Chosen-Question for the viewers who watched as it aired

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zobothehobo

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For those of you who watched this show as it aired, how did you cope with Chosen? I was just re-watching Chosen for the hell of it and a friend of mine IMed me and asked me how I was. I told her the truth, I was sad. I was pained because I had just watched Chosen and although the show was over before I started watching it and although I've seen the series finale many times, it's over. I'm reminded it's over. Cnthosen is the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My friend asked me why I get so sad after watching it... counting the facts that it was over before I even considered watching it and that I've seen it many times... also that I do read the comics which are technically a continuation of the story... why do I get so extremely saddened after watching Chosen? My answer was just as it was before: because it's really over. The comics are fine and dandy, but they're not the show. Angel had one more season and although AtS season 5 is the most Buffy-like season, it's not Buffy. Chosen is the last and final episode of my favorite show and it hurts to watch. I know that's it. I know that the 'verse doesn't end there, which helps a bit... but that's the end of the line for the show. Then she said she would have hated to see me if I watched it when it happened. That brought up a point I never really thought about... how hard it must have been for those viewers who watched as it aired. For those people who followed Buffy from Welcome to the Hellmouth back in 1997 all the way to Chosen in 2003. Or even those people who had gotten into it sometime between those two. Someone who watched as it aired. Back then, there wasn't DVR. You couldn't pause live TV to cry. You had to just sit it out until the commercials. I can't imagine not being able to pause during this episode and cry my eyes out, ESPECIALLY the first time I watched. It took me about 3 watches of this episode to fully comprehend it... and it's still so hard. I can only imagine how hard it is for all of you.

So my question is (or questions are) how did you cope? How did you cope with the end of Buffy when you watched it on May 20, 2003? Did your friends and family understand? Did you grieve the loss of your favorite show? How?
 
I watched it as it aired in the UK. I had restarted watching Buffy again after dipping in and out of it for a couple of years. I was very sad.

I grew up with Buffy, I was always her age. When Buffy started at 6 o'clock one night on BBC2 (before we had sky) my Mum, my brother, Sister and I all watched it. We all watched the first and second season together every week after dinner. There are a lot of happy memories (mainly of my brother headbanging when the theme kicked in).

When I watched Chosen I was married and living in my own house with my infant son. I don't know, it's hard to describe and without trying to sound too lame it made me so sad that I was grown up and would never go back to living with my Brother and sister and Mum and eating dinner and watching TV and laughing. Don't get me wrong I was perfectly happy with my life but the end of Buffy was like the end of an era for me.

I feel sad now (in both senses of the word 😛)
 
Personally I was too enraptured to think about it being the end; at that point I knew James was headed to Ats and figured that show would go on for a few more seasons. I do remember feeling somewhat let down by Spike and Buffy's theme. "Elope" from Smashed seemed more raw emotion wise.


I did want to punch Angel for trying to smooch with Spike's girl though.
 
Litheran said:
I did want to punch Angel for trying to smooch with Spike's girl though.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough, I did, too, and I'm a Bangel through and through these days (don't think I'll ever go back to Spuffy, no offence). I tuned in somewhere during Season 4 (I went to boarding school in England, was grounded pretty much through all of the best years of my teens and someone had everything that had aired so far on video, but the others had already watched season 1-3), so I never knew about the whole Angel thing and didn't really get why he showed up and why Buffy kissed him even though she had spent the previous night with Spike.

I actually can't remember being particularly upset when it ended; I only ever watched it because of the funny dialogues and the romance... well basically I watched it because everyone else was obsessed with it and I didn't want to stick out. I suppose I was a bit young back then. I was actually surprised at how deep is is and how well-drafted the characters are when I started re-watching it this year.
 
I watched Buffy as it aired since sometime in season 2 (I know I got really hooked around Surprise/Innocence) when I was a freshman in high school. I missed season 6 as it aired, because in the college dorms we didn't get UPN (which the show had just moved to).

My sophomore year of college though, we got the channel, and I converted my instant-best-friend roommate to be a Buffy fan (I had Season 1 on DVD) in anticipation of the start of the season. We missed classes, stayed up nights, would finish a season at 3 AM and run to Wal-Mart to buy the next season. We watched the 7th season together, but school was over and we were both home for the summer by the time Chosen aired.

To answer the question: when I watched Chosen, I had just returned home for the summer from school, and I watched it in the basement at my house, by myself, and called my roomie when it was all over. I was really upset that it ended, because Buffy always felt like a friend. I was also upset because I didn't like how the show ended. I was glad that most lived to fight another day and that Buffy wouldn't have such a burden to bear, but that was about it.

I really didn't like that the core four were somewhat at odds with one another, and I thought the whole thing felt rushed. I remember feeling completely let down with the whole seventh season. 🙁
 
Ahh this episode aired on my 17th birthday! I remember hoping that someone would somehow convince SMG and the gang to come back for another season. I remember hoping that SMG would see the finale and decide that it wasn't a good way for the series to end and that they would have to do an 8th to tie up all loose ends and to have it end on a more upbeat note.
 
Cool question. Brief history: watched Buffy from its original airing of Reptile Boy when I was 8. I was in grade 8 when it ended so I was .. 14. I watched it alone in my basement and it was really hard for me, I lived and breathed that show. Still do. I coped by placing a disclaimer to my friends (who understood, they obsessed over a few TV shows themselves) before the finale that I might be a bit off for a week or so. I was sad but I mean it didn't affect my life the way I expected it to (Again, I lived and breathed the show.). I dreaded the finale a lot the day-of and sat a foot away from the TV the whole time.
 
I remember the day it happened...I felt like it was over. 😛



But seriously, I was upset because I didn't want it to end yet...I felt there was more needed and missing but whats done is done. I was still excited to watch it though and still enjoyed it but didn't want it to end.
 
S
SlayerOfVampyrs
LMAO! YOU DID IT! I LOVE YOU
I had watched re-runs on and off. Then watched them a lot before school, talked to my neighbor about it. That is how I remember Spike and buffy so much I had liked them. I watched some of chosen on tv as the finale aired. I missed the last half the best part I know it sucked lol. So I was a little hazy but I get upset like you that I didn't experience it all the way because I was younger and just didn't keep up with that kind of stuff.
It is over but at least I have my dvd's I guess.
If I had watched on tv every week for that many years I would have been very sad that it ended.
 
I didn't watch it when it aired, but I assume for those who did it felt like when I finished reading HP and it suddenly hit me that it was over. Over. For good. Now I'm making myself sad by thinking about Chosen and how it's the end. 🙁
 
I tuned in around the end of the 4th season, as I was really young when the show began. When the show ended, it was the day after my 15th birthday. I was devastated, but it was a nice ending. Buffy smiling at the end was nice, but it left a lot of unanswered questions.

I literally cried at the end. Buffy was a huge part of my life. (After The Body aired, I began watching religiously to watch how Buffy coped, after going through my own personal tragedy. Check The Body topics, I've already posted about it.) I was just really upset it was over. I had actually taped (yes, with a VCR) some of the episodes, and I'd watch them over and over again...
 
I was utterly devastated. I watched on and off for a couple years, but started watching religiously from the beginning of the 3rd season when I was around 11. The show ended when I was in the 9th grade, when I was 15. Even though I wasn't there for the entire series, it was a very defining time for me. I owe my wit, sense of self, and ability to socially engage to this show. When it ended, I went through a really crazy time of questioning my identity. It sounds crazy now, but it was the most influential thing in my life at this time. I cried for a good hour after it was over. Completely sobbed.

I am not questioning whether or not people who saw it later or discovered it on DVD are fans: they are. But I must say.... having this show that we love this much, and watching as the commercials say things like "3 episodes left" "2 episodes left" was really difficult to deal with. It was like being told your best friend has three weeks to live and there's nothing you can do. I was totally depressed over it.
 
Z
zobothehobo
Oh god, no doubt it was hard. I can't imagine.
Z
Zeppo
Yeah, the commercials, the countdown's ... when the bomb was counting down: Most. Intense. Cliffhanger. I thought half the cast was dead.
i think i was around 7 when i first started watching it, and as best i can remember i was 12/13 when chosen aired on bbc2. i was really sad because it was a big part of my life. through my younger years i mightn't have always understood what was happening but i just loved buffy, i wanted to be her lol. and i always remember watching the first episode in our kitchen with my sister and the finale up in my bedroom. i think the show will always remind me of home, even though that has sfa to do with the thread but i just realised it there now lol. but yeah, really sad that it was over as i had grew up with it.

edit: also a kind of disbelief that that was it. i remember thinking noooo when the end credits started playing
 
I don't mean this to sound cynical, but I've lost my "special" shows far too many times to get especially upset about it. Sure, I wish that the show could have continued for another year or two at least, if for no other reason than to see where Buffy and Spike's story would have ultimately gone (that is, of course, assuming that Spike had remained on Buffy's show, as he almost certainly would have) and if maybe Faith and Xander would wind up together, but if none of that was to be, well, there was always reruns and fan fiction, and, if I recall correctly, there was serious talk about TV movies, mini-series, and direct to DVD productions involving at least some of the original cast.
 
I watched season 6 of Buffy while I was living on campus first year of university, so it always stood out for me in line with that experience. Season 7 I was back living at home going to uni from home and I remember having to watch episodes with my mum and sister chatting about irrelevant things in the background as they didn't have any interest in it, which accordingly coloured my original experience of S7 somewhat negatively.

What I do remember is that it was quite clear throughout the season they were building up to a big finale, so it didn't come as a shock or surprise for it to end as it did. I have to say that it didn't get to me emotionally like the S6 ending with Willow and Xander but thats probably partly due to the different circumstances in my life between the two seasons.

For me, it was more a slow realisation after it had finished what the implications were of there being no more new Buffy to watch. As I still kept up a ritual of rewatching through the seasons so as to keep in touch with it, and second time round I was able to watch it in my own room on video without my mum and sister distracting me, so that in my personal experience it was better in a way second time round.
 
I had been following Buffy since "Welcome to the Hellmouth" (just shy of being 11). I remember back when it was still on Mondays at 9, before they changed to Tues. at 8 (starting with Innocence). I started taping the episodes in S2's "Lie to Me"...the only episode I ever missed during the original airing was "Band Candy" (I had a project to do, so I had to watch it the next day). I was pretty heartbroken when it ended honestly. Pretty much my whole adolecence was wrapped up in watching that show...hours of rewatching episodes, reading/writing fanfiction, reading novels, talking in buffy chatrooms/forums, playing the buffy board game and the video games...you get the point...now I just watch buffy with happiness and the earlier episodes almost with a sense of nostalgia. I just started the girls I nanny for on Buffy, they're 5, 8, and 9 and they LOVE it. They've only watched the first season and they're dying for me to bring the 2nd one over, it's great introducing the newer generation to a show like Buffy....
 
F
Foamy
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I was with my friend who I had always watched the show with. I had started watching this show in 7th grade (must have been the 2nd season) and "Chosen" aired two weeks before I graduated. I was so sad that it was over, and a little disappointed because Season 7 wasn't what I thought it would be. The show needed one more season to really make sense of things and end it. I demand explanations! 🙂 I felt similar when Lost was over. The friends I had for years are now gone, no more fun wit of the Buffster, no more life stories with a demony twist. Ok, now I need hugs...
 
I watched it from the original airing of Welcome to the Hellmouth when I was 14 (a freshman in HS). I watched every episode as it aired, religiously. It was a huge part of my life. I remember being very nostalgic and pouty when Chosen aired. That last "grrrarrggg" made me cry...because it was over. For real.
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I was kind of frozen to my television watching it at the end. Even for a few seconds after it ended, I was still kind of frozen. It was a huge show for me.

The episode didn't impress me, I was a little disappointed in it, and they killed Anya(which, I probably already knew was going to happen -- I've never seen a show with more detailed spoilers coming out before it aired than Buffy. I knew what would happen every week!), but my favorite show had just ended. That was it. It was gone and over.

I think for a lot of people like me who watched it for a majority of their teen years, it was huge for it to end. I think it really connected with a lot of people who watched it over so many years -- especially if you were a teenager at some point during the show's run because it hit so close to reality with many of its themes.

I related to this show more than almost any other I watched. From Buffy's mom dying and my own loss of a parent as a teenager to the simple themes of fitting in during high school, it really clicked with me. It wasn't written like Dawson's creek; it managed to have a deep meaning behind it while dealing with the lives of teenagers and young adults. It hit the whole range of human emotion without becoming an overly dramatic soap like many teen shows.
 
I watched it as it aired, all those years ago.

I thought it was humorous and dramatic, and I suppose I enjoyed it, though I couldn't but help notice some plot holes that have been hashed out at length elsewhere on this forum.

Anya's death was a bit of a shock to me, I didn't see it coming.

In any event, my enthusiasm for Buffy had dwindled for the last 3 seasons. But I was still sad when it was over. In the years since, aside from some occasional miniseries here and there on cable tv, I haven't really gotten into any other series.
 
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