Rewatch

Back in the day, when it was still on Netflix, I used to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a regular habit. Whenever I would get to the end of season seven, I would start again from the first episode of season one.

It was like rereading a favorite novel — Lord of the Rings or The Once and Future King, but on video. In this way, I managed to get through over 30 seasons of Buffy before Netflix finally pulled it.

The thing about BtVS, as you may know, is that it ushered in the concept, within the U.S., of a TV series as a single coherent story with a narrative arc, a novel in serial form. Charles Dickens had done it in England in the mid-1800s for books. But in all the time since, nobody had ever really done it properly for American television.

And the great thing about that is that every time I rewatched it, I would understand it better. Ideas that were planted in seasons one or two might finally reach their fruition in seasons five or six.

Recently I purchased a DVD player for my MacBook, and I’ve started watching it again — from the beginning. And I am reminded all over again what a groundbreaking work of genius it is.

One thought on “Rewatch”

  1. Can I suggest to you “Babylon 5”. This show was written by John Michael Straczynski who conceived it from the start as having a 5 season story arc. This got a bit messed up during Season 4 when they didn’t know if they would get a 5th season. This lead to some story elements being brought at impinged on the overall flow of the story because it was fairly last minute when they got the assurance that Season 5 would go ahead. The first episode aired 26 Jan 1994, 3 years before Buffy. Interesting that both shows are Sci-Fi though, and I enjoyed them both.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *