Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The Clicker Gets Dynamic I love dynamic television. While sitcoms and static shows that insist on returning to status-quo by the end of the hour are fun for an occasional sit-down and unplug session, I’d much rather get invested in deep character development and plotlines that let me speculate about where things might go next.

One of the best things about shows with dynamic plotlines is being able to watch the series on DVD. Instead of having a week in between episodes, I can sit down and churn through as many episodes as I want to. I’ve been known to make my way through seasons of “Babylon 5” or “24” in just a few days and I have friends who can do it in even less time. Some of these shows have moved to entire series releases, offering new extras to sell the same show to fans who already bought the shows season by season (or just collecting together the individual seasons and calling it a “complete series” set).

So, with that lengthy introduction and, in the spirit of some possible Christmas gift ideas out there for fans who love dynamic storylines like I do, here are a few of my favorite shows in their best DVD collections. How many of them would you be happy to grind through in a few days?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer : Yes it’s cheesy, yes the metaphor can get awfully thin sometimes (being happy about surviving high school and not the more visible victory after defeating a demonic town mayor?) but the writing can also be incredibly clever and witty. Buffy really becomes unimportant in the grand scheme of things as the show goes on and the rest of the Scooby gang gets more interesting which helped the show survive past the death (and resurrection) of the main character. Although the end of the show begins to suffer the change of networks and creative hands behind the scenes, it’s still worth watching to the bitter end.

Best Moment: I still stand by Season 6’s musical episode “Once More With Feeling.” Other shows have used the musical gimmic, but few have actually moved the plot forward for the entire season like “Buffy” did.

Babylon 5 : I’m astonished that years after the show is done there still remains a bias against B5 from dedicated trekkies (you’d think Voyager and Enterprise would be enough to break even Roddenberry himself from blind devotion to Trek). Babylon 5 succeeded in telling a five year story on television with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. Like Buffy, Babylon suffered from a network change, forcing creator J. Michael Straczynski to adjust his thinking for the show and wrap up some storylines early, leaving the fifth season a little weaker than most. It still remains one of the best sci-fi shows to ever hit airwaves though (said by a fan of some Trek), although the last few years have begun to give B5 heavy competition in the world of dynamic storylines.

Best Moment: Captain Sheridan held prisoner in “Intersections in Real Time,” which gives the Cardassian emprisonment of Picard on “Next Generation” a run for its money. On a side note, once you know what unfolds throughout the series, it’s really interesting to watch how early the wheels start being set into motion for different storylines, creating a whole new set of best moments you weren’t even aware of the first time around.

24 : Jack Bauer’s worst days give dynamic storytelling a whole new definition. While the cliffhanger endings can make for painful weeks in between episodes, you can’t help but be pulled into each new hour watching the day unfold on DVD. Fortunately each season is self-contained enough that you can put the show down in between seasons, so you’ll rarely be pulled into more than 24 hours of viewing at a time... although season six may change that thanks to the end of season 5.

Best Moment: I still think the final hour of the first season is one of the most compelling and shocking hours of television ever created, pretty much motivating Jack Bauer through the rest of the series to date. Telling what happens... I’m still not confident the statue of limitations has run its course on that spoiler yet.

Lost : Not as intense as “24,” this is the show that has the opportunity to be the best dynamic storyline ever on television. Of course, with that risk it also has the chance to be one of the biggest letdowns since Fonzie jumped the original shark. So far, however, its story of survivors of a mysterious plane crash on an even more mysterious island hasn’t led us die-hard fans astray yet. Interestingly, the producers and ABC seem to get that fans want as much of the show as possible, leading to 17 weeks of uninterrupted new episodes each week in the spring.

Best Moment: While visually unimpressive, there’s just something about watching the survivors of flight 815 boarding the doomed plane at the end of season one. For something more impressive, watching the crash of the tail section in “The Other 48 Days” in high definition is a thing of beauty.

Arrested Development : While other sitcoms have taken a dynamic approach to storytelling, “Arrested Development” did it better and more clever than anyone else... so of course it barely lasted three seasons, with two of the seasons being incredibly short. Somehow audiences never clicked with the show so it died an early death, yet everyone I introduce the show to on DVD eats it up. It might be a case where the show is better on DVD because the payoff on gags that span episodes come sooner than when Fox chose to run episodes.

Best Moment: Not a moment, but a line: “I’ve made a huge mistake.” Just the way Will Arnett delivers it, the line has become one of the most quoted lines in my house for years.

Firefly : We began with one Joss Whedon series so we might as well end with another one, sadly one that didn’t get as much opportunity as Whedon’s other shows. Although “Firefly” got to continue its tale into the movie Serenity, it lost a lot of what made it special in the transition. If you like unique takes on sci-fi you should give “Firefly”’s “western in space” concept a try, one of the worst losses the show suffered moving to the big screen. “Firefly” just might have as many good one-liners and jokes in its thirteen episodes as “Buffy” has in seven seasons, and that’s saying something!

Best Moment: Jayne in the airlock, paying for his treachery. I almost always move towards the spiritual or leader character. It’s very rare for me to find a character as annoying and mercenary as the man named Jayne that I actually like... like to hate him, but still, like him.