you have Spike becoming the living embodiment of the "apotheosis" (one with G-d) in terms of channeling the sun. And you also have Buffy re-enacting the final stage of the hero's journey (3 stages of hero journey 1. road of trials 2.apotheosis 3. the return). The final stage of the hero's journey is where the hero integrates what he (or she) has learned back into society thus changing and improving society. (Think Jesus.) So Buffy "returns" by allowing all the potential slayers to have their power now (don't get me wrong-I thought it was lame-a little too happy happy joy joy female empowerment even for me). The hero's journey is complete. (What I would have given for for Oz, Parker, Riley and headed by Angel to become a boy brigade!)

"Because if the world isn't going to end tomorrow, I'm going to need a note."
Cordelia

But, and here is another point I would like to make, the lure of Buffy (and the rest of the "Scoobies" as Xander dubbed them) is that they all represent human drives, making them easy to identify with. Oz-two natures, human and bestial in one body. Giles-the stodgy parental-super-ego. Willow-the untapped power that lies dormant within. The episodes portray normal situations, but are then given a hyperbolic and symbolic cast. You have the episode where Xander is seduced by his substitute science teacher who is really a giant praying mantis. The mantis is simply a symbolic form of how we view child molesters (she preyed on young male virgins). There is the episode where Willow falls for "techno demon" again about how easily we can be seduced through the internet, how desperate we are for love, and how that desperation can be perverted. There is the epside where Xander becomes divided in two (who doesn't feel that there are two or more selves within?) Or the prents turning teenagers, a re-action to mid-life crises. Then there are episodes that are more concrete in their identification like when Oz leaves to protect Willow or when Xander leaves because he is not ready to commit. Clearly these events (particularly being left at the alter) can be easily identified with dirently.

"I am so much prettier than you." Principal Woods to Faith

Some events although are clearly enhanced and romanticized like (spoiler for those who missed the final episode) the death of Spike. Now poor James Marsters (who is NOT REALLY BRITISH-but his first acting role was as Eyeore in Winnie the Pooh! You can't beat the research team we have here at Bunniblog-one Jew, a keyboard, and A LOT OF FREE TIME) is out of work. And its not like he will ever get cast again. but back to the show. Here Spike dies, thus making the way for Buffy to go back to Angel without having to make a choice and therefore without incuring guilt (how nice). In addition, this is the nicest break-up of all time. Instead of getting dumped, her beau chooses to save the world by sacrificing himself. Don't we all have a few ex-boyfriends we wish would do that? Oh it's not that he isn't calling because he doesn't love you anymore, or you just can't be together, or that he doesn't have opposable thumbs, he isn't calling because he died for you, he died saving you. Now that's a good break up people. That's the only kind I'm interested in. And this allows Buffy to keep the romantic dream intact. In order for "the romantic illusions" to stay intact one of the parties must die or the story must end ergo "Happily Ever After" because romance does not survive reality.

"Thank you for the dada-ist pep-talk, I feel much more abstract now."Buffy to Xander

And so now I have to "break up" with the show. This show that I have come to depend on and look forward to is gone just when I found it. I almost cried a couple of time during the show. (How could they kill Anya? And they cut her in half without even a tender good bye from Xander. Notice how they kill the two good bad guys? That whole they must be punished for the sins of the past thing going on.But wasn't her abandonment at the alter punishment enough?) But I am saddened, truly, by the loss of this show. And this is something I have never really experienced before, the true power of television. I lived without a tv for seven years, and now, at this late date, I see the power it can have as a tool of epic storytelling. I mean when Ruth Fisher kissed that 25 year old Mortuary Assistant, Arthur, on Six Feet Under a few weeks ago my cat thought I was possessed (talk about a reversal of fortune). I was running around shrieking. And I thought it was great that tv still can have that power, to delight and surprise and entertain, truly entertain, not just cater to our basest desires in the form of humiliation and failure.

And you thought it was just to see a hot chick who could kick.