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Buffy / Angel 20 years since Buffy premiered!
Discussion in 'Cult TV' started by Karin Schill, Mar 10, 2017.
Karin Schill Super Moderator Staff Member
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Today it's 20 years since Buffy first premiered on the WB in the USA.
So did you watch this show? And if so how did you get into it?
Personally I was a huge fan and a part of me still am. But I didn't get hooked on the show until in 1999 when my sister and I found some webpages about it online and became curious enough to start downloading videoclips on our slow dial up connection.
The show then came to Swedish TV the year after but we kept buying videoboxes from England and also had a friend in the USA send us brand new episodes on VHS tapes so we really didn't watch it in order.
I bought the books too and the DVD's and was really into this show for about 6 years. Then somewhere around 2005 my interest began to fade a little. By 2006 I no longer considered it my main fandom. By 2008 other fandoms began taking it's place in my life. Then in the early 2010's I rewatched both Buffy and Angel and enjoyed Angel more for it's more adult themes. I still have a fondness for both shows and SMG remains my most favorite contemporary actress but it hasn't been the same since Angel went off the air really.
Looking back now I feel old when I think of it's been 20 years even though it's been 18 years since I first heard of it. Prior to watching Buffy we had seen Alyson Hannigan in a movie and SMG in a mini tv-series. But the rest of the cast were unknown to us.
Oh and speaking of the cast here's an article of what they are doing now:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/break...-20-where-are-the-shows-stars-now-780986.html
Karin Schill, Mar 10, 2017
ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989 Soap Chat Addict
I was 8 years old at the time, in England there was a "BBC Kid friendly" version and the full violent version late on Friday nights, naturally I would watch the latter instead ;-)
Buffy first aired in the Summer of 1997 over here, I was hooked instantly, the first four seasons were sublime however once Dawn and Spike effectively take over the show from season 5 onwards, I started to lose interest, every other episode was either about "Saving Dawn" or "Let's show new ways that Spike is cool"
I carried on watching til the end though, the aspect I loved about the show was the Buffy-Xander-Willow
Friendship, something which I feel was neglected in later seasons, I was surprised to learn that
Sarah Michelle Geller and Nicholas Brendon wanted Buffy and Xander together in the final season, which I thought was the natural progression for these two characters, that after all the weird relationships they had with other people, they would find some normality with each other.
I feel old now when I think how old this show is now.
ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989, Mar 10, 2017
Yikes reading your comment makes me feel even older as I was almost 17 when Buffy premiered and well by the time I got into the show I was 19. I kept telling myself I was "too old" to get that much into a new fandom as I was almost an adult and barely even a teenager anymore. I figured people in their 20s were supposed to be more mature! Yet I got totally into it.
I remember the kiddie version you refer to as well since I was a summer au pair in Wales back in the summer of 2000 and I remember watching some episodes of Buffy season three on BBC then and they had censored the mutual dream love scene in "Amends".
I've never heard the rumour of Xander and Buffy getting together in season seven even though I think it would have been odd at that point as Anya and Xander was really a good couple and most fans wanted Buffy with either Angel or Spike. But yeah I remember one of my friends was always a B/X shipper!
I'll find the link and show you, Joss Whedon vetoed against as we all know.
Buffy was better with Angel, she was more independent, more sure of herself and her destiny with Angel by her side, Buffy with Spike seemed to me like how they would've handled Buffy/Xander in the early years, she seemed like a big sister to him more than anything, Spike was so needy, it became irritating, Xander had outgrown this long before the college yeas, plus Xander was the only member of the scoobies who would stand up to Buffy and tell her how it was, without it being brotherly or boyfriendly
And Buffy never rebuffed his advice or how he spoke to her.
I loved Anya, she was awesome, shame she was killed off
Thanks I appreciate it if you could find the link.
I agree that Anya never should have been killed and that Buffy was better with Angel.
Here's an article with DB about Buffy:
http://ew.com/tv/2017/03/10/david-b.../?xid=entertainment-weekly_socialflow_twitter
darkshadows38 Soap Chat Well-Known Member
Along The Path Of The Beam
July 25 (2005)
but Angel still was a great show it was just different that's all and that's not a bad thing either. both shows had really shitty endings though. Buffy was also the only show that i can think of that i watched only because i thought Sarah Michelle was hot as hell. i was in high school at the time too. i was 18 when the show 1st came on. and i still love the show today. and not all of Joss's shows i've loved but most of them i have really loved.
darkshadows38, Mar 11, 2017
I agree with you that the ending of both shows left a lot to be desired.
with Buffy you can blame the WB because on both fronts it's cause they just would NOT let the guy have his finales be 2 hrs. which is why Buffy feels rushed and unfinished & with Angel it was going to be a cliff-hanger ending that was going to end that season and go into the next one had it been renewed but Joss said you know what? screw it i'm just to damn lazy to give it an actual ending that people will like and because i'm being an ass i'll just leave it. plus it may pass the WB off because they also would NOT give him an extra hour for that one either which is why that one felt rushed & by the time his son shows up at the damn near end of it and we get the really shitty cliff-hanger the episode to me just feels like it was just getting started. buffy had a better ending to be fair cause it HAD an ending at least. i may not like what they did with Anya and so forth & putting Angel in there for 5 minutes was pretty pointless as well. .but it's funny how they later did season 8 in comic book form and a season 9 as well i dunno if they did anymore after that but in the comics at some point they kill Giles i believe i read somewhere when they did that.
the reason was that i think they didn't need him anymore since Buffy is such a strong character and by than didn't need her watcher in their eyes. but since that's in comic book form that really doesn't bother me since it just doesn't feel like it's cannon to me. i've also never read them either, but the tv show oh buffy Not being the only slayer that didn't bother me at all i liked that actually cause it meant she could have somewhat of a life. the idea of the 1st evil in the last season was a good one but why create a big bad if you can't kill it and if you DO that will mess up the show Angel as well since that was still on at the time as well.
though having Rick Castle play an evil son of a bitch was worth having that last season though. honestly i don't hate the last season of buffy because honestly that last season feels more put together and better written than Angel because well with Buffy they KNEW it was going to end and they had a way to end it & that doesn't mean we have to like the ending but it HAD an ending at least. with ANGEL that wasn't intended to end that season so it felt rushed and all clunkly and full of too many filler episodes of stuff from the past that don't get me wrong i love. but they went way over board and left too much out of what was going on in the present.
plus them killing off damn near everyone at the end i saw NO point in that at all and hated it. the getting rid of Fred was just pointless and stupid and they did NOTHING with the thing she turned into unless you count at the very end when it pretended to be Fred For Wesley. so yes buffy at least had a better ending. but it's funny Joss Whedon is awful at writing endings for shows. Firefly i may own on blu-ray the series and i enjoy it but it's a way over-rated show i think. i loved Doll house MUCH better and hated the ending to that but at least that one HAD an ending. i won't spoil the way that one ended cause i dunno if anyone here saw it? but if not please check it out and be warned that it's starts off pretty slow but each episode it got better and season 2 is actually far better than season 1 and even season 3 was great too but the ending with that twist i hated it. great cast too in that one as well.
I agree with you about Angel. It sucked how they killed off Fred and Cordelia.
Why is it only the female characters in the Whedonverse that are killed off?
Also you are so right that Angel wasn't supposed to end like that. They wanted a season six and the fans wanted a season six and went to great lengths to "Save Angel" and despite the fan campaigns and thousands of signatures on petitions and postcard campaigns not to mention that advertising truck, the WB still wouldn't renew the show and that really sucks considering how important Buffy and Angel had been to them. Also SMG was not able to do a guest spot for the end of Angel as she was in Japan filming The Grudge. So yeah to their defense Angel didn't end the way Joss and co. wanted either. But it still sucked.
I don't consider the comic books canon either. I have tried reading one but they were definitely not my cup of tea.
see the WB really used to pass me off cause of the bitch that was in charge Dawn something. she cancelled the good shows and kept the bad ones. like she got rid of Veronica
Mars and kept that stupid ass model show. yes i'm still pissed about it 10 years later. with Cordy, i think she wanted to leave the show in her last season or something i forget anymore. and she was only allowed to come back for one episode but if they killed her. WTF? or something like that. what that bitch Dawn Ostriff? or whatever her name is never fully realized is that was a small channel that was NEVER going to get the ratings of say HBO or some of the other networks. the dude in charge at the CW gets that i think and yes shows get cancelled for various reasons but i think he gives them more of a chance. Buffy';s and Angel's ratings weren't as good in their last couple seasons and that does happen. Hart of dixie from a couple years back got horrible ratings i mean they were 0 something check out the ratings on wikipedia but it was a pretty good show. i dunno about the last couple seasons though. that ended on it's own terms.
than you have Supernatural which at times i think can have pretty bad ratings but they say it's i think their highest rated show or one of them. and the current network dude who runs the channel LOVES the show so he's keeping it on as long as the boys want to do it. he gets it i think.
Karin Schill said: ↑
Yeah I don't consider the comic books canon, I like to think Buffy ended with the gang taking a well earned break, leaving the new legion of Slayers to kill off all manner of dark creatures and the gang teaching new slayers rather than fighting them.
I like that idea for an ending.
And yeah the WB really should have given Angel a sixth and last season. Somehow I think their refusal to do so lead to their downfall as the channel was merged into the CW a few years later.
oh i don't hate the buffy ending i just find it weak as hell that's all. they no doubt were forced to cut certain things for time. i remember reading when Dawsons creek was ending about stuff that was cut from the last episode for time and i dunno if it's on the dvd or not but it did anger me but that i got. why it was cut i mean.
and yes i do agree that is why the WB ended it was cause of thinking that way. hell even HBO was for years a channel that was a channel that wasn't anywhere like it is now.
so that's where the CW is right now i think. it's a small channel and yes there are certain shows like Smallville and Supernatural and Vampire Diaries for one that people have heard of. even that awful show My crazy Ex-Girlfriend man is that show awful. so that channel to me is starting to slowly get a name for itself finally but they are still a small channel and at i think that's due to the fact that it's current president knows his shit & maybe in 10 years if he's still there it will be a bigger channel and obtain bigger audience numbers but at the moment it does not.
As I said earlier, Buffy started going downhill when season 5 rolled around, it had lost its edge, it seemed that the edginess had been given to the Angel spinoff and replaced by the Scoobies literal answer to Scrappy Doo: Dawn, who can forget that god awful shriek "Get out, get out GET OUTTTTTTT!!!" In season 5 or 6 I think it was -_- I didn't mind Spike but he was given way too much exposure, I know he was meant to replace both Angel and Cordiela but it got too much, his relationship with Buffy should never have gone beyond a creepy one sided crush in my opinion.
The finale was very rushed, not what I was expecting for Buffy but at least it was given a finale, unlike what Angel got the following year.
It occurred to me as to why the last few seasons went downhill, Joss Whedon was hardly there at that time, especially after seasons 6 & 7, he was working on the Brilliant Firefly, which had all the trappings of the early years of Buffy, which explains why seasons 6 and 7 are too bright and airy and why the humour felt forced, Whedon was also working on other projects at the time too, I never realised this before, at least I know the JW wasn't entirely responsible for the mess in the last few years.
True Joss was working on "Fireflop" as the Buffyverse fans called it at the time. I guess we were a bit annoyed that he abandoned our favorite shows to go work on a show that never made it past the first season. It seemed quite a waste at the time.
I do realize that Firefly has gathered a cult following in its own right by now though.
Anyway Buffy was handed over to Marti Noxon as showrunner and she insisted on the B/S storyline since it was supposed to symbolize her own life in college and when she was just in a relationship for the amazing sex or so I read in an interview. I used to read a lot of Buffy related articles back then and was even subscribed to the official magazine.
Oh god no!? Really? I always thought that the B/S storyline sounded like something out of a fanfiction, wish fulfilment, self insterted fangirl dream, it made Buffy look weak and victimy hence why I preferred her with Angel, heck even when she was with Riley she had great chemistry with him.
like i said Firefly i like the show but it's over-rated to say the least and i think had it lasted longer that it did the show could have gotten better. but it's not an awful show just over-rated that's all. i don't think it's brilliant either but to each their own. as for Buffy season 5 i like actually. but them bringing Dawn in was pointless and i have nothing against the actress who played her she's fine. and the storyline with Glory was one i did like. but than they kept Dawn on and i get she was a teenager but they made her so damn annoying that you just wanted to punch her in the face on a daily basis cause on how annoying she was. no i don't think all teenage girls are like that either dawn was.
as for the Spike storylilne i don't think they needed to have Spike have a sex buddy with Buffy but that doesn't anger me. in once more with a feeling which has some things in i really like, like the music and it has Buffy say/sing how she has been miserable and pretty much say you guys just don't get it and spike did and i like that. she confided in him that season and that i liked. so season 6 had some things i liked. i really HATED Tara though i like the actress but hated the character and was thrilled when she was killed.
plus we got the evil Willow which i really loved the ending with Xander being the one to bring her back to herself instead of it being buffy. i also hated that they made willow gay. i wish if they were going to do that, they should have done that at the start of the show. though i would have liked to see what it would have happened if Xander & Buffy did end up together. Sarah M. Geller and Nick Brendon both begged Joss for that to happen. but he wouldn't do it, it doesn't pass me off but i just wonder what kind of storylines that would have had. it took me years to start to like season 4. cause season 3 is my favorite and season 5 i think is a better season than season 4. i saw no point in killing Joyce at all either.
a LOT of people love that episode and i never thought it was that great. season 6 & 7 are weak because of one thing it had i think far too much interference from the network.
they wanted them to do this and that. & i hated them having Xander break up with Anya i didn't think they needed do that either. so yes the show has a LOT of things i didn't like at all. but i did love seeing Willow fly someone alive that was a cool effect. one episode i don't really care for is in season 4 where the wild things are. i had to look up on my season 4 dvd for the title. where buffy and Riley spend the entire episode screwing. that wasn't needed at all plus the episode is awful.
you know it's amazing how many people who wrote for Buffy and angel have moved onto bigger things. like Drew Goddard. Jane Epsonon which is a name i just killed she used to write for Grey's. i dunno if she still does, and others as well. with Johnathon the actor who played him ended up writing the last 2 Hunger games films!
Danny Strong it came to me what his name was yesterday. also Jane E. i forget her last name she works on one of many shows i love. Once upon a time
Ome Admin
Ome, Mar 29, 2017
Canon Soap Chat Fan
School Reunion, the cast of Buffy Reunited
http://ew.com/tv/2017/03/29/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-reunion-ew-cover/
It's so odd to see them all together again.
Canon, Mar 29, 2017
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