Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I came late to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Friends had told me I’d like it, but I didn’t believe them. I’d seen the movie starring where-are-they-now Luke Perry and Kristy Swanson and hadn’t been impressed. The TV show’s premise sounded silly and identical to the 1992 movie: perky, teen blonde killing vampires. But then, by accident, I watched an episode. Buffy Summers moves to the Californian town of Sunnydale looking for a fresh start after being kicked out of her old school for burning down the gymnasium. As it turns out, her new school is built smack in the middle of a Hellmouth, home to all things demonic and hard to kill.

Soon I was tracking down the episodes I’d missed. Now I have every Buffy episode on DVD and video, four seasons of the spin-off show Angel, two miniature figurines - I’d prefer to not call them dolls - of Buffy and Spike and a Buffy watch I ordered online. It doesn’t feel sad in the slightest.

To understand what it is I like about Buffy, I’d probably have to return to my childhood predilection for supernatural American television shows: Nanny and the Professor, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and H.R. Pufnstuf. That’s where The Brady Bunch got it wrong. If Alice had been a witch, things might have turned out differently.

There’s just something about Buffy. For me, most episodes are a perfect blend of irony, mythology, humour, glamour and violence. There was the occasional flat spot but then it would soar and grab you all over again.

After a few episodes, it’s easy to see why so many academics have forged careers deconstructing the complexities of the Buffyverse. There’s a lot to work with: more popular culture references than you could poke a stake at, ethical dilemmas, gender issues, race relations, politics, humour, existential questions, sex and sexuality and, of course, death. It’s also very funny. I always got the impression that the Buffy crew, from actors to key grip, had a good time making it and that Joss Whedon, creator and sometime director, was just as much of a fan as the fans were.

As the years passed, watching Buffy became a ritual. While other girls met at bars to watch Sex and the City and drink Cosmopolitans, Buffy fans huddled at a friend’s house, ordered pizza and kicked off each episode by mimicking the opening chords of the soundtrack.

There were times when conversations ended abruptly because I’d assumed everyone watched it. Whenever someone said, "I’ve never seen it", I’d have to stop myself from shaking my head in disbelief. How can you have missed the kiss between Buffy and Angel when the small cross around her neck burnt into his flesh? Or when she found her mother dead on the couch? Or when Buffy had to claw her way out of a coffin after she was raised from the dead by her best friend Willow? Or when Willow’s lover, Tara, was shot through the heart?

Eventually Angel left both Buffy the girl and Buffy the show to star in his own spin-off, but it didn’t matter. Both programs shared a network, so Buffy and Angel would pop up in each other’s shows.

At first I treated Angel like a poor relation. I took it for granted. I missed episodes. And then came the news that season seven of Buffy would be the final (the last episode aired around this time last year). It was hard to believe. I began to realise how much I was going to miss it. Conversations revolved around how it would end and who would die. No other television series had ever captured my imagination in quite the same way.

Now Angel is coming to an end too - a subject Joss Whedon is fond of; end of the world, the apocalypse, doomsday, Armageddon. It’s been an interesting last season, but not without its faults, such as when Angel and Spike dropped in on Buffy in her new home town of Rome. In real life, of course, Sarah Michelle Gellar has moved on. So what did they do? They had a fleeting glimpse of a blonde girl dancing in a nightclub. Buffy’s hair never moved like that and fans knew it.

Nitpicking aside, it’s been a fun time, and I suppose there will be other television shows to enjoy. Friends keep telling me how much I’d like the Sopranos.

The Buffy Downunder national convention is on today and tomorrow at the Crown conference centre. The final episode of Angel screens on Channel Seven next Thursday.