Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons 1-7

I'll go ahead and review all seven seasons, as I watched them between January and April of this year in a marathon viewing of three to four episodes a day on average. It was fun to totally immerse myself in this series.

The genre is right up our ally. Buffy is a chosen superhero that slays vampires/demons and other evil nasties that lurk in the world unknown to most people. She discovers this while still in High School, so the show explores typical Suburban American themes, but with vampire slaying going on in the foreground. The first three seasons of when Buffy is in High School are as good as any televisions series I have ever seen, including Star Trek.

The show's creator is Joss Whedon, who did Firefly. The same style of dialogue is present in Buffy as well. Also, the characters are as three dimensional. While Firefly feels older and more mature, Buffy tackles typical American teen stories, but still is able to explore the nature of good and evil.

It is interesting to draw parallels between the two series. In Whedon's worlds, often the evil characters are those that think they are doing good, or those that start off doing good, but then become too self-absorbed to objectively view their own actions. Of course, there are lots of demons, monsters, and creatures of the night that are just inherently evil as well. Also, like the Reivers, some of the nasties are created by characters who think they are doing good.

The series then moves on in Season 4 to follow Buffy at college, and I think it loses some of its spunk at this point. Of course, at this point you may be too drawn in by the characters to notice it objectively, but the show in Seasons 4-6 started to feel formulaic, and a bit unoriginal. In the final season the show returns to form, and ultimately it does resolve itself in a satisfying manner, concluding all of the character points of conflict, and all of the plot threads that it had explored. I'm not sure I have ever seen a television show successfully do this other than a few of the Star Treks.

Great show that I would highly recommend.