Created by Joss Whedon
1997 - 2003
A high schooler with the destiny to be the once-in-a-generation girl who kicks and stabs vampires to death is forced to sideline her personal life in order to live up to this prophecy. Along the way she makes friends of all varieties as she faces off against evil and still tries to live a normal life.
One of the main strengths of this show is in its characters. While many people would point out the dialogue as being the main draw, I personally often find it pretty cringe-inducing, as Whedon's smarminess and consistent need to feel like he's being clever and witty becomes a genuine bore after not terribly long. That being said, the characters themselves are often well-defined and the performances behind them carry them even when the writing sometimes fails. The writing for a character like Angel relies heavily on the charm and charisma of David Boreanaz, but thanks to the acting and a strongly-constructed character outline, he stands out as a great and layered character.
A definite product of the self-aware '90s (which became all the rage during this time, particularly within the horror genre), Buffy feels like a direct response to cheesy cult movies like The Lost Boys and Fright Night which helped reinvigorate the vampire genre in the '80s, only with an even more tongue-in-cheek approach. And as someone who generally rolls my eyes at the popular trope of having young, skinny girls be able to kick strong burly men's asses, this show didn't bother me at all in that way because they actually bothered to establish a reason for this. For, you see, writing is actually important to me.
There is sadly a lack of fun and creative prosthetic/practical makeup being used in many shows and movies today, which makes watching something like this all the more entertaining for someone like me, who values visual creativity and tangible special effects. While the "vamp" makeup is definitely reminiscent of The Lost Boys, the show thrives when given the task of presenting to the audience a variety of demonic entities -- although these often do tend to look a bit samey after a while. Still, I can't help but to enjoy watching a show that goes out of its way to implement plenty of elaborate makeup and prop design.
While each season has its obvious ups and downs, the second and third seasons are where the show hit its stride, and it begins to falter immediately after this with possibly the weakest season of the show happening right in the middle of its overall run. But again, due to the largely episodic nature of this show, there are plenty of great episodes mixed throughout to keep the show from totally sucking during the more serialized storylines. There are plenty of genuinely awful and/or annoying characters to suffer through, but with others like Buffy, Giles, and (particularly) Spike and Angel, the positives far outweigh the negatives in this regard.
In the end, while I love plenty of the characters, makeup effects, and set designs, what makes this show really tick is in its emotion. There are plenty of funny episodes and nearly just as many that are tragic. I don't think it would be unrealistic to assume many viewers would find several episodes difficult not to cry during, and once again that falls back on the actors themselves. Sarah Michelle Gellar, while she sometimes struggles with the comedy, has a very expressive face and the ability to emote shockingly well. And she's just one example.
There are many things about this show that are pretty weak, but the overall results and my feelings for it are generally very positive. It's a fun show with a lot of heart, some genuinely creative ideas, incredibly memorable characters, and more than a handful of episodes that (for various reasons) I have never been able to forget.
My grade: B+
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