I find it interesting that the people here to seem to love the later seasons. I guess it depends on when you started watching. But to me, it's like saying you like the Rolling Stones now, but you don't dig their 60s/early 70s stuff. I don't get it.

What a bunch of nerds you's are.


I'm going to go play Xbox.....

jerseykrs said:

Gay.

kidelrich said:

the characters were a lot more developed and interesting to me in later seasons

kidelrich said:

I started watching from the very first episode. I didn't realize it was my favorite show EVER until maybe season three.

sextonseven said:

Which episode is the one where she's in a mental hospital? I wanted that one to be the final episode. I still pretend it was and her whole life spent slaying was a fantasy.

kidelrich said:

It would have been so wrong if that was the final episode. For one, it had already been done in 'St Elsewhere'. Secondly, I think it's unfair to tell your viewers that the time they invested in a series--or in a single season à la 'Dallas' or 'Rosanne'-- was all for naught.

sextonseven said:

I think it would have been a brave way to end it. And it would've explained away the crappy last couple of seasons.
[Edited 7/27/06 15:01pm]

sextonseven said:

A human being with a soul could have been just as nasty to the Scoobies, a la the Yoko Factor. How many times over the series have the souled, human characters (the good guys) treated each other liek crap? More than I'd be comfortable with from my friends, that's for sure.

Since it's been stated on both shows that werewolves aren't actually human anymore, I'm not sure how you'd consider them as such.

Maybe this could be clarified by asking: is a vampire (or werewolf or demon or god or whichever) actually evil in the first place? I guess it depends on why they kill. To kill for fun or out of apathy -as, I might point out, Angel has done, both souled and unsouled -would be undeniably evil IMO. But what about killing for food, as most vamps etc. do? From a human (the prey) perpesective, of course it is. But I'm sure deer think wolves are evil too, because wolves eat them. So if eating (killing humans) is done as a means of survival, does that really qualify as evil?

Well the Vampire Lore changed and became more developed as the series continued, at first Vamps were just seen as evil monsters that only wanted to feed.

Only when they brought in Spike and Dru did the Vamps start showing human characteristics. Except for Angel of course but he was souled.

absolutely LOVE Buffy. one of my top 3 shows of all time. 1) West Wing, 2) Buffy, 3) Dallas

jerseykrs said:

The Buffy X box game was fraking Awesome!!

Everyone except Gellar did voice work on that game.

Though I never got past that weird firewall thingy

lazycrockett said:

Writing glitches over the years notwithstanding, I have a LOT of respect for Joss and all the writers for doing that to the show. With the introduction of Clem, Anya, Lorne, and other friendly demons, and the portrayal of the good guys not always being quite so good, and vampires displaying very "human" behaviour. The line between good and evil is fuzzy and grey in real life, there's no reason it should be black-and-white in the Buffyverse.

meow85 said:

Oh i totally agree with you the verse was made much more fun and interesting, though i have to say the writers never really meshed the vamp monster into having human characteristics in my book.

I still love the show, but this was always just kinda never explained.

With Demons the thing was that there was always good and bad demons that was stated from pretty much the beginning of bring in the demons.

But with the Vamps it was just Spike and Dru caring bout each other. That changed the Lore, I mean Hell even in season 7 you had Buffy doing therapy on a stone couch to a Vamp. Granted She killed him but still to give that much emotional depth to a vamp youd think that somewhere down the line the writers and josh would have explained this little glitch.....right?

lazycrockett said:

Yeah...but somewhere along the line they might also have clarified exactly whether Dru or Angel was Spike's sire, where Willow's father was, was Xander actually being abused or did he just have a shitty family, and how and why some Potentials know they might be a Slayer one day and others don't.

I chalk that up equally as another writing glitch, and as the possibility that even though BtVS wasn't told in the first person, that we the viewers were meant to see the world the way Buffy did. As a younger, less experienced Slayer she may have only understood things in black and white, and as she matured both as a person and as the Slayer, she came to see more that things aren't always so clear. Demons can be babysitters and vampires can drink hot cocoa with the Slayer's mommy and friends can commit unspeakable acts of violence. So, the good guys vs the bad guys would have been presented initially to us as having a sharp line drawn in the sand that gradually blurs with time and experience.

Perhaps the shift in lore was done on purpose, like so many things in BtVS, to correct what viewers perceived as an error. Unless the Fanged Four were somehow special (a possibility, they are directly descended from the Master) how could it be that only Dru, Spike, Angel, and Darla have complex emotions and interactions while other vamps appeared not to? It wouldn't make sense to assert that vampires cannot feel proper emotions and then try to go indepth about Spike and Dru's century-old love affair, Angel and Spike's contempt -and jealousy -of each other, Darla and Angel's strange symbiotic pairing, Angel's obsessive drive to destroy Dru mentally before he vamped her. Maybe the only other route would have been to establish a certain specialness to the Four.
[Edited 7/28/06 2:14am]

On an unrelated note, (sorry kidelrich!) has anyone noticed the influence BtVS and AtS have had on people's thinking about other vampire books/movies/lore? Seems some people think the rules from one form of fiction or lore apply to all similar stories.

I was on another message board where a discussion about Interview with the Vampire was going on. Somebody actually used the term "evil, soulless thing" to refer to Lestat. Now, excuse me for geeking out here, but A) that is clearly a Jossverse term in the context it was used and therefore shouldn't have entered into a convo about a completely different story, and B) in Anne Rice's world, Vampires neither lose their souls nor become evil if turned.

Someone wanna tackle this one:


The soul. Why is it the measure of good in the Buffyverse?

Why is someone with a soul who kills or treats others badly seen as better than someone without one committing the same actions? Shouldn't the person with the soul be held to a higher standard than the one without, because they are supposed to be inherently good? Some people believe animals don't have souls -are they worse when they kill because they don't have them than a human who kills because the human does have one? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
[Edited 7/28/06 2:31am]

kidelrich said:

I started watching in the third season, and then went back and caught the first two. I was a fan all the way up until the end, so your theory doesn't really work. Personally, I thought the characters became quite well developed as time went on, and I love the evolution they experienced throughout the show.

JediMaster said:

It's not a theory.

i just gave into temptation and put a bid on the chosen box set with all the seasons and the bonus dvd on ebay.

cborgman said:

Hush has some extras.

kidelrich said:

probably the same ones as on the regular dvds i had.

oh well, it will be worth it. very worth it.

kidelrich said:

Okay. Educated guess then.

Does anyone have any of the action figures? I admit, somewhat sheepishly, that I actually bought a Faith figure for Christmas. I didn't even know they existed.

kidelrich said:

no, but i will sheepishly admit i have thought about buying them a lot

kidelrich said:

They even have Faith in an Angel season one set! Her episodes were my favorite from that season.



[Edited 7/28/06 12:01pm]

Darla's back:

meow85 said:

Spike wasn't a bad person before he got bitten and died. That's why his soul being reinstated makes a difference.



I don't recall either show describing a werewolf as someone that died and had their body animated by a virus like vampires.



Vampires can survive on animal blood. Why kill humans when you can survive just as well on lower life forms?

meow85 said:

I know *exactly* what you mean. Back in 2004 or so there was a lot of talk about the pilot being filmed for a Dark Shadows remake. You had a lot of the Jossverse fans going on about Barnabas Collins needing a good "demon face" and yammering on in a similar vein as to the idea of an "evil, soulless thing" there too. None of this, obviously, fits in with Dark Shadows lore where vampirism is seen as a "supernatural, yet simple blood-born and possibly curable, virus" more than anything else. Barnabas Collins certainly doesn't need to be remolded as Angel II.

[Edited 7/28/06 20:44pm]

kidelrich said:

I'm not sure it does matter, actually. I mean, I started late. IN FACT, I didn't get into Buffy until it was off the air already. (I tuned in once during Season 3 to the episode where Buffy and Angel get possessed in the school and tuned right back out ) However, I started watching it from the pilot episode and watched it straight through in chronological order over the course of a single summer. I love seasons 2 and 5 and tend to think there's a lot more decent attributes to the later seasons as the show gained a bit of depth that it was missing early on.