Week in, week out, first run and rerun, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is always a pleasant shock. I almost wrote pleasant schlock, which isn't the insult it might seem. For Buffy is -- among other things -- a great TV series risen from the ashes of a piece of burned-out junk: the 1992 film of the same name. The latter featured a script by a 25-year-old Joss Whedon, but -- as is the fate of so many screenplays, especially those by young writers without much clout -- his material was distorted and watered down. Its title notwithstanding, the movie was fluffy, not Buffy.
But as the comely vampire slayer has done herself so many times, Whedon exacted his revenge. Working with Sandollar production exec Gail Berman (now president of Regency TV), Whedon offered his original, unsullied concept of an empowered young woman caught between two nightmare worlds -- high school and the Hellmouth -- to Fox and NBC; both turned him down flat. It took The WB, a fledgling network in search of ratings and a distinctive identity, to take a chance -- to, in the words of Berman, ''give us some wiggle room'' in story lines, casting, and flat-out kookiness.
To be sure, the announcement that a '97 mid-season debut would be based on a teen movie most middle-aged TV critics hadn't seen, featuring a former soap opera star and the British guy who'd been in those coy Taster's Choice commercials, did little to instill hope in the hearts of the press or the public. But with remarkable speed, Buffy became that rare kind of TV programming: a show whose characters grew only more complex (and -- rarer still -- not even necessarily more likable), and one in which episodes began adding up to a rich, expansive mythology that could accommodate any comment Whedon and company wanted to make on contemporary culture.
Whedon's vision draws from the conventions of teen film comedies, cutting-edge comic books, and cinematic horror series such as Friday the 13th to provide viewers with an easily identifiable structure and a heroine to whom they can relate. Sure, Buffy is Earth's current Chosen One -- the latest in a centuries-long line of demon slayers (all female, we might add). Yet for all the show's fantasy trappings, she's more realistically drawn than any other teenager on TV. Her good looks and super training don't help her with failing school grades, teachers who've pegged her as a problem child, and a mother who can't fathom the burdens of dating an undead guy. Time and again, Buffy (as smartly played by Sarah Michelle Gellar) takes on heavy-duty, life-and-death responsibilities, giving the lie to the current cliche of adolescents as self-absorbed, work-phobic louts. Indeed, other than a variation on ''Jolly good show!'' from her Watcher, she gets zip for saving the world from hell's hounds. Think of Buffy as Whedon's take on Reviving Ophelia: building a girl's self-esteem by first acknowledging the validity of her woes, and, second, suggesting she attack her fears head-on, lest she drive a stake into her own heart.
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