I’m really kinda depressed today, you guys. There’s this dark cloud hanging over me, and I’m not talking about the slowly dissipating fog that’s filled the harbor for the last two straight days, either. I’m talking about certain death, people. I’m talking about the terrible and most inevitable end that’s waiting just beyond the evening’s bend.
People, Buffy ends tonight. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, tonight brings the season finales of 24, Smallville, and this other show that my roommate really likes which I’m not quite comfortable admitting that I like, yet. But let’s get back to the issue at hand.
I didn’t start watching Buffy until about halfway through its second season, because it debuted my freshman year in college, and my roommates at the time wouldn’t watch anything that didn’t have a football in it. So the next year, when I was living alone, I got to watch whatever the hell I wanted. And, boy, did I! Let me tell you, I saw my first episode of Buffy, and I was hooked like a Lenten whitefish.
People would give me all kinds of crap about it, too. “You watch that show? Ha ha!” People would say, as if they’d ever even seen it themselves, or as if the shit they were watching was any good. So I’d give them all the finger and kick them in their respective junks, and go back to The Best Show Ever. And it really was, too. I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen any show better than Buffy was when it was at its peak. Equal, perhaps, but not better. I realize it has somewhat subsided in quality since those first three legendary years, but I don’t give a shit. It’s still my show, and it’s still a damn sight better than most of the chaff out there filling up the airwaves.
Seriously. I take a lot of grief from former fans, too, who insist that the show sucks now, simply because it’s not the gleaming jewel of primetime like it was in its second and third seasons. To those people I say, “Compare, if you will, any recent episode of Buffy to any recent episode of The Practice or Dawon’s Creek (and we’ll get to this asinine comparison later) or practically any other show currently playing! You’ll see that it’s still a damn good program.” Do not mistake less quality for low quality, people. There are enough shitty shows out there that we don’t need to forfeit Buffy on a technicality.
Anyway, people would seriously try to claim Dawson’s Creek was a better show. I’m sorry, but even writing that makes me feel dirty and unclean. Even with vampires, demons, and voodoo hexes, Buffy was always more realistic than that weepy crapfest (which I only watched because it debuted after Buffy that year). When people would make that claim and scoff at my show without ever having seen it, it would send me into a towering rage. The very injustice of it all put my indignation-o-meter fully in the Danger Zone. I mean, first of all, Dawson’s Creek was a reeking piece of ape shit, and…no, I can’t talk about it or I’ll freak!
Anyway, my point is that I love that show, and it was part of my life for nearly seven years. I went through a lot of shit and a lot of changes, but that show was a constant. This may be TMI, but I was watching an episode of Buffy the night I…er, lost my innocence, if you know what I mean. I mean, not like during the…well, it was just before…you know, let’s not talk about it. The point was that I have some pretty formidable memories attached to this show, and maybe it makes me a big dork, but I’m going to miss it a lot. It’s kind of like having a good friend move away forever.
I guess I’ll always have the memories. Thanks, Buffy and the brains behind it. The last seven years wouldn’t have been the same without you.
Sigh. All the quizzes for Buffy were painfully obvious, misspelled, or both. So I chose to be Buffy. What the hell, right? Why not?
