Buffy Bafflement

Buffy The Vampire Slayer -- Joss Whedon's seminal television series, not to be confused with the Alicia Silverstone movie even he laments -- turned 20 this week. Or so I'm guessing -- my various feeds are larded with celebratory Buffy pieces with the number "20" in their tagline, and I've only followed up on one or two. I never caught the Buffy bug.

I'm not sure what I was watching 20 years ago -- Teletubbies, probably. Our first kid was born shortly after Buffy aired, and after that television became a catch-as-catch-can business.

The only episode I did catch (while surfing) and watch in its entirety was the all-musical "Once More, With Feeling."

Demonstrating proper choral technique (except for the two sad-sacks in the back)

I had no clue what the back-story was to any of the song-and-dance shenanigans, but I dug the audacity of what I was seeing. What's more, the premise sold itself as explicable -- which, considering I was a first-time viewer, was a startling accomplishment.

I tried tuning in again the next week, but what I saw didn't grab me so it was back to either Barney The Dinosaur or Hockey Night In Canada.

Those years are a blur for us all, I know.

Since then I've taken a couple of runs at the series, even purchasing the DVDs at a screaming bar-goon. The last attempt was with my daughters in their early teens. We got through the first season and a half, then bailed.

If pressed to explain my antipathy I'd probably resort to the superficial. The episodic reliance on the choreographed karate-with-wooden-stakes climax quickly became tedious. As for the High School drama, well . . . there was enough of that at the dinner table, and it made what we saw on the screen look a tad self-indulgent, if not privileged. Also, there's a certain Kabuki-like stiltedness that Whedon seems to nudge his actors toward -- it's inherent to television serials, generally, but seems particularly pronounced when paired with the self-aware-geek dialogue Whedon writes. I imagine the effect fades with prolonged cast experience/viewer exposure, but it remains an initial barrier regardless.

The people who are fond of Buffy are passionately fond of it -- and were probably in their late-teens-to-twenties when they first saw it. As ever, it leaves me pondering the nostalgia-divide, which begins and concludes at different ages for different people. We are living in the Golden Age of Television, apparently. If given another 20-plus years of TV exposure, will I be nostalgic about any of it to the point of willingly indulging in repeat viewing?

Mm -- Arthur, maybe.

"'Buffy binge'? We are THERE!"