Lovers Walk

It's that time of the week again when I put pen to paper, so to speak, and waffle a bit of nowt about the tellybox. It's a bit of a rush job actually, because the thing I intended to post, I've held back until next week, on account of it's slightly christmassy themed and I realised I'd jumped the gun slightly. So here I am, making it up as I go along at the last minute again.

There's a lot of stuff I could talk about of course. The Vampire Diaries and The Event are both well into their respective seasons, there is my tale of woe about how the person I was trusting to tape The Walking Dead for me has let me down, Misfits is trundling along being all kinds of awesome and of course I've always got the option of sticking up one of my top 5's that are tucked away for an emergency but it feels a bit soon for another one of them.

No, it's not going to be any of them. Instead, it's going to be about a certain episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And not just because the last time I wrote about Buffy on here it got more views in a day than pretty much all my other posts combined have managed in months. The power of this show, and Joss Whedons body of work in general, to pull in the punters, years after the fact, never ceases to amaze me. The strength of feeling his stuff brings on is phenomenal.



So if it's not just a cheap attempt to court the attentions of one of TVs most loyal fandoms then why am I talking about this show? Well, I'm in the midst of a rewatch, something I haven't done in a number of years, and I've come across, would you believe it, an episode I've never seen before. I was sure I'd seen all of this show, most episodes several times over, so I had a quick look at my Quest checklist and sure enough, the episode is ticked off. Something obviously went wrong somewhere along the line.


It's funny because the episode in question is actually a fairly pivotal one and I should have noticed that something was amiss during my original viewing of the show. It's from S3 and features the return of extremely popular character Spike, a major presence in S2 who had left town in that seasons finale. This was his sole contribution to S3, so it was a trifle cheeky of them to plaster him and his girlfriend Drusilla (who doesn't actually appear at all) on the packaging of the video releases, but that's by the by.


Spike returns to town because Dru has dumped him. One thing leads to another and he decides to kidnap budding witch Willow and force her to do a love spell so he can get Dru back. As you do.


Of course, none of that pesky plot stuff is really important (at least until the closing minutes). The episode is just an excuse to have Spike back doing what he does best; being really evil while at the same time being really cool, and winding up the regulars with his sarcastic, but true, insights into their lives. He doesn't give a shit, so he can say everything everyone else is thinking. And he does, taking great joy in it. He also gets one of his all to infrequent chances to interact with Buffys Mom Joyce, a character pairing that is never anything less than delightful together.

Those closing moments though, in which every romantic pairing on the show, Buffy/Angel, Xander/Cordelia, Willow/Oz, falls apart, some more permanently than others, is where the episode becomes truly pivotal. Which is where my confusion lies. You see, by rights, I should have noticed something was amiss when I watched the next episode and all the romantic entanglements were so screwed up. What did I think had happened? Especially odd when you consider that that next episode was The Wish and was entirely dependent on the break up of Xander and Cordelia for it's plot. I honestly don't remember. In my defence, it's possible that I did wonder what had happened for about 5 minutes and then just got swept up in The Wish, because it is a bloody good episode.

Anyway, at a time when I'm watching an awful lot of stuff that I'm not particularly enjoying for The Quest (buck your ideas up, terrible new V) it's hard to describe the thrill that comes from finding out that there is a little slice of goodness waiting to be sampled from one of my all time favourite shows. What other missed or long forgotten gems will I uncover on this rewatch? I don't think there are any more, but then again, I didn't think there was this one. For the first time I'm actually hoping for errors in my filing system. When you think about it, it's pretty damning on the current TV output, that I have to turn to 10 year old reruns for my jollies.

Next : Doctor Who at Christmas.

Slayer talk

Disclaimer : The picture of Alyson Hannigan that will appear randomly at some point in this post is in no way relevant to the point Im trying to make. I just like Alyson Hannigan and figured, I'm talking about Buffy so what the hell.

So there are plans afoot. Plans to make a new Buffy Movie. Yay, you might say. Well, that wasn't exactly the reaction when the news hit on Monday night. What's this? A Reboot? No involvement likely by any of the TV cast? No JOSS? Madness, Blasphemy, The End Is Nigh. And so on and so forth.

Except...

Here's my thing. I don't, as a general knee-jerk rule, approve of remakes. Remakes, reboots (except the show of course), and the dreaded re-imaginings are, to my mind, a product of lazy storytelling. I feel roughly the same way about prequels and the dreaded 'missing story' approach, where writers try desperately to cram new adventures into every 5minute gap they can find in the original chronology, just so that they can use a character during his or her most popular period.

All of that said though, it can sometimes work. Case in point; I read a lot of comics. I tend to avoid Superhero titles, but by frequenting comic book internet forums I have met any number of people - people whose opinions I trust - who tell me that modern Batman comics are some of the best superhero comics they've ever read. How many times has that character been rebooted?


Not Batman


Or just look at his screen history. A TV show that spawned a movie. Then rebooted into a movie franchise that gave us 4 (variable) outings. The modern movies, again rebooted, are gearing up for their 3rd outing and are being touted as classics; not just classic comic book movies, but classic movies, full stop. The animated version of Batman has also been rebooted twice since I first showed an interest in it, with the Batman:Animated Series/Justice League/Batman Beyond franchise giving way to year one revamp The Batman (Note the use of the definite there. Trifle optimistic in my view) and now of course we have Batman:The Brave And The Bold.

The geek in me would of course be remiss if I didn't point to Battlestar Galactica. Oh the consternation when Richard Hatch s long mooted and fan craved faithful sequel was shelved forever by a total remake from some bloke who used to do Star Trek. It's not like that turned out well, or anything, is it?

Further afield, Nikita. A movie which spawned a reasonably succesful TV show (5 seasons is nothing to sneeze at) is now back on our screens as, yes, a new TV show with no connection to the proto-24 Peta Wilson starrer. Doing quite well for itself too, from what I hear.

The fact is, my own (perhaps irrational) prejudices aside, I have long since come to appreciate that - in the sci-fi/fantasy genre especially - remakes are gonna happen and that is not neccesarily a bad thing. I mean, how many people were crying out for a crazed man-child to 'reimmagine' Planet of the Apes and look how well that... ah, well, you get my point.

Ah, but you see, and here be the rub of the nub, we aren't just talking about a reboot here. No, we're talking about a reboot of Joss Whedon, The Mighty Joss, The Whedonator, er, Joss The Boss, ..., hang on a minute, ..., no that's it, I'm out.



We all know Joss Whedon is a genius. He is one of the best television writers alive today and he's no slouch with a camera either but the fact is, he doesn't own Buffy. The producers own Buffy. And the producers want to make a movie. So I say let them make the movie, and wish them well in the endeavour. Best case scenario, we get a decent Buffy movie. Worst case scenario, we don't. In which case we can all go back and watch the 12 seasons of fried gold Buffy-verse magic that we already have. And do you know what? It'll still be great. It won't have suddenly turned to shit, any more than Star Trek turned to shit when they made Voyager or Law and Order when they made Law and Order : UK.

Here's something else to think about. An awful lot of people are using the old 'raping my childhood' argument. Now, if you feel this strongly you could always, you know, not watch it, but try this on for size; maybe, just maybe, this new version will affect a new generation in the same way. Who are you, or we, to begrudge them that.

After all, as great as Joss Whedon is, he wasn't the only person writing that show. Not by a long chalk. Others 'got' it. Maybe this new woman (Whit Anderson) will as well. I mean, I'm not sure of her qualifications, since most of the discussion seems to be based around her looks, or rather a certain sites reporting of her looks, but being an attractive woman (and she is an attractive woman)
doesn't preclude you from being abe to write a decent Buffy script. Just ask Marti Noxon.


And so, to sum up all of the above waffle in one sentence - Instead of assuming it'll be shit, try hoping it'll be good, because we've nothing to lose and everything (well, a good movie) to gain.

Until next week : grrr, aaargh

and Phwoarr