Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Question: Hey Matt! Your online column is just about as addictive as the shows I love! Back in the Buffy heyday, I could not get a certain friend to watch the show. Her resistance to love the denizens of Sunnydale only further fueled my desire for her to accept it into her life. After several heated debates, I wanted to duplicate that scene in A Clockwork Orange and strap her in front of a TV! Why do you think viewers get so impassioned about "just TV shows"? Do you ever get annoyed at readers who try to convince you to like a show you’ve written off (Surface, Criminal Minds, etc.)? "You’d adore it if you’d only watch one more episode...!" - Navarro P.

Matt Roush: Hey, thanks. And good question. My feeling always has been that people get possessive, obsessive and sometimes downright deranged over their favorite shows because it’s such an intimate process to invite these series and characters into one’s home on a regular basis. There’s nothing quite like getting wrapped up in a well-told story or revisiting a world of inviting characters on a week-to-week basis (which is why so many TV creative types like to cite Dickens as an inspiration). And it can be maddening when people you trust and respect, or who merely happen to have a platform in the media, don’t share your love for some show or other. I was recently accused in an e-mail of being "sharp" in some of my comments in this column, but I do try to maintain a balance between letting opposing views get aired while retaining my own right to stick to my critical guns. (I’m sure I don’t always succeed in keeping my cool.) But generally, I’m happy that people enjoy the shows they watch, even if I don’t always share their enthusiasm. If I find Surface childish and empty, and Criminal Minds flat and mannered and absolutely one formulaic crime show too many, I am all too aware that I won’t sway those shows’ fans any more than they can sway me - unless, of course, the shows magically improve. Which they rarely do.

And finally, since you brought up Buffy, let’s revisit this tried-and-true topic, from Chris: "You’ve always been straight-up on things, so honestly, do you think there’ll be any Buffyverse TV movies, or is it time to let the Buffyverse go on-screen for now? There has been so much conflicting talk in the press, from Joss, Tim Minear and the WB, about various issues such as money. I’ve heard it will happen and is slowly being put together now and I’ve heard reports that it won’t and that nothing is in development. The various actors who would do a TV movie are on new projects, and James Marsters has a time limit that at last check is down to two or three years. Does Serenity’s failure at the box office impact things? What’s your honest opinion on a Buffyverse TV movie actually happening?"

I’m not really in the loop on this one, and don’t have time to keep up with what may or may not be happening, but I would still love to see a Spike movie; there is so much untapped potential in that character. But will it happen? Who knows. If it does, I’ll welcome it the way I did the Farscape miniseries. If not, I still have seven seasons of Buffy and five of Angel to treasure. That’s plenty right there. (And I doubt the fate of Serenity has anything to do with it.)