Buffy sci-fi ranking

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goldenboy

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This is interesting:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art30354.asp

I wonder which show (X-Files, Buffy) will have the most long-term impact? Also, which will be considered the most quintessentially 90's?

X-Files seems very 90's to me: confusion, paranoia, different moods, ideologies, questions about existence"”all mixing together in a sly, goofy way.

Buffy: Ditto. Yet, I wonder if it's more unversal with the teen angst angle?

Both were mythological in their way.

I never really cared about the epic UFO arc in X-Files. Liked the stand-alones. Liked the progression of Scully, Mulder's personalities. Did like the arcs in Buffy/Angel.

Also, Buffy's not sci-fi! Well, a little. Season 4, and the Nerds. I found those things kind of a distraction in the 'verse, personally.
 
Interesting article. Here's the complete choices -

5. Xena Warrior Princess
4. Star Trek: The Warrior Princess
3. Babylon Five
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
1. X Files

And what's the question? Which one best exemplifies the 90s?

I don't know personally. I never got a real feel for what the 90s were all about.

The boom of "Genre" (Speculative fiction) as a popular genre in the 90s was interesting though. Does that have any significance?

Which one will we still be talking about in 20 years? Buffy and Star Trek were part of a larger verse. I'd say they've got the edge. I'd guess the Buffyverse is the most likely to still be around in some new form.

Which one will be remembered as the Best? Don't know. Probably between STTNG, BTVS, and X Files though.

Which one was the most ground-breaking? I say BTVS, although X Files is in there.

Which one was the most influential? Again my vote is it's between BTVS and X Files.
 
I think the 90's was the true golden age for television. TV was the perfect medium for the times. 90's"”confusing, junky-pop-culture, mixing and matching tones, ideas. TV's the natural medium to really spread out, explore complexities over the long term. A great decade for sci-fi, fantasy and sit-coms. Sit-coms mostly suck now. And "Reality" has set in...sigh.

The 90's seems so vague, mushy, confusing. I can hardly formulate proper English words to describe that time. Not enough perspective yet.

X-Files wasn't doing much, in terms of basic plotting, that wasn't done by The Twilight Zone. But it had a self-awareness, an irony"”like most other good things on TV. Buffy, for instance.

Charmed manages the feat of having some irony and still sucking.

Actually Nerd4hire, the genre idea is interesting. Almost like a transfer of the modern comic book form to TV, for the first time, in the 90's. That is, the highly complex genre-hybrid. The soap opera, comedy, action/adventure, horror story, sometimes in all in one ep.

That's similar to a typical mainstream Marvel comic. Spider-Man, for instance. That applied to X-Files, surely Buffy, Trek, with the holodeck adventures, for example.
 
I know that the X-files was mentioned in Buffy/Angel a couple of times, comparisons self-consciously drawn. Did X-Files mention Buffy? Can't recall. That was another feature of 90's American shows: explicitly mentioning eachother. Simpsons, X-files, Buffy, maybe Trek was involved too. Obviously Simpsons has mentioned everyone. Xena was in on things too.
 
Oh yeah, if you were anywhere on the pop culture radar you got a mention on Buffy/Angel.

Off the top of my head there's "Don't Scully me", and "Scully's the chick, right?".

Hey come to think of it, when people talk about how BTVS influenced future Genre shows they never mention the pop culture nods, but who was first with that, Buffy or Simpsons. Well Simpsons wouldn't really apply, because it was comedy. Pop culture has always been spoofed on comedy.

After Buffy though culture nods were everywhere from Gilmore Girls to Farscape.
 
Tryin to think another non sit-com show that was so name-droppy, like Buffy was. Kevin Smith, Tarantino come to mind as movie directors doing that.

I think Buffy, Simpsons amped that up to a new level in the 90's on TV.
 
"I believe wholeheartedly that there is no such thing as 'the mainstream,' and that the mass market is dead, and being replaced by a mass of niches. I also believe that the mass media is not being destroyed, merely altered radically, and individuals are being liberated from the mass by the unprecedented choice of personal relevance that (thanks to things like blogs, mp3s, TV on DVD, podcasting, and TiVo) they have today - and that choice of personal relevance is increasing exponentially at a rapid rate. So the topic of the panel was extremely appealing to me as a total geek on the social ramifications of emergent technology tip. "

http://cathyseipp.journalspace.com/?entryid=513


"”You guys, I think part of the reason for the post-mod, hyper-referential name dropping aspect of Buffy, other shows is technology itself. Think of Andy Warhol, using mass production printing, lithography techniques. Tarantino, working in a video store"”he was able to analyze his influences to death. Using slo-mo, pausing, rewinding the tape...

And we all have a zillion references out there with Internet, cable...dvds let us analyze to death, formulate theories, combinations of references that would be more difficult without modern technology. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing for a culture in the long term.

Now, why exactly did the WB cancel Angel? Because of diminishing financial returns? An aging core audience? Genre TV too expensive? Maybe the network's model is unrealistic. They'll never get numbers like they would at one time. Technology is creating too many choices.

I wonder if in the future, all sci-fi, fantasy TV will be shot completely green-screen, Sin City style? If the costs of the technology eventually come down, might it actually become cheaper than traditional filming? Fewer technical folks to hire, pay. Plus, more visual, stylistic options. All the creatives will be at their computer monitors, all the actors "blind", on a stage. (Kinda depressing in a way, really)
 
Good article. I liked the stuff about network censorship.

As far as why Angel was cancelled, that's still a mystery.

Any kind of ratings based excuse doesn't fly. Angel was one of the two WB dramas that year with increased ratings. The rest were dropping in the ratings. As I mentioned once before Angel was attracting demographics that were disappearing elsewhere on television. The Wednesday night tandem of Angel and Smallville was the only success story for Warner of that season. The program that replaced Angel was down 50% from where Angel was. I think a couple of Angel's replacements have already been canceled.
 
Angel's cancellation does seem inexplicable, as does the WB in general. Never seemed to give Joss the respect he deserved. Just seems like short-sighted numbskullery. The devil in me likes to see their new shows tank.

That Cathy Seipp piece brought up another interesting thing...censorship like you were sayin Nerd4hire:

"Tim: It is lurid. That's what the genre is. I don't apologize for it. I didn't apologize for it on Angel. The responsibility that I apparently have, I just got a [Fox] network note because I had a character (one of the good guys) who smoked. No longer. She's played  by an actress on Wonderfalls last year who smoked. They said, we don't have characters who smoke on our network...

Scott: In Boston Legal, we end pretty much every episode with James Spader and William Shatner smoking on the balcony. Even though this is a different network, it is the same studio [producing both series]. We always get the network note, it's part of the boiler plate of their notes, please be advised that ABC wishes to refrain from scenes showing people smoking. If you show people smoking, don't show them inhaling." Never once this season have I paid any attention to that note or heard any follow-up... "


"”Spike smoked, symbolizing his evil nature. In 90's America, the most despised group in some ways were the smokers. Drinking, smoking were "evil" in 90's America. Drinking was handled very gingerly at first on Buffy. Obviously, a teen show so....But still, a general prudery. Teenagers today are overprotected, coddled in a way that my generation wasn't.

My general obsession with the theory of cultural cycles in America would lead me to conclude that it's like Prohibition and a general prudery during the chaotic, crime-ridden 1920's.
 
I have this theory that the main reason the WB cancelled Angel was because they couldn't control Mutant Enemy.

I remember reading this article about WB suit Jordan Levin. The producer of Charmed was gushing about all the valuable content Levin had added in the later seasons. You've seen the later seasons of Charmed, right?

The one I loved was the way Mutant Enemy sucked Levin into believing they were actually going to go along with his hair-brained idea of turning Season 5 into a season of stand-alone episodes. Levin gave them another season. ME gave Levin a first quarter season of stand-alones (something they'd always done anyway) then launched into a series of story arcs stronger than anything we'd seen previously.

Hey do you know anything about that recent law that allows networks to produce their own shows? I just read about it once. It's something like before a couple of years ago, shows had to be created and managed by an independent studio, rather than the network. The networks weren't allowed full fiscal control of the show. Thus they were cut out of all spin-off marketing opportunities.
 
Didn't hear that about networks/content. That stuff is so murky to me. Broadcast TV is so bizarre. Subject to the moral codes of FCC, which is in the midst of a Puritan backlash (Janet Jackson). A weird, post mod time:

"Tim: I can't get away with it... I couldn't have [a serial killer] say the word 'retard' because the serial killer would've been insensitive."

Again, like the hypocritical 1920's to me. An uber-PC factor mixed with vulgar new lows in the culture (reality TV, Fear Factor...Sin City stylized hyperviolence) Weirdness!

Maybe the Networks will just dry up completely and folks like Minear, Joss won't have to deal with the suits anymore. (we can dream I guess)

The arcless season 5 did turn out to be a con, didn't it? Those sly foxes! Maybe the WB was pissed because they thought they'd been duped?
 
goldenboy said:
The arcless season 5 did turn out to be a con, didn't it? Those sly foxes! Maybe the WB was pissed because they thought they'd been duped?
Click to expand...

They * knew * they'd been duped. lol 😀

And yeah, this is an interesting time with the new technology we can dream of a non-network driven television.

I hear people talking about the possiblity of a direct to DVD revolution where creative minds create a series, release it to DVD, then let the networks bid on it.

The popularity of cable stations has cut into the networks' pie.

Then there's that new tech possiblility on the horizon that will allow people to simply click for whatever they want worldwide, current or old, irregardless of network.
 
I feel as if Im interrupting a conversation between you two but ah well. This reply will be a bit scattered as theres so many points to address.

I also dont understand network TV politics and regulations but yeah I think Mutant Enemy tricked The WB, and they probably had it in mind all along. It'd be interesting to see if the ratings went up or down when the S5 storyline started building up, but I dont have easy access to ratings.

As far as the smoking=evil thing, I think it boils down to the hypodermic needle theory from the 1920s which was just (and to use my deep educated knowledge here) stupid. I see Spike smoking, I am aware hes evil but I don't see Spike smoking and go "ooh me wanna try." Most people know someone who smokes and friends are more likely to influence someone then fictional characters. Personally I feel a bit insult that network execs think that I am so easily persuaded by what I see on TV. I kind of see the logic but if you look at research its about as logical as saying "blondes are dumber than brunettes".

Pop culture references can be both good and bad. The Simpsons does use it but often its just dropped in, like script recepies. "A dash of witty dialogue, an amusing action and a pop culture reference will make your script stay fresh and look great". However Buffy manages to use them well, theres a whole range (from people, to films, to anything inbetween), of them and they often play a part of what is happening. As well as this it doesn't just focus on contemporary cultural references, there is such a range spanning time and class.

So in summary- Buffy, yay.
 
nerd4hire
nerd4hire
Thanks for joining in Xander. I thought every one else had abandoned us. :)
I think the Simpsons gets away with much more than even most 'coms because it's animated, more abstract, less "real". Also, it's so clearly a satire that even the suits can pick up on it.

Obviously, with the PC stuff or anything else, they're walking a tightrope. They're thinking of the bottom line and merely want to maximize viewership and profits. If porn were legally broadcastable, many would jump right in, right? (I'm so cynical).

And the networks are contemptuous of their audiences to a degree, right? I just see it in my own worklife. "Suits" underestimating their readers, listeners, viewers...

The irony is that the biggest TV phenoms often seem to be the smartest, edgiest shows! And the suits then just jump on the bandwagon, trying to create a watered-down copy of someone else's success.

Something that Hollywood seemed very slow to catch onto was the fact that G rated movies are much, much more popular, lucrative than they used to be. American culture is in many ways becoming more conservative, family-centered than it has been in the recent past. Hollywood slowly follows the trends"”maybe even more than they set trends, shape values.
 
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