I needed a break from the computer for a few days. I truely believed that. It was nothing to do with the Buffy DVD box sets that have started appearing in the house. Oh no. The fact that I’ve watched about 30 episodes since Friday evening has nothing to do with it. And 16 hours straight viewing is not a problem.
Oh God, I’m a Buffy fan.
I was suspicious about Buffy (which is a television program about a teenage vampire slayer in America. It even has a number of web sites about it) from the outset mainly because I’d seen the original movie which was awful in the way that only a film featuring Rutger Hauer that isn’t Blade Runner can be. I’ve seen it again and it’s still awful, so when I heard there was a TV spin off series, which by ancient precedence must be worse than the movie upon which it is based, I was dismissive. Then people started raving about it, but somehow they were the wrong people, mainly composed of dweebs on comic book mailing lists who came across as lower than Marvel zombies on my personal geek hierarchy. Then other people, some of whom I considered friends, mentioned they liked it, but then some of these friends also liked WWF wrestling and could hold long discussions about Green Lantern. Then articles started appearing in the quality newspapers. Admittedly they were usually written by Zoe Williams, but I’ve always had time for her irreverent anti-intellectualising of pop-culture. The final straw occurred with the screening of the musical episode, Once More With Feeling which intrigued me with it’s audacity even though I never watched it until last week (as a naughty p2p 500MB download – I’ve only finished series three so far). I even watched an episode on broadcast TV last year but it didn’t make any sense. I was no longer dismissive of the concept of Buffy and slightly keen, but not desperately keen, to check it out.
Cut to a fortnight ago and a friend of Sam’s lends her the DVDs of season one. I was wanting to watch a movie and settled on Woody Allen’s Love and Death which I’d seen years back and remembered enjoying. It turned out to be rather disappointing (leading me to think that, while not a hardcore Allen fan by any stretch of the imagination, I’ve had something of shift of preference from the earlier, funny films to the later, better ones, but I haven’t seen that many of the later films, due to my previously preferring the earlier ones, so I’m not 100% sure about this) and also short. As I ejected it and replaced the Buffy DVD that had been in the player I figured I might as well check it out. Three episodes later I was hooked.
I’m not proud and I’m not ashamed. I am a little confused by my obsession (I seriously spent all Saturday night, from 9.00pm to 9.00am, curled on the sofa with Sam’s DVD-playing laptop working my way through the disks until my eyes could stay open no longer) but satisfied that it’s all over now. At least for the couple of weeks it’ll take for Sam to work through series three before four arrives. Then, in month or so, I’ll have seen them all and will never have to think of them again.
DVD box sets seem like a good idea, and to be honest they’re the only way I can watch TV programs (it’s interesting to note that I’ve given up on Black Books despite being desperately keen on it when it started), but my problem is I treat them like really long movies. This is okay for things like The Office, being three hours per series, but these Buffy “films” are 16 hours long. Which wouldn’t be a problem if they weren’t so bloody good.
So I’ve admitted to and pathetically justified something that doesn’t need to be justified or admitted to, which probably says a lot about me.
A few corrections -
Buffy the film was ace in the way only a film with Rutger Hauer, Donald Pleasance and a girl who does backflips can be.
Nobody should have time for Zoe Williams articles. Her increasing presence in The Guardian is a source of pain and worry to me. Her supposedly funny columns don’t even scrape to mildly humourous, and her longer articles tend to rambling incoherence. Did anyone make any sense of her recent “interview” with Rob Newman. No, because it said was “Oh, Rob you’re even sexier now you right novels, please take me now” over and over and over again.
You plainly weren’t in the right mood for Love and Death. I wouldn’t watch it and Buffy in the same sitting.
There is no need to admit to and pathetically justify this. It’s television, so nobody will think you’re strange or odd. You may freely talk about it at work, in the street, or at the pub. Comics though? Best keep schtum about those.
Love & Death is possibly my favourite Woody Allen film, though I also love Play It Again Sam (wonderful) and Manhatten (and Annie Hall, of course). I used to really like Bananas, but that’s the one I find drags now (though Take the Money… still bounces along).
Never seen Buffy. I’m intrigued by your capture. And Jez is right about comics.. ssshhhhh.
I’ve been watching the first series of Twin Peaks on DVD this week, which admittedly is only 8 episodes but I know what you mean about the inherently eyeball draining quality of box-sets. Lend us Buffy will you? Tee hee.
Doh – s/Pleasance/Sutherland/
Must proof for correct word, not just correct spelling.
Jez: No it isn’t, but I can see where you’re coming from. I just have an aversion to that kind of film. Sutherland was good though, I’ll admit that much.
I’ve come around to Zoe Williams partly because she doesn’t really belong in the Guardian. It’s a bit like The Guide has escaped to the main paper and, try as I might, I can’t generally fault her. I shouldn’t like her style of writing but I do. This recent piece on gay “marriages” I liked a lot, probably because of the slightly loopy logical leaps which satirise the loopy thinking she’s writing about. Now, John O’Farrell, he really gets on my tits.
It’s not that I need to admit to or justify the Buffy thing, more confused by my sudden obsession. My entire weekend was taken up with watching it – I even watered down cups of tea so I could drink them quicker before returning to the telly (which is in Sam’s room). It was all very odd.
Jez & Garen: I’ve not written off Love and Death and I’m not 100% sure why I didn’t get on with it this time. I did watch Annie Hall the other month and loved that – I’m guessing that’s his transitional film? Bananas is another one I loved as a kid so I’ll need to check that out again to be sure about this spurious theory.
What bothers me the most about watching an entire season of Buffy in a weekend is the fact that I don’t feel bad about doing it. I knew it was bad when I was in the comic shop the other day and after having what I thought was a brief convo about Buffy with the girl behind the counter, it turned out to be about an hour. I would like to meet the person that first came up with the idea of publishing TV shows on DVD and punch him square in the face and thank him all at the same time.
One thing in Bananas is movie perfection: the dream sequence where Woody is a total martyr, being carried on a cross and trying to get into a parking space, then another martyr comes along and wants the same parking space and their tragicness is reduced to idiocy. I might watch it again now.
welcome to Buffytopia. although I’ve yet to own a single box set – they’re sssooooo expensive and I’m sssoooo poooor. so I’m envious I am.
Just finished season four in three days – two DVDs a night. It’s partly an addiction and lack of self control but there’s also a sense of relief when it’s over. Watched that, enjoyed it immensely, tick box, move on.
I heard somewhere that the Buffy box sets are being re-released at half price – something like was £80, now £40 – which is still a lot but not quite such a lot.
Btw, the guy who got me into comics at school (we’re talking 1987 or so), lending me extensive runs of 80s DC superhero comics, was also a fan of your work, Groc, which probably means they was the first underground / indy comics I ever saw, along with the whole post-Escape Heartbreak Hotel / Blamm(?) crowd. Hope that doesn’t make you feel too old or nothing…