Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I like a good vampire tale.

And so I checked out an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer during its first season.

Buffy was fighting a spider monster that looked like a cheesy reject from a B-grade mutant movie. I dismissed it as a teen exploitation show, using Sarah Michelle Gellar in halter tops as bait.

So I flipped the channel.

I don’t know why I flipped back the next year toward the end of the second season.

This time I tuned in long enough to get to know the characters, to appreciate the clever writing and plots, to marvel at how the show moved from horror to humor, from despair to happiness.

I began watching two hours of reruns every night on the FX network to catch up on what I missed.

Soon my wife, Laurie, who hates horror movies, began watching with me. "It’s OK," I said soothingly. "This actually is intelligent television."

Tonight, we will watch the last Buffy. It is a sad occasion, but I’d rather Buffy leave me than I leave her like I’ve left so many programs.

I don’t know why such a consistently excellent show is not more popular. Perhaps the name is to blame.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It implies fluff, foolishness and Sarah Michelle Gellar in halter tops.

I quit trying to explain to those not blessed with my superior insight and open mind that I don’t tune in to see a jiggly blond doing flying head kicks.

Sarah Michelle is not my type.

I prefer brunettes like Faith.

Faith also is a vampire slayer in the show. Unlike Buffy, Faith is nasty. She dances dirty, dresses slutty and craves sex after decapitating demons.

But I think the mom on Gilmore Girls is hotter than Faith. If this were about watching babes, I’d be watching that show and cheering for a vampire to snack on Rory’s throat.

Unlike the Gilmore Girls, the Buffy teenagers talk like teenagers, not clever 40-year-old scriptwriters.

Buffy is about many things, but mostly it’s about teenagers growing up in a hostile world. If you want to better understand your kid, watch Buffy.

But be forewarned that some of the monsters may be you.

I won’t go in depth on this. Countless academic studies and papers already have been written on the true meaning of Buffy.

What I will do is applaud Buffy creator Joss Whedon. His arrogance turned Buffy into brilliant television. He remained loyal to his vision, even if it meant jettisoning viewers.

Last season, the sixth, was so depressingly dark that ratings dropped sharply. Joss forced his merry band of teenagers to grow up and it was painful to watch. They became all-too human, self-obsessed and unlikable.

Buffy turned cynical and sinister and got involved in a destructive and disturbingly violent sexual relationship with a vampire.

Some loyalists in the newsroom complained. Better this, however, than running the series into the ground with the same old formula season after season.

Whedon also was intensely loyal to those of us who hung with him, creating strings and plot lines that ran back several years. Because of that, it was not an easy entry show, another reason for its lack of viewers.

To those who didn’t know better, it was about monsters. For those who did, it was about much more.