At the beginning of December (pretty much as soon as I finished my last paper of the semester) I realized that I had a month before the spring semester started and nothing to do to fill the time. (Sometimes being unemployed is awesome :)) Immediately thereafter, I figured out how to fill the time: a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon (TV show only, if you please). I own every season of BtVS on DVD, but I haven’t done much re-watching in the 8.5 years since the show ended. It’s odd, really, since I still call BtVS my all-time favorite TV show, but I am much more likely to watch Firefly, Wonderfalls, or Pushing Daisies when I feel the need for a TV show marathon. Though, in my defense, those 3 shows combined didn’t produce anything near the 144 episodes of Buffy (not counting the unaired pilot). But I don’t even watch specific episodes of BtVS on anything near a regular basis, except I will occasionally pull out “Once More, with Feeling” (the musical episode). No, Angel is my go-to series if I only want to watch a couple of episodes. And it’s almost always some combination of the episodes that are guaranteed to make me bawl my eyes out: “I Will Remember You,” “Hero,” “You’re Welcome,” “A Hole in the World,” and “Not Fade Away.”
But back to Buffy. (And, fair warning, there will be spoilers ahead. The show started 14 years ago, I’m not feeling too bad about spoiling anything.) I just finished season 3 this evening. At the rate I’m watching episodes, and with all of the holiday-goodness coming up, I’m afraid I won’t finish the series before the semester starts, but at least I have gotten Buffy and the Scooby Gang out of high school. When I was re-watching season 1, I was kind of surprised that I stuck with it when it first aired, but I remember being really gung-ho about it. But seriously, the teacher who was actually a praying mantis, the demon-turned-robot, kids being possessed by hyenas – there were some pretty bad episodes in season 1. And, even more upsetting (to me), an entire episode about a ventriloquist’s dummy and a guy being attacked by spiders. I must have had massive crushes on Nick Brendon and David Boreanaz (or maybe I just really related to the whole “high school is hell” metaphor). Thankfully, seasons 2 and 3 stand up better: Spike & Dru, Angelus, Faith & the mayor – good times. Plus, lots of fun episodes like “Halloween” in season 2 and “Band Candy” and “The Wish” in season 3.
I hope to at least get season 4 finished before I head to my parents’ house for Christmas. It’ll be much harder to get any serious viewing (or dare I say, watching) in there, but I’ll try. I will have the entire first week of January, so who knows, maybe I will get to watch the entire series before the spring semester. I’ll keep you posted.
kristininprogress 