Buffy The Vampire Slayer

"Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," rest in peace.

Buffy, you’ll be missed. You saved the world. A lot.

The series finale of any great television series — and "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" was great throughout most of its seven-season run — is almost always a letdown. There are so many expectations, so many open story lines that must be closed. And the characters of a beloved series have, for each viewer, a life and importance all their own, and that feeling isn’t always shared by the people trying to wrap up the finale and so, inevitably, it’s emotionally messy when it should be perfect.

As "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" ends its run at 8 Tuesday night on UPN, there is a feeling of enormous loss for the creativity that helped elevate television for seven years and — just a smidge here — a feeling that the opportunity to go out on a high was missed. The finale is good, but it’s not great; there are question marks left strewn about. But after much thinking about it, well, maybe the finale is not the point.

It was the journey to Sunnydale and the days spent there that mattered. It was that crazy, brilliantly conceived idea of having a gutsy, funny but not- that-bright high school girl live in a bucolic suburb that just happened to sit on top of the so-called Hellmouth. Buffy was the chosen one, the latest (last?) Slayer, called upon to kill vampires and other demons. So goes the premise. But any fan of the series — and one of the best-kept secrets of television was that the fan base spanned preteens to card-carrying AARPers — knew that "Buffy" was never as silly as its title.

Just briefly about that: The title may have deterred people from watching. But that title also meant that people had to look beyond it, not to judge the show on its face, to open their minds to possibility. Most television works very hard to keep viewers’ minds closed, to provide tried-and-true laughs for weary working folk who need it and to foist upon us cookie-cutter familiarity that allows us to know that the cops will catch the criminals and, when the world gets a little too weird, that someone like Jessica Fletcher will be there to put the world to right.

"Buffy" was different. One of television’s finest examples of a cult hit, the series — created by the supremely talented Joss Whedon — was clever on many levels and never catered to simplicity or safe predictability. Monsters substituted neatly for real-life demons — especially for the core teen viewers who believe that they are alone in a complicated world. "Buffy" was smartly written, a wink-wink to the intelligentsia that got past the title and embraced the concept. It managed, over seven seasons, to be pop-culturally savvy and teen-speak sophisticated and led, not followed, the entire way. An amazing feat, although Whedon has missed out on the mainstream applause given to peers such as Aaron Sorkin, David E. Kelley and Steven Bochco.

That "Buffy" never won an Emmy represents a tragic lack of vision that has been discussed here many times. No need to rant about that now. This is all about appreciation, ultimately, for a series so deftly able to cover so many emotional bases. "Buffy" could be simultaneously funny, scary, touching, sad and sexy in a single episode. Whedon started out coyly writing about teenage isolation or alienation, but he quickly expanded to embrace issues of death, spirituality, corporate greed, naked ambition, unchecked ego, sexual orientation, fear of the larger world and, in a strand that ran through seven seasons, the beautiful, ever-changing bonds of friendship.

The Scooby-Gang — they, too, will be missed.

You didn’t think this was just a show about a girl slaying vampires, did you? Oh, silly you.

Even in its most simplistic terms — vamps, demons and monsters versus the world (thanks for saving us again, "Buffy"), the series was entertaining. Every episode was good for a spook — some "thing" was forever jumping out from the dark.

But combine that with the witty wordplay, the emotional resonance and the intricate character development and larger themes — now that’s a neat trick, a rare bit of television indeed.

In its seven seasons, there were few missteps. Last year saw one of the biggest, as the characters were manipulated to implode and it seemed as if the writers and producers were exorcising their own personal demons instead of, in Buffy-speak, "following the narrative flow." Even so, in the midst of that off- track year, Whedon created perhaps the greatest "Buffy" episode, the "Once More, With Feeling" musical. It was a fantastic piece of television.

So how do you conclude a series rife with mythology, peopled with characters you actually care about and a story arc that cries out for some kind of two-hour over-the-top spectacle? Well, you do the best you can, apparently. Tuesday’s finale will make most fans happy as long as they understand that the limitations of the hour can’t possibly do everyone justice — and there’s that undeniable fact that it’s just plain sad to see Buffy go.

And yet the humor is there, as expected. A favorite line that gives nothing away: "There’s another one in Cleveland." There are a few surprises, though nothing truly shocking. There’s a low throb of sadness. And yes, there’s that feeling of something being incomplete, an artistic reach that falls short of closure.

Beyond that, there’s this: If you never watched "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, " then you missed out. Honestly. It was not only a pop cultural phenomenon, but it was also that elusive, fervently sought-after creation — a brilliant television show.

Here’s to everyone’s opening their eyes to possibility in TV, no matter what the title or the network. And here’s to reruns, too.