Buffy The Vampire Slayer

For $1,700, you can sign up for an Alaskan cruise on a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" "convention at sea," where fanatics may dine and chat with a few actors who played side characters from the TV show. You have time to save up. The ship docks in June 2007.

"Buffy" fans who can’t wait that long can attend, in May, a "Slayage" conference at Gordon College, in Barnesville, Ga. At this year’s conference in Nashville, 180 scholarly papers were read to Buffyologists from around the world — papers on "Buffy" and other fictions crafted by Joss Whedon.

And fans who merely want to watch the show have access to a new 40-disc DVD box set of all seven "Buffy" seasons, fetching $170, which may comfort Chicago-based fans since "Buffy" reruns are limited to 6 a.m. daily viewings on FX.

There’s yet more to consider, from random "Buffy"-related university classes to video games and action figures.

All this for a TV show that hasn’t had a new episode since ending its run on the little UPN network in 2003.

People who never understood the appeal might wonder, why the fuss? The short answer is that "Buffy" was the perfect seven-year movie featuring an ensemble cast. It was hard for a lot of newcomers — even if they could ignore a show title they found silly — to tune in during, say, season three, and understand motivations and character history.

It wasn’t just a vehicle for one-liners, or an intense drama about young people, or a comedy about the silliness of supernatural tales. It was that and more.

Its supernatural premise also triggered scorn by skeptics. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), at first a high school girl, inherited from the universe a super strength and intuition, sort of the way Tibetan Buddhists believe the Dalai Lama is reincarnated somewhere in the world as "the one" without genetic inheritance from the previous Dalai Lama.

Anyway, Buffy, her wiccan friend Willow and other friends shoved wooden stakes in vampires in their "Hellmouth" town of Sunnydale, and they stopped several very powerful supernatural evils from destroying the world.

But that was the plot structure, the spark for high drama and tension. As fans knew, the greater tension and drama belonged to the characters’ everyday lives. Buffy and friends were young men and women coping with not being popular at school, or struggling in college, or tending to well-bound yet fragile relationships with friends, lovers and mothers.

Whedon, 41, and his crew of writers and directors deserved much of the credit for painstakingly making the characters speak and behave like witty yet dorky and realistic young people — as opposed to the way young people generally are depicted as archtypes on TV.

Whedon — who is now directing a film version of "Wonder Woman," set for a 2007 release — planned story and character arcs for seasons in advance. Season seven’s final villain was introduced in season three. Her name was Jenny, or "The First" — the first and baddest evil. When she introduced herself to Buffy, the dialogue was typically dark and comic.

"You think you can fight me? I’m not a demon, little girl," The First told Buffy. "I am the thing the darkness fears. You’ll never see me, but I am everywhere. Every being, every thought, every drop of hate."

Buffy butted in with a dismissive response: "All right, I get it. You’re evil. Do we have to chat about it all day?"

Even in retrospect, it’s hard to grasp how the writing and acting was so good, virtually in every show. My favorite episode of any TV show remains "The Body" from season four. It begins with Buffy going home. She finds her mom on the couch, dead from natural causes. For the rest of the show, Buffy awaits paramedics. She stands speechless and has daydreams her mom is still alive, daydreams interrupted by the dead-silent stillness of the body.

For me, "The Body" is a pinnacle. No other TV show or movie has conveyed so realistically what it’s like to face the death of a loved one in that first surreal hour of shock, despair, loneliness and confusion.

The drama was always earned, and never cheap. After fans rooted for Willow, the witch, she briefly turned bad in the sixth season and nearly destroyed the Earth, because her lover Tara was killed not by a vampire but by the bullet of a human villain.

Willow used her powers to affix that villain to a tree where he, immobile, tried explaining it was an accident. But mid-sentence, Willow shut him up by saying, "Bored now," and with a wave of a spell-induced hand ripped the flesh off his body, thereby freaking out probably every "Buffy" fan in the world.

Buffy, Willow (Alyson Hannigan), Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and others were quick-witted, but their wit was specific to their characters. In season three, a collection of doppelgangers looked exactly like the "Buffy" crew. Willow saw her evil doppelganger and said, "That’s me as a vampire? I’m so evil and ... skanky. And I think I’m kinda gay."

Willow actually ended up being gay after that. The show never strove to be controversial, though. It never tricked its viewers. It merely dealt with life issues, such as Willow’s falling in love with a woman, or Buffy’s falling in love with one vampire and in lust with another.

These supernatural beings served more literate purposes. That Buffy’s loves were vampires reflected her attraction to bad boys with similar confidence.

Whedon and his staff mixed and matched genres. The two episodes that created the most buzz were a musical episode in season six and "Hush" in season four, when gangly floating creatures rendered Sunnydale mute and nearly destroyed them all while the episode played out in silence.

But also for one show during season four, a kid who was not a major character dominated the whole episode, and the opening credits were even changed to reflect how he would be the star of Sunnydale if his magic spell were to last.

Whedon has said before he didn’t watch TV, really, as a kid. This may explain why his ideas weren’t formulaic. He was not influenced by the often-demeaned medium in which he and his staff were integrating believable dialogue and behaviors into novel situations.

Women were primarily the heroes — and often the villains — dealing confidently, sometimes comically or occasionally with the pains and responsibilities of life. Perhaps UPN’s "Veronica Mars" is the only series now breaking molds and showing young women’s lives in such fully rendered 3-D.

That may explain why Whedon — after releasing his acclaimed film "Serenity" this year — took a small acting job on "Mars" two weeks ago, and has written in an online blog entry at Whedonesque.com that "Mars" is the "Best. Show. Ever."

As for his own creation, it’s hard to tell if "Buffy" will continue to build its cult. It isn’t playing in syndication as widely as it was after it was canceled, when Gellar insisted on leaving the show to pursue movies. Syndication is how the "Star Trek" congregation grew in the 1970s; even after it had been axed, reruns were exposing it to new viewers on TV constantly.

However, the "Star Trek"-ing of "Buffy" stuff never seems to stop. Whedon recently announced he’s planning for a new comic book to pick up where the show left off, with Buffy in Italy. And he’s trying to come up with a movie for Buffy’s soul-tortured vampire, Spike (James Marsters).

Between comics, conventions and cruises, "Buffy" isn’t sailing into obscurity anytime soon.

’Vampire’ chats: Memorable lines from the series

Some of the more memorable conversations between Buffy and friends Willow, Xander, Cordelia, Oz, vampire Spike and tranformed demon Anya:

Willow: You dreamed about Angel again?
Buffy: Third night in a row.
Willow: What did he do in the dream?
Buffy: Stuff.
Willow: Oh. Stuff. Was it one of those vivid dreams where you could feel his lips and smell his hair?
Buffy: It had surround-sound.

Spike (to a fellow vampire): "You were there? Oh, please. If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock."

Anya: Just the idea of computers was like, whoa. I’m 1,100 years old. I had trouble adjusting to the idea of Lutherans.

Willow: I’ll give Xander a call. What’s his number? Oh, yeah, 1-800-I’m-Dating-A-Skanky-Ho.
Buffy: Meow.
Willow: Really? Thanks. I’ve never gotten a "meow" before.

Cordelia: And once again, the gold medal in the Being Wrong event goes to Xander "I’m as Stupid as I Look" Harris.

Xander: You’re considered somewhat cool. Oz: I am?
Xander: Is it because you always tend to express yourself in short, noncommittal sentences?
Oz: Could be.

Buffy: What part of punching you in the face do you not understand?

Anya: Look, I know you find me attractive. I’ve seen you looking at my breasts.
Xander: Nothing personal, but when a guy does that, it just means his eyes are open.

Vampire: I’ve always wanted to kill the Slayer.
Buffy: And I’ve always wanted piano lessons. So really, who’s surprised we’ve got this unexpressed rage? But honestly, I think I express mine better. Tell you what, you find yourself a good anger management class, and I’ll jam this pokey wood stick through your heart.

Anya: We’re just kinda thrown by the you-having-sex-with-Spike. Buffy: The who whatting how with huh?
Anya: OK, that’s denial. That comes before anger. Buffy: I am not having sex with Spike.
Xander: No one is judging you. It’s understandable. Spike is strong and mysterious and sort of compact but well-muscled ...
Buffy: I am not having sex with Spike, but I’m starting to think you are.