hello, 1999.
So, I've been re-watching Buffy.
The first three years it was on teevee, Buffy was my LIFE. I mean, I was still into The X-Files and I still did most of my fannish stuff on the Questors Jonny Quest mailing list, but in my real life, it was eat-sleep-breathe Buffy, 24/7. My middle school sorta-BFF and I called each other Willow and Buffy. We wrote fic and exchanged it during homeroom. I had all the episodes on tape and rewatched them all the time. I could basically recite entire episodes, knew the randomest trivia, bought all the merchandise.
I graduated from 8th grade when the Scoobies graduated from high school and... well. I don't like change. I didn't groove on the college years so much. My own life was changing too, of course. High school was different, my old friendships were quite as strong (my "Buffy" and I would have a tumultuous relationship for the next four years, ending with six months of us both blatantly disliking each other and only pretending to be friends to get us through graduation), I had new activities in my life that didn't always allow for time spent obsessing over a show that just... wasn't as good anymore.
I hung around. I probably wouldn't have managed it without the addition of Tara, another smart, reserved character that popped up right around the time Willow was becoming powerful and outspoken and less a reflection of my own life. I can admit, objectively, that Buffy became a better show in the later seasons than it was when it was all centered on the library and demons where a metaphor for growing up and high school angst, but that was what I missed, what I wanted: the Scoobies in the library, researching the big bad and wondering what they were going to do for fun that weekend. A perpetual sophomore year.
Watching again, for the first time in over a decade in some cases, is...weird. I can still recite almost entire episodes and I still laugh in the same places, but it's also kind of like going back in time to where I was when these episodes were first happening. I entertain mcwonthelottery with amusing tidbits about insides jokes from the cast and what episodes were preempted and why. I still can't remember how I managed to see "Graduation Day, Part 2" before season four started. I imagine I made a deal with someone online and had them send their tape to my house, but who knows. I do remember that I was the first one to have it, so it ended up passed along to all of my friends so they could see it too.
(I still think that was stupid. I mean, seriously, the fact that they thought a demon attacking a school and the student body coming together as a unit to fight for each other was similar to the shooting at Columbine is more disturbing than anything that actually took place during that episode.)
I'm tempted to not watch any further, but I do miss Tara and I did promise Becca that, eventually, Spike and Giles watch soap operas in Giles' apartment. But this is really the end of the era of Buffy that I LOVED and even though it's been gone for over ten years now, I still don't like change and I'm still sorry to see it go.
But, you know, "Once More With Feeling." So I'll hang in a little longer.
The first three years it was on teevee, Buffy was my LIFE. I mean, I was still into The X-Files and I still did most of my fannish stuff on the Questors Jonny Quest mailing list, but in my real life, it was eat-sleep-breathe Buffy, 24/7. My middle school sorta-BFF and I called each other Willow and Buffy. We wrote fic and exchanged it during homeroom. I had all the episodes on tape and rewatched them all the time. I could basically recite entire episodes, knew the randomest trivia, bought all the merchandise.
I graduated from 8th grade when the Scoobies graduated from high school and... well. I don't like change. I didn't groove on the college years so much. My own life was changing too, of course. High school was different, my old friendships were quite as strong (my "Buffy" and I would have a tumultuous relationship for the next four years, ending with six months of us both blatantly disliking each other and only pretending to be friends to get us through graduation), I had new activities in my life that didn't always allow for time spent obsessing over a show that just... wasn't as good anymore.
I hung around. I probably wouldn't have managed it without the addition of Tara, another smart, reserved character that popped up right around the time Willow was becoming powerful and outspoken and less a reflection of my own life. I can admit, objectively, that Buffy became a better show in the later seasons than it was when it was all centered on the library and demons where a metaphor for growing up and high school angst, but that was what I missed, what I wanted: the Scoobies in the library, researching the big bad and wondering what they were going to do for fun that weekend. A perpetual sophomore year.
Watching again, for the first time in over a decade in some cases, is...weird. I can still recite almost entire episodes and I still laugh in the same places, but it's also kind of like going back in time to where I was when these episodes were first happening. I entertain mcwonthelottery with amusing tidbits about insides jokes from the cast and what episodes were preempted and why. I still can't remember how I managed to see "Graduation Day, Part 2" before season four started. I imagine I made a deal with someone online and had them send their tape to my house, but who knows. I do remember that I was the first one to have it, so it ended up passed along to all of my friends so they could see it too.
(I still think that was stupid. I mean, seriously, the fact that they thought a demon attacking a school and the student body coming together as a unit to fight for each other was similar to the shooting at Columbine is more disturbing than anything that actually took place during that episode.)
I'm tempted to not watch any further, but I do miss Tara and I did promise Becca that, eventually, Spike and Giles watch soap operas in Giles' apartment. But this is really the end of the era of Buffy that I LOVED and even though it's been gone for over ten years now, I still don't like change and I'm still sorry to see it go.
But, you know, "Once More With Feeling." So I'll hang in a little longer.