You know, most of these posts make me feel OLD! 6 in 1997! ACK!
Even as close as June 2006 I was mortified by the whole thing. I remember trying to leave on a family vacation one time and my husband just sat in front of the TV watching Angel while I got the kids ready and packed the car.
I WAS LIVID!
Then, later last year, I found out that my lovely husband had been terribly addicted to Hydrocodone for almost 3 years. He got fired from his job and took this ridiculous temporary thing that had him leaving the house on Mondays and not coming back until Fridays. (And, of course still on drugs because he had no one to stop him while gone all week.)
He wasn't bringing home ANY real money and with him gone, there was no way I could get a job outside the house. So, I just dove into painting like a crazy person.
I was INSANE and rarely slept. Stayed up all night painting, put my son on the bus, take a nap until my daughter got up, back to work, take another nap mid-afternoon, and then up all night again.
I got VERY hooked on the fact that TNT would play X-Files all night many nights a week. And then, Angel would come on. Which I would leave on.
I noticed VERY quickly that with 2 episodes a day, I was missing a lot. (Not as much as I thought though, because what sparked me to tape it was Connor being a baby one minute and a teenager the next.)
So, I'd tape it every day to make sure I didn't miss anything. And it was the HAPPIEST part of my day. This weird place that was TOTAL fantasy and twists and turns and likable people and I was sold by the fact that roles weren't recast. (One of my BIGGEST pet peeves.) And I was thrilled with how things didn't get "magically forgotten" two weeks later as if they never happened. And I couldn't predict it, but I COULD understand it. (Which although I love the X-Files, I still don't understand that whole bigger back story.)
I taped and watched it every day 2 1/2 times through. Still tickled every time. And still a little shocked that is SO GOOD.
By the time I'd seen season five three times, I realized I was curious about too much to not watch Buffy. Spike REALLY intrigued me because he had me laughing like a crazy person during a time I was miserable most of the time. The show about Dana. Willow saying she'd tried to kill everyone. Who the heck Harmony had been. And, I have to admit, was DETERMINED to catch the writers in a recast.
So, I moved to FX in the mornings. I came in about midway through season 2. Then, I caught my daughter watching one day. She was pretending to be asleep during "The Dark Age" episode and she would giggle incontrolably when the zombie people would turn into puddles on the floor. And we got hooked TOGETHER. (Which meant watching the shows twice a day so I could screen them.) I got even MORE tickled by the writing and the non-recasts. And by season 4 I was totally amazed and practically obsessed. I was on the IMDb all the time trying hard to find a recast. Never did. I couldn't imagine a TV show that didn't think I was stupid. I thought I had them when they threw Dawn in, but, of course, I was wrong.
It may be why I'm STILL on FX's rear end about putting it back on weekdays even though I have the DVDs. I think I'd have gone STARK RAVING MAD in the last year and a half if it weren't for Buffy and Angel. And I don't even LIKE SMG all that much. I like Buffy, but Sarah doesn't float my boat at all.
All my problems seemed to just disappear, if only for when the show was on. It kept me awake and thinking and interested. And gave me something to look forward to other than just work, feed the kids, work, run the errands, work, fight with my husband, work. Not to mention, if you doze while Buffy's on...you have FUNKY DREAMS that make for paintings that sell in the hundreds!!!!!!
Sorry for the novel, but it's a long story! And anything less wouldn't do it justice! Buffy just flat saved my world....A LOT!
