Best of the Decade: TV

Here’s the ten best TV shows of the decade. This was by far the best decade for TV in the medium’s history, and this list is pretty close to my best series all time list. There's a lot of great shows that didn't make it, these are the elite.

10. Angel
Best Season: Five
Best Episode: ‘A Hole in the World’
The most uneven show on the list, Angel veered from the boring standalones of season one and the endless, at times nonsensical season four arc to the morally ambiguous challenging heights of the Darla arc in season two, Wesley’s arc in season three and in particular the entire final season were fantastic enough for it to merit a spot on the list. What makes the show shine above its inconsistencies were the fantastic character development work done on Angel, Cordelia and Wesley. All three of those characters were fantastic, and anchored the show in a very real way. It’s a shame the show was cancelled at the height of its powers, but at least we got one of the all time best series finales.



9. Freaks and Geeks
Best Season: One
Best Episode: ‘Discos and Dragons’
Like its ‘cancelled too soon’ brethren Arrested Development and Firefly, Freaks and Geeks has become a legend of TV, and the massive success of virtually all its actors and creative team only enhanced the legend. But, despite the team’s massive success, nobody involved has topped their work here. The performances were fantastic, and the show did a great job of world building as it went on, and letting you watch the people grow and change in subtle ways. It’s the best depiction of high school life ever captured on film, and, as with Angel, even though it was cancelled too soon, it went out on a fantastic high note.



8. Doctor Who
Best Season: Four
Best Episode: ‘Parting of the Ways’
Far from the most consistent show, Who had probably more weak episodes than any other show on the list, but at its best, it hit me emotionally like nothing else out there. The thing I love so much about Who is the core of optimism about humanity’s potential and our place in the world. The Doctor sees excitement and joy everywhere he goes, and even when the show got dark, as it often did to great effect, it’s about him struggling to make things better and having to deal with the fact that he can’t. I particularly like the show’s reinterpretation of the hero’s journey, as we see that just being chosen and taken to a world of adventure doesn’t make all your problems go away. The show is spectacle on a scale never before attempted on TV, and when it succeeds, it blows your mind and breaks your heart at the same time. I’m excited to see the story resolve itself in the two part finale over the course of the next week.



7. Mad Men
Best Season: Two
Best Episode: ‘The Jet Set’
Mad Men is probably the best example of the new kind of shows that became possible thanks to shifts in the perception and consumption of the TV medium. The Sopranos pushed the boundaries of art in TV, but even as it plunged into subjective artiness and de-dramatized character stories in its later years, it still was based around action stories and had violence as the dramatic hook for viewers. Mad Men has no violence or action, but it’s still riveting in its precise exploration of a set of characters trying to survive or thrive in the 1960s. Visually, the show is unparalleled in its gorgeous production design and costuming, capturing all the glamour and narrative ambiguity of 60s European art cinema. It’s great to watch something on TV that feels like Fellini or Bergman, that uses our familiarity with the characters to explore complex issues and new storytelling methods. I’d be shocked if this show isn’t here when I do the best of the decade list ten years from now.



6. The Office (UK)
Best Season: Two
Best Episode: Season 2, Episode 6
The Office is the only comedy on the list, largely because it’s so much more than just funny, it’s got a core of sadness that is shockingly overturned by the show’s joyous Christmas finale. It’s also the most influential comedy on the list, pioneering the comedy of awkwardness that was widely adopted later in the decade, and influencing the documentary aesthetic of shows like Arrested Development, as well as obvious descendents like the American Office and Parks and Recreation. But, thanks to its short running time, the series makes no compromises, and is true to its characters and world. Thanks to the overall sense of hopelessness, the final scene between Tim and Dawn is one of the most romantic and beautiful in all of film. And, on top of all that, it’s the funniest show of all time.



5. John From Cincinnati
Best Season: One
Best Episode: ‘His Visit, Day Five’
I’ve seen John mentioned in a lot of decade writeups, usually in the context of the erroneous idea that Milch allowed Deadwood to be cancelled in favor of doing this show. One, that’s not at all true. Two, JFC was in many ways the continuation of Deadwood that they wanted, but for me, it refined all the things that worked about Deadwood and brought the dormant themes to the fore for a fascinating exploration of the way that communities form and what spirituality and the extraordinary mean in a contemporary context. The series blend of mysticism and verite was hard for people to take, but I loved it, few series had the religious awe this one carried, and moments like John’s sermon in the parking lot or the descent from the clouds that opened the final episode are among the most profound ever captured on film. I don’t consider this a qualified success, it’s outright one of the best series of all time.



4. The Wire
Best Season: Three
Best Episode: ‘Final Grades’
One of the most important and ambitious series of all time, The Wire has been praised extensively, and virtually no compliment about the series is hyperbole. It really is as good as people claim, both in terms of social relevance and in simple story construction. The show built an elaborate world and by the end of the series had nearly 50 regular characters floating through at any given time. And, it’s the characters who linger for me, particularly moments like the apocalyptic fourth season finale, or the operatic Avon and Stringer stuff at the end of season three. People will watch and analyze this series for years to come, it’s one of the most important documents of the aspects of our society that no one else is talking about. You need look no further than the fact that Crash won a best picture Oscar the same year as The Wire aired on TV to see where the real cultural dialogue was taking place this decade.



3. Six Feet Under
Best Season: Five
Best Episode: ‘I’m Sorry, I’m Lost’
Six Feet Under is a show that on the surface lacks the ambition of something like The Sopranos or The Wire, but it’s so brilliant in its character work, and its exploration of the search for meaning in everyday middle class life in the 2000s. All the characters were looking for definition, for a way to give their lives purpose and to find love and fulfillment in a world that often makes it hard to believe in anything. In a decade of irony and distance, this show forced its characters to confront their true selves, and the performances and writing crafted some of the most well rounded characters in literary history, Nate and Brenda in particular. By the end of the series, the accumulated experiences of all the characters led to a devastating series of events, and ultimately transcendence in the final montage that took us outside time to show that everything ends, but we all have to live first.



2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Best Season: Six
Best Episode: ‘Restless’
The 00s featured the series’ best episodes, the two season arc that spanned seasons five and six, as well as my personal favorite season of any show all time, season six. But, it also featured some shakier stuff in season four and season seven. Still, take everything I said about Six Feet Under above and add it an epic hero’s journey and you’ve got what makes Buffy so special. The character work was phenomenal, and I’ve never been as completely addicted to a series as I was watching the later seasons of the show. New characters like Tara and Anya, as well as Spike’s rise to prominence kept the series fresh, and Whedon’s auteurial experiments pushed the show to new heights of visual greatness, particularly in ‘Restless’ and the dazzling ‘Once More With Feeling,’ which managed to simultaneously be a great original musical, and forward the overall season plot. I still love the show so much.



1. The Sopranos
Best Season: Five
Best Episode: ‘Long Term Parking’
The show that redefined what a TV series can be, The Sopranos is the greatest sustained examination of a single character in cinema history, and is also a fascinating look at the priorities and concerns of everyday people in a post WWII, post 9/11 world. While the show drew attention for its mob storylines, what jumped out to me was how much the characters’ world reminded me of my life, and how the relatability of what was happening. It was an intellectually riveting series, full of internal patterns and long reaching character arcs and symbol tracks, but it was also intensely addictive. Watching the last couple of seasons, I was desperate to see the next episodes, and upon rewatch, the series reveals more and more layers. If The Wire functions as a portrait of the poor and downtrodden in society, The Sopranos explores the troubles of people struggling to maintain their hold on the middle class, to continue living their lives in a world where the country slips into financial ruin and loses its status in the world. Tony Soprano is America, and his dream is ours. The instantly iconic finale only adds to the series status as fascinating, endlessly debatable entertainment.

Dollhouse: 'The Target' (1x02)

The second episode of Dollhouse is a major improvement over the first, addressing a lot of the issues I had with that episode, and providing some welcome arc elements, but also still suffering from the basic problem that the premise still doesn’t make much sense, and dealing with the premise leads to a lot of people behaving in ways that feel contrived and don’t make much sense in a real world emotional context.

The good thing about the episode was that it worked well as a mix of standalone and arc stuff. The scenes in the woods were generally exciting, and I particularly liked the evolution of Echo’s imprint as time passed, and the encounters with the earlier versions of herself. I do think a major opportunity was passed up by having that canteen she drank from laced with some unspecified poison instead of LSD or something like that which could have provided the perfect excuse to send her on a journey through her own memories, and do some more creative filmmaking.

Whedon’s shows have never been known for their filmmaking merits. Outside of his last period Buffy showcase episodes, like “The Body” or “Restless,” the shows were directed in generic TV style. The writing and performances were strong enough to overcome that, but here on Dollhouse, the show often feels distinctly like a generic Fox series, and the woods setting here felt like something that would be on a syndicated fantasy series circa 1998. There are striking images from time to time, particularly the overhead shot of the dolls going to sleep, but in general, the show isn’t doing that much groundbreaking visually.

The twists in the woods story did genuinely surprise me at times. The revelation that the park ranger was after them was great because the scene was set up as a way to show us how prepared the Dollhouse team was. It didn’t feel arbitrary that he would appear because the purpose of the scene was to show that Boyd was prepared for any contingency.

The other thing that did impress me about the episode was how much background we got, along with the development of the season’s “big bad,” the rogue doll Alpha. The scene where Boyd is bonded to Echo was particularly interesting, probably the best scene of the episode.

But, there’s still a lot of issues. Topher, the programmer guy, feels like a character that Whedon has beat to death in previous stories. He’s like a recast for maximum genericness version of Warren. Buffy was a show that was ostensibly much goofier than this one, but even in one episode, “I Was Made to Love You,” we had a much better understanding of the emotional stakes that drove Warren to invent April. The feelings were right on the surface, and even though it treated in a goofier way, the whole sexbot concept felt sleazier and more interesting there.

Warren was understandable as a very real person, the kind of guy who was never able to connect with women and because of his robot building genius, was able to make the perfect woman for himself. It’s a wacky story, and not exactly realistic, but it’s emotionally understandable. Here, everyone is in this weird business secret agent mode, and there’s not much recognizable humanity on display.

And, the problem is, the show’s concept basically demands a constant diet of illicit sex and violence to make sense, but is there any point to a show about a woman who’s constantly raped, then brainwashed to forget about it? That ostensibly makes a statement about women’s role in society, and the perception of female value, but what is that statement. The single Warren robot story said a lot more about that, and did so in a way that was absolutely heartbreaking in a way I find hard to believe this show will reach.

Joss has always been at his best when he uses the action side of a story as a device to turn individual emotions in to a larger than life struggle. I never watched Buffy for the narrative, I wanted to see how the characters were affected by what happened. That’s why even a bad Buffy episode can be really enjoyable, because it’s nice to spend time with those characters.

And, the problem with Dollhouse is that Joss has created a show that explicitly makes impossible the thing he excels at, extended character development. Now, it is hinted that Echo will remember her past selves, and struggle to rediscover her true self. That’s possibly interesting. I don’t really care about the mystery of who Echo is, but I think there could be a great story in Echo trying to invent a new self after living for so long with the comfort of imprinting.

But, even if that happens, we’re still left with a bunch of characters at the Dollhouse who don’t have any clear motivations for what they’re doing. Boyd seems like a nice enough guy, so why would he get involved with this operation? Is it just for the money, or do they have something on him too?

Ultimately, I think the biggest issue is the tone. This episode had a lot of good things about it, but there’s still the fact that the premise makes no sense, and no one acknowledges that absurdity in the way they did on Buffy. There’s some jokes with Ballard, but because we’re emotionally aligned with Ballard, and we know that the Dollhouse exists, those guys come off as the delusional ones.

This was certainly an improvement, but the show’s still got a way to go. We’ll see what happens next week, at least it looks like it will be a more fun than portentous episode.

What is the Greatest TV Show of All Time?

With The Wire about to end, for the second time in a year, we’ve got people mourning the “greatest TV series of all time.” But, does The Wire truly match its HBO brother The Sopranos, how do you measure the ‘greatness’ of a long form work like a TV series? The gang over at The House Next Door have a podcast about Milch vs. Chase vs. Simon, and the question of the greatest TV drama ever. For me, it’s a bit more complicated than just the three shows they’re mentioning because the question of greatest and favorite blur into a kind of messy uncertainty.

It’s always tough to objectively assess art. If I had to talk about the TV show that gripped me the most, the one that had me thinking about it nonstop for the months I was watching it, and cast a shadow over everything else I watched for a long time, it’d have to be Buffy. I’ve never connected to the characters in a show the way I did to those people, I never had so much wrapped up in the character arcs, or such a need to see the next episode. There’s a specific kind of engagement that comes with a long form narrative like that series, and I’ve never been so involved in a series as I was with Buffy while watching its fifth and sixth seasons.

But, as much as I love the series, I’ll admit that it’s nowhere near the level of filmic art that either of the HBO ‘holy trinity.’ The show, with a couple of exceptions, is shot in a fairly straight ahead TV style, with traditional TV score and production values. The acting is beyond traditional TV expectations as is the writing, but in general, the filmmaking isn’t anything special. Whedon may talk about not wanting to do “radio with faces,” but only occasionally is the show not that.

The Sopranos is the most well made show in TV history. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the filmmaking is working in service of the story. It truly is a filmic experience, everything is contributing to the overall thematic push of the work. Chase did a phenomenal job of selecting directors that fit within the show’s style, but still managed to stand out as quality filmmaking. He raised the game for what’s possible with television.

For me, Deadwood isn’t close to The Sopranos or The Wire. I liked the show, but it never really grabbed me in the way the best shows do. There were pieces that I was engaged with, and I liked it all, but it just didn’t do it for me. The Milch show I really loved was John From Cincinnati, which picks up on what Twin Peaks was doing, another legitimate contender for greatest series of all time. What I love about John From Cincinnati is the way it built a universe over the course of the series. That was what Deadwood was about, but I responded more to the modern day angst and lack of purpose, broken by the appearance of this prophet from another place.

Part of what makes The Wire and The Sopranos such vital pieces of art is what they have to say about the world we live in. The Wire shows the state of the under class, which is struggling to survive in a world that’s increasingly devoid of legitimate ways to make a living. The Sopranos focuses on people who’ve “made it,” and explores what happens once you find out living the American dream isn’t enough for happiness.

For me, The Sopranos is more relatable. The mob elements were the hook, but the show is really about the contemporary middle to upper class, and the existential issues they face. I saw my world reflected on screen in Meadow’s struggle to get into college, AJ working at Blockbuster, the struggle to find purpose in a commoditized world. These characters were me or people I knew. Every genre work is about taking real world issues and spinning them into something more extraordinary through the genre’s lens. So, struggling to keep your job and lifestyle stable becomes struggling to keep your crew afloat in a mob war.

The Wire offers a different kind of life, one where people really are trying to survive, not pay off their vacation home. When I was first watching the show, I thought of The Wire’s gang story as kind of a prequel to The Sopranos, Avon and Stringer are like Tony’s father, the people who built “this thing of ours,” the people who the next generation can never live up to. In the later years, things change a bit. The gang life becomes less about accumulating luxury and ascending socially and more about surviving. Marlo has no interest in going legit, he wants to rule the streets, that’s it, no more.

But, which show is better? Which is TV’s greatest artistic achievement? John From Cincinnati, much as I love it, doesn’t quite match the emotional scope of The Wire or The Sopranos. But, I would place it in my all time top ten. Another HBO show that deserves consideration is Six Feet Under. The show is a bit overtly soapier than other HBO shows, but there’s moments in that show that touched me more than anything in The Wire or The Sopranos. Perhaps the saddest image I’ve ever seen in a TV show is Brenda sitting in the Quaker church while Nate is off with Maggie. It probably seems a bit petty to say that’s the saddest thing when you’ve got something like Dukie on the street walking to the Araber in the most recent Wire episode, but everyone’s life matter, and just because she won’t be shooting dope on the street doesn’t mean that being betrayed by Nate like that isn’t as absolutely devastating for Brenda.

I have a lot of affection for Six Feet Under, but I will admit that from a thematic and cinematic scope, it doesn’t quite match up to the other two. Still, much like Buffy, I have so much affection for the characters, I have to give the show high marks. I think there is a legitimate difference between calling something your favorite show versus calling something the greatest show. Buffy and Six Feet Under fall more in the favorite column, things I love more because of my emotional attachment to the characters than because of their inherent artistic quality. That’s not to knock them at all, creating characters so emotionally engaging is a major achievement in its own right.

So, the question remains, which is the greatest TV show of all time, The Wire or The Sopranos? For me, the emotional pull when watching the shows is totally different. In The Wire, the institutions work as a giant force, boxing the characters into awful situations. As the season goes on, we’re faced with increasingly awful scenarios, where characters we love come into irrevocable conflicts and suffer. I’m thinking most of season four’s final two episodes, where a season’s worth of random acts lead the total destruction of many lives. “Final Grades” is just a devastating episode, a legitimate contender for best TV episode of all time. The characters are pushed to the edge, to the point where they have to lash out, giving us those heartbreaking moments like Carver in the car, McNulty hearing about Bodie’s death, the death itself, and the sad fate of the kids.

The Wire is a show about people who lack control over their own lives, who try to do good things, but invariably wind up knocked down and destroyed by a system bent on preserving itself. I think it’s a hugely important show, and extremely relevant for many, many people in our world. But, I personally find The Sopranos more relatable. The Sopranos is about people who do have control over their lives, but invariably wind a way to mess things up, hurt others and do bad things all to help themselves.

The emotional pull with The Sopranos is between our attachment to the characters, our desire for them do the right thing and get out of the life versus the inevitable failure to actually save themselves. The quintessential episode for me is “Long Term Parking,” in which Christopher is offered the chance to run away and restart his life with Adrianna, however, upon seeing a white trash family at a gas station, he decides it’s not worth it. It’s a totally selfish bastard moment from him, one of the critical turning points of the series.

Now, it may be the fact that I’m from a world closer to The Sopranos than The Wire, but I find The Sopranos a more personally relatable show. Both shows have fantastic characters, but I think The Sopranos’ gang, Tony and Chris in particular, are a bit deeper and more complex than anyone in The Wire. Simon frequently talks about how story is paramount, which it might be for him, but its characters who hook me on a show. Ultimately, that’s what makes me give Sopranos the edge.

The Sopranos kept its quality remarkably consistent across the run. I know a lot of people say season one is the best, but for me, it’s either season five, or the final run of episodes that’s the high point. As the show went on, it became increasingly less reliant on story and became an extended look at the psychological troubles of all the characters. I loved that, even the much maligned season six part one plays brilliantly on DVD. “Kaisha,” which I called a disappointing finale when it first aired, was riveting on rewatch. Yes, season four is a bit off, but on the whole, I can think of only a handful of stories that didn’t work over the run of the series.

If The Wire was only seasons three and four, I’d give it the nod over The Sopranos. Those two seasons are about as perfect as any season in TV history, the other three seasons are more of a mixed bag. Season one is pretty great, but a bit simpler than The Sopranos or what follows on The Wire. I have a bunch of issues with season two, it’s still great, but the inevitable tragedy of Frank Sobotka just felt too one note next to the moral complexity of season one. Season five feels a bit hurried, and has the good, not great newspaper storyline hanging over much of it. It’s still absolutely amazing on the whole, but when you’re talking about the greatest show of all time, absolutely amazing with some flawed bits might not be enough.

And, from an artistic point of view, I think The Sopranos did more interesting things with film as a medium. The Wire is a wonderfully shot and acted show, it does exactly what it set out to do. But, I love the psychological craziness of an episode like “Fun House” or “Join the Club” and The Wire doesn’t have any equivalent. It wouldn’t fit in the universe they created because The Wire is all about showing the whole. It’s about showing the complex interactions of the city, but in many ways, a single human brain is more complex than this organism we call civilization. It’s an endless mystery, and I don’t think any show did a better job of exploring it than The Sopranos.

But, that’s not to diminish what The Wire does at all. The two shows are the definitive cinematic statements of the early twenty first century, a chronicle of a post 9/11 world. When people think about this era in film history, they won’t think about the movies, they’ll think about these two shows.

The Ever Expanding Spider-Man Narrative

I saw Superbad last night, a really hilarious movie, and another fantastic piece of work from the Apatow comedy machine. His recent run of films is virtually unparalleled in comedy history, both Knocked Up and Superbad had me laughing through the entire film, in a smart way, not the idiotic way of way too many mainstream comedies today.

But, Apatow’s films are symptomatic of a larger trend in films right now that’s gotten rather annoying. Grant Morrison talks a lot about superhero narratives as our modern myths, their archetypal journeys serving as templates for other narratives. Almost all superhero narratives hew pretty closely to the classic hero’s journey template, but there’s a world of difference between the Superman narrative and the Batman narrative. However, the narrative that’s dominating our culture right now is the Spiderman narrative. In almost all the mainstream movies I’ve seen this summer, with the ironic exception of the third Spiderman film, I’ve seen a replaying of the Spiderman origin story.

So, what is this story? Geeky guy wants attractive popular girl, but she’s in a relationship with a shallow attractive, popular guy. If only he could show her the real him, she’d fall in love with him and ditch that guy. Luckily, an inciting incident occurs that gives him the chance to prove his merit, and by the end of things, the geeky guy has proven himself worthy of the popular girl and won her affections. Adjust the details slightly and you’ve got the basic story of Knocked Up, Superbad, Stardust and various other contemporary movies.

There’s no problem with this narrative, it clearly has social resonance, there’s a reason that Spiderman was much more successful than Superman Returns at the box office, people want a hero they can relate to. However, I feel like the relating has crossed a line, and we’ve now reached the point where we’re glorifying the qualities that are actually these guys’ weaknesses, while at the same time reducing women to prizes to be won. The problem I have with the genre is that it’s always if only the pretty girl could see the real me, it’s never let me see something worthwhile in the girl who isn’t popular or pretty, but probably has a lot more depth.

It’s that element of the genre that makes it feel a lot like male fantasy. The female characters in Superbad have very little depth. While this is admittedly appropriate for the story they’re telling, it does reduce the characters’ entire motivation to I want to get with her because she’s hot. With Seth’s character in particular this was an issue. We’ve watched him do all kinds of awful selfish, but very funny and somewhat endearing things over the course of the film, but I don’t think we’ve seen any reason why Jules would actually want to be with him. It’s one thing to have this kind of logic gap in the McLovin storyline, but I felt like the Seth part of the film was meant to be a bit more reality based.

Knocked Up got a lot of criticism for similar issues, but I feel like that movie is actually a bit more honest about the incongruity of their relationship, and the entire film hinges on the fact that they really don’t belong together, but are put in this situation where they have to work together. Ultimately, that movie works because it engages in the drama of the situation, not just the fantasy of it. Superbad has much less emotional reality, it may be funnier, but it winds up playing as more of a fantasy, that you can have it all, not through sneaking it drunk, but through actual personal interaction.

Apatow’s work has always walked the line between hard edged reality and indulgent geek fantasy, never more so than in Freaks and Geeks. There, his guys hanging out milieu was balanced by Paul Feig’s dramatic sense. Never in the rest of Apatow’s work have we seen a female character anywhere near as well realized as Lindsay Weir. The more Apatow makes, the more it feels like he was mainly responsible for the lighter stuff on the show, mainly the geek side, while Feig lorded over the heavier dramatic stuff, particularly Lindsay’s arc.

I don’t think there’s a problem with having some films like this, where the schlubby guy is the hero and gets the girl, but I hope it doesn’t mean the disappearance of the ultra competent slick hero. Coming out of Star Wars, no one wanted to be like Luke Skywalker, the ultra sincere farmboy, they wanted to be like Han Solo, the badass morally ambiguous anti-hero. I’d much rather see heroes in the Han Solo mode, or the Batman mode, conflicted, uncertain, but always able to do the job. There’s more conflict there, and the characters have more agency. In Superbad, the characters ultimately don’t have to do anything to get what they want, they just had to show up. For me, it’s more interesting to wonder if an ambiguous character will choose to help someone than wonder whether a heroic character will be able to save someone.

Ultimately, both kind of heroes are a kind of wish fulfillment. One is presenting the audience as they are and showing them that it’s cool to be like that. The other is showing them what they could be. My taste in film runs towards the more out there and removed from reality. I like an emotionally real basis, but I’d rather see my world on screen through metaphors and surrealism than just straight up recreation. So, I don’t feel the need for the protagonist to be exactly like me. But, I guess a lot of people do, and that’s probably a big part of the success of a film like Superbad.

I think the change in type of hero is a big part of what soured a lot of people on the later years of Buffy. The first three seasons were all about wish fulfillment, taking these high school outsiders and showing that they were doing so much more than the popular kids. People complained that by season six the characters had become insiders, and the outsiders were the villains. I think that is a valid complaint, but it ignores the fact that the characters were much more interesting when removed from the strict social hierarchy of high school and placed into the nebulous “real world,” Buffy herself in particular.

Buffy began on the same journey as Spiderman, gifted with powers, uncertain how to deal with them, and constantly beset by troubles. By season six, she was on a much darker Batman style journey, identifying more with her enemies than the ‘normal life’ she once envied so. In general, TV allows for much more complex stories, and even something like the Sam/Cindy Sanders relationship on Freaks and Geeks had a harsh dose of reality, where the film would have ended with the clinch.

My favorite high school character in recent media was Claire from Six Feet Under, who dealt with the same issues as your classic geek characters, but actually had agency and an identity. She was the person she wanted to be, and just had to move on to a different social environment to get it.

So, I’m not sure there’s really a point here. I loved all the movies I’ve been criticizing here, it just bothers me that this fantasy is so prevalent for a number of reasons. One is I think it’s on some level pretty misogynistic, reducing women to an object to be one, and second, it’s just getting a bit tired. Let’s see a new narrative.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 'The Chain' (8x05)

One of the most overused PR phrases to describe a new film or album is that the artist is "going back to the core concept," or "back to their roots." That's why the prerelease buzz for every new Radiohead album is that it's the new OK Computer, and most Scorsese films are hailed as the next Taxi Driver or Goodfellas. This issue, and the comic series as a whole are all about going back to the core concept, the original spark that ignited Buffy. However, as season seven showed, that is far from a good idea, the core concept is nowhere near as interesting as the incredibly complex characters who sprung up as the show went on. This issue isn't bad, it's just not particularly noteworthy.

Writing comics may seem pretty easy, and the vast numbers of people from other media who do vanity projects in comics would back this up. However, most of these books don't turn out so well. Writing a comic, particularly one like this, which is based on a TV show, is tough. We're used to getting 45 minutes of Buffy a week for free, to get the equivalent of one episode every couple of months for $3 an issue is tough to get used to. The best comics writers tell stories that can only work in comics, Morrison and Moore are so incredibly good, it takes weeks to unpack what they put in 22 pages. That kind of analytical analysis isn't applicable here, we've got the twenty-two pages and that's it. Ultimately, comics have to be better than other mediums because that stuff is free and comics cost.

So, this is all a roundabout way of getting to the essential underwhelmingness of the issue. It's solid, but doesn't do anything to surprise or draw you in. Ultimately, the stories in this comic aren't good enough to draw me in on their own, it's primarily my affection for the show that has me reading, and this doesn't give me any moments on the characters from the series. So, it's just a decent standalone, much like the material in the Tales of the Slayers collection, nothing to write home about.

Conceptually, the story should work better. The basic idea is interesting, but I feel like it's all told in the first three pages. This is a Buffy decoy, she dies for Buffy, Buffy is a symbol who's bigger than any individual. The rest of it is just messing around this moment, filling in information that we pretty much already know.

The structure is reminiscent of Morrison's "Best Man Fall" from The Invisibles, and comparing the two works reveals a lot about why Morrison is a much better comics writer. Morrison has an uncanny ability to capture huge emotional moments in a single image or a couple of panels. He writes dense comics that usually take a longtime to read. Whedon's work is more open, with a lot of splash pages and repeat panels. Compare what we learn about Bobby Murray in 'Best Man Fall' with what we learn about the Buffy decoy here. Bobby has an entire life, she just has a couple of moments that are repeated over. And, even with the huge amount of information in 'Best Man Fall,' it's still more emotionally involving.

Comics bring out most of Whedon's worst tendencies. Even though I'm a big genre fan, I don't like the random monsters and demon realms. Buffy and Angel were almost always at their best when they focused on real characters, not random monsters. If he had access to more resources on Buffy, I feel like we would have gotten more of this gimmicky stuff, like the fairy or slime demon, but that doesn't do much for me. The supernatural stuff was merely a way to cast the characters' emotions onto a grander plane. The demons here, or Ord from the Breakworld in X-Men both take focus away from Whedon's greatest strength, creating memorable characters. The goofy comedy of the TV ad is also a mistake, I assumed it was an authorial conceit, but the captions imply it's an actual ad on TV, and that makes no sense.

Again, it's not that this issue is bad, it's more that it doesn't touch even the worst episodes of the series. What made the show work was the characters, and we can't get that in the comics. For one, we don't have the actors playing them. There's also the issue of time, we barely got to see where Buffy was at, let alone the others. And, at this point the most interesting characters from the show are all gone. Anya's dead, Spike is MIA, Tara's dead already. The core group is good, but what I really want to see is some followup with Buffy and Spike, or an issue showing how Xander feels about Anya's death. Ultimately, it's not the decompression of the story that bothers me, it's that comics have to have some kind of deeper subtext to power them beyond just twenty-two pages. Morrison and Moore can do it, this book doesn't quite make it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 'The Long Way Home: Part IV' (8x04)

This issue brings the initial arc to a close in a less than spectacular fashion. At this point, the novelty of having new Buffy in comics form has worn off a bit, so the problems with the storytelling are more apparent. It’s not bad, it’s just that this doesn’t feel like the show I loved. Admittedly, most of the problems are holdovers from season seven, magnified by the limited space that monthly comics allow for storytelling.

My major issue with this issue, and the series in general, is the premise, Buffy as leader of a gang of slayers. For me, the interesting part of the show was rarely the vampire slaying, or Buffy’s issues with her role as slayer, that was all just a hook to get people interested in the characters. The reason I love season six more than any other is that it strips back the action trappings and lets us focus exclusively on the characters and their issues. Season seven, and this comic, go in the exact opposite direction looking at Buffy only as a slayer, not as a person.

What this issue does is basically retread the exact thematic points we already saw in season four and seven, with the initiative and Caleb arcs. I never liked the initiative because it just didn’t fit into the world the show had created. I like the more street level slaying, what happens to the characters in seasons five and six is relatable, Buffy’s involvement with the initiative in season four, not so much. The show could do fantastical things and still be emotionally real, but the initiative stuff just didn’t make me feel anything. And, this arc hits the exact same points, Buffy vs. entrenched patriarchal military industrial complex.

The series’ hook was a girl who had a lot of power, but really wanted to live a normal teenage life. As she grew up, that remained the central conflict, could Buffy be a slayer and still live a normal life? The end of the show seems to resolve the conflict by making her no longer the chosen one, instead she’s just one of many chosen. That’s why the setup of this comic bothers me, Buffy isn’t particularly interesting when she is in control of her life. It’s when things are spinning away from her that the character was best, here she’s got so much power, such a large operation, there’s no real tension.

The most grating moment in the issue is when Buffy goes on a rant about how the military guy doesn’t want women and power in the same sentence. It doesn’t work for the same reason that the Caleb arc in season seven fails, you never want to make what was thematically implicit explicit in such an obvious manner. We know that Buffy is powerful, we know that people are out to get her, you don’t need to go into such obvious speechifying mode. It’s the equivalent of having someone come out and call Tony Soprano a bad man, we know that already, we don’t need to be told. We know that the military is out to keep women down, we don’t need Buffy to say it. It just took me out of the moment of the story.

The series ends by setting up an X-Men style war between slayers and normal humans. This is an interesting route to go in theory, but I don’t think it works with what Buffy was doing during the series. For me, Buffy isn’t particularly interesting as a leader of troops, that’s why season seven fails on a lot of levels, we lose the sense of her as a person. Now, she’s an icon, not an individual and we either have to see behind her façade or not put her in this position. I feel like we really need Spike here, to keep her in touch with her dark side. Now, she’s got no one to play off of and it’s only through the interior monologues that we get any sense of the conflict she feels. But, let’s show, not tell on that.

Ultimately, I think the reason I have issues with the book is that Buffy was one of the least interesting characters on the show. I love her during season two, five and six, when she’s got all kinds of troubles facing her, but during the comparatively stable years, she wasn’t particularly interesting. Willow, Anya, Tara, Xander and Spike were all much more interesting than her, and I’d rather spend more time with them than with Buffy. That’s where the problem with comics come in. On the show, there was time to give the other characters their own meaningful subplots, here they just do a couple of pages supporting Buffy. Perhaps that will change in future arcs, we’ll see.

Looking ahead, I’m curious how this storyline will play into the Faith storyline. Will it really be six months before we return to these characters, or will Faith eventually meet up with them? I have to say, I’ll be happy to leave Buffy for a while to focus on someone else. The setup she’s got now, she’s just not that interesting. There were some more interesting, human moments in the last couple of issues, but not here. I’m sticking with the comic, it’s still cool to see the gang back together, but I think the premise they’ve chosen was really misguided. Hopefully things will right themselves on future storylines.

Meeting Joss

I graduated from college yesterday, and as part of the festivities, they had a series of talks from alumni and such, including one by Joss Whedon on "The Importance of Being Keanu." His basic point with this talk was that Keanu had chosen roles that presented a specific agenda, one of nonviolent problem solving. I'm not sure how this jives with the shootouts of The Matrix and such, but he sold it well and told a bunch of interesting anecdotes about working with Keanu on Speed. I saw Keanu speak last year at a screening of A Scanner Darkly and he seemed like a smart, thoughtful guy. He said that Neo was the perfect role for Keanu because he has a kind of inhuman beauty, a perfect mix of racial characteristics to be the sort of generic ideal of humanity. So, he could serve as the BuddhaChrist in The Matrix. I'd be curious to see what Joss would say about the possible casting of Keanu as Dr. Manhattan in the Watchmen film.

After that, there was a Q&A where he talked a lot about the subjugation of women in Hollywood, similar themes as his recent Whedonesque blog posting. His points are definitely valid, and I try to bring out females who aren't defined by their relationship to men in my work. It's weird to watch people make films where all the women are girlfriends or wives.

He talked about his experience directing The Office, how they shoot double the amount they use in an episode, and will frequently try five or six different versions of a joke, and do an improv take, then use the best one. He said that Veronica Mars was the first show he was happy to have called "The next Buffy." Charmed, not so much. He also said that Battlestar Galactica was the best thing ever on TV, and The Matrix was the best movie ever. Also, The Body was the best thing he ever did.

My favorite thing he talked about was a meeting with Eliza Dushku where he asked her "Why do you keep making these shitty movies?" And, she replied they don't try to make them shitty. This was in reference to finding good roles for women, and he said that she needed to seek out the best directors and try to work with them.

This was a good event, after I walked down, and the line for signings was ridiculous, so I left and went on with my day. Later, I went over and watched some fireworks then wandered down towards this party in a tent for alumni and graduates, and who should be milling about but Joss himself.

He went over to talk to some people and I went over to my friend Vanessa and was like “It’s Joss!” So, we went over to talk to him, and talked for 15 minutes or so about a bunch of things. I asked him why he couldn’t get the Buffy movies made, considering studios are all about creating branded franchises they can go back to time after time. He said that the studios felt he could get people to work cheap because they’re his friends, and they refused to budge on the funding. He said they didn’t see a precedent for what he was trying to do, so I mentioned that perhaps the new Babylon 5 movies would do that. He hadn’t seen any of the show. During the Q&A, he said he hasn't seen Heroes and has only seen the first episode of The Sopranos, but thought it was one of the best things he'd ever seen on TV.

Vanessa asked him if he’d seen the thesis films this year, and he said no. I told him about mine, the nature of the plot and how it was inspired by him and Grant Morrison. He said that Morrison was great, the reason that he decided to write X-Men, but sometimes Grant had issues with story structure. I asked if he’d read The Invisibles, and he said that, like a lot of people, he had read some and really liked it, but never finished the series.

I asked him if he’d ever want to do an original musical, and he said that’s his dream project. He talked about how the Buffy musical was so easy to write because he tailored it to what he knew his people could do, and it’d be tougher to do something original. I told him that season six was my favorite season, and he said there was a small group of people who felt that way. I asked him if he ever thought of doing some kind of coda episode after ‘Chosen,’ but he said that the show was always going to end with the slayers being activated, because that was the thematic finale he wanted. I’d still argue that a little more character time was needed, but I guess we’re getting that with the comic. He said that by the end of season seven they knew it was time to go and were feeling a bit burnt out, but they were thinking about doing either a Faith or Slayers show, but that didn’t happen.

Then, I asked him if I could send him my thesis film to get his reaction to it and he said he could do that, but to give it to the head of the film department and say he really said yes because she gets people who want to send him 900 page fanfic. Vanessa asked him how he felt about people writing fanfic with the characters he made in his head, and he said that it was weird because they were writing about people he knew, like Willow wasn’t just Willow, it was Aly. But, he was happy that people were writing it, even if it was erotic fanfiction, since he wanted to inspire passion, and sexual passion was just as good as any other kind.

So, this was an amazing chance to talk to one of my idols one on one, and hopefully he'll send me a critique of the film at some point in the future. That would be just incredibly cool.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1: 'The Long Way Home: Part 1'

I’ve talked a lot on this blog about how The Invisibles caused major changes in my life, and set me on the path I am now, but no journey is static, and shortly after starting down that path, I experienced another work that caused major changes in the way I view fiction. That work was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I began watching in August 2003. I’d heard a lot about the series, and wanted to pick up the first season on DVD when it came out, but just never got around to it. Seeing the rabid online fanbase, I figured this was something I’d enjoy, but it wasn’t until then that I actually got the first season and began to watch.

I wasn’t a huge fan initially. Coming from The X-Files, I was really happy to see a show that prided itself on strong continuity, but the first season left me wondering what all the fuss was about. It took me a while to go through things, and by the time of season two, I was starting to get into it. Everything changed when I watched ‘Surprise’/’Innocence,’ I was totally hooked and continued on from there. The next major turning point was ‘Restless,’ which was the first time I realized this show was a fantastic work of art, as well as being enormously entertaining. From there, it just kept getting better, with season six being the culmination of my love of the series. Never before or since had I been so addicted to a show, to the point that even when I wasn’t going to watch another episode, I’d have to see the first five minutes, just to resolve any cliffhangers.

What made the show so special was the characters. Never before had I cared so much about the exploits of a fictional bunch, I was so engaged in their relationships and their journeys, by the end, it really did feel like seven years of change and growth, compressed into four months or so of viewing. I’ve seen a lot of great shows since, but nothing as good as Buffy.

But, I’ve never been a big fan of season seven. The potential slayers drew focus away from the character conflict, sapping the show’s major strength. For me, the slaying was always secondary to the personal tumult, and that balance was upset in year seven. But, I was still hooked, and after the show ended, I would have given almost anything for just one more episode to wrap things up for Willow, Buffy and Xander. The ending was so abrupt, we really needed a denouement. Little did I know that some years later, I’d get that and more, with the new Buffy comic book series.

Just picking up this book and experiencing new Buffy was fantastic. It had been a long time since I’d spent time with these characters, and the same attachment that drove Joss to write the book drove me to read it. It is great to see Buffy and Xander again, to think that there could be new developments in their story after four years of stasis. It’s great to see.

Unfortunately, the end of season seven left us in not exactly the best place to continue the story. Buffy’s arc in the show was dealing with her role as the slayer, one girl chosen to combat evil. She could never reconcile that with having a meaningful personal life, however, in the end, she created many new slayers, thus granting herself freedom from the burden of being the one.

The elegance of this ending is undone by having her continuing to burden herself with the work of being a slayer, even more so now that she’s running a massive supernatural combat organization. The worst part of season seven was the idea of Buffy as a general, and unfortunately we get a lot of that here. Her work with Xander’s mission control is more reminiscent of Alias than the Buffy we once knew. A lot of the show’s charm was in the fact that they were making world shaping decisions in a library or a magic shop. A high tech headquarters was never what they were about. The question also arises, where is the money for this stuff coming from? Old Watcher’s Council funds perhaps? That’s not a huge issue, but to go from not being able to repair a pipe in season six to having a helicopter in year eight is a big jump.

At the end of the issue, Buffy reflects on the fact that she misses home, she misses just being a person, not the leader of this group of slayers. By giving her this new conflict, Joss is able to preserve the central issue of the series. Her concerns are my basic concerns, but it’s a risky storytelling move to try and use the inherent flaws of your premise as character issues. It worked well when the boringness of Riley turned into an exploration of why Buffy could never love an ordinary man. But, denying your reader the central pleasure of the series and trying to use that as a plot point is a bit riskier.

The joy of Buffy was always that it was relatable. That was most emphasized in the high school years, and I found their troubles in years five and six even more understandable. Feeling disconnected from the world is relatable even for people who haven’t come back from the dead, struggling to run a multinational paramilitary organization, not so much. I fear the direction Joss has chosen to take the story will prevent us from being able to just spend time with the characters, always the greatest joy of the series.

Now, I don’t want to knock the whole issue. While there are flaws, it’s still an absolute joy to be back in this universe. Some of the dialogue is a bit over done with the Buffyspeak, but it mostly works, I particularly like Xander’s Nick Fury reference. It’s great to hear what’s going on with Willow and Andrew, to understand that they have lives that are still moving forward, despite the series ending. That said, I do think the comic will be hurt by the fact that a lot of the best characters are off limits. Spike is on Angel season five at this time, so he can’t meet Buffy, and Anya’s dead. The core four are still there, and Dawn, but that’s pretty much it.

Bringing the military back as villains is tricky. Season four’s The Initiative didn’t work out so well, but perhaps with the unlimited visual budget of a comic, this will work better. The revelation of Amy at the end of the issue was a great surprise, and indicates that the series will be tightly tied to continuity. I’m not sure who she’s working with, but I’m sure it will be another great surprise for the fans.

After a whole series of objectivity, it feels a bit odd to be given access to Buffy’s thoughts. I’m glad Whedon chose to use those captions, as it is the issue feels a bit light compared to a TV episode, and this at least gives us an efficient recap of her mental state. Still, it hurts to pay three dollars for something that gives us only a third or so of what an episode would.

Ultimately, I’ll forgive all the flaws because we’re back in the Buffyverse, and it’s been way too long since we got new stuff with these characters. It baffles me that Joss couldn’t get his direct to DVD movies set up somewhere. I feel like there must be something going on behind the scenes we didn’t hear about because the studios are all about creating sustainable franchises they can keep going back to. If nothing else, Serenity shows that Whedon’s got a devoted fanbase, and anything he puts out is guaranteed to make some money. If Babylon 5, a ten year old series that had never had the media heat or fanbase of Buffy, can come back with new DVD movies, shouldn’t Joss have been able to get some money together for his own movies?

There are a couple of potential answers I’ve considered. One is that it was simply a question of money. In a recent article, he said that the studio thought the actors would do it for virtually nothing because they were his friends, and I’m guessing Joss himself also wanted a bigger budget than they thought appropriate. JMS seems like the kind of guy who prides himself on doing stuff cheap, so he’ll take whatever they’ll give him for the Babylon 5 movies. Joss likely tried to push the budget, leading to a stalemate.

My guess is the studio wanted to do things on the cheap because they weren’t sure how successful these movies would be without Buffy herself. They might not understand the fanbase’s devotion to pretty much all the characters in the series. You could put out an Andrew movie and still get sales. And, there’s likely some lingering tension from the cancellation of Angel. This confluence of events lead to the canceling of that project, a real shame because I would have loved so much to see just a little more Illyria or Spike. It’s absolutely ridiculous that they couldn’t get things together, and we probably won’t know the whole story for a while.

But, this comic is more than I would have expected to get, and it’s a nice addition to the ‘verse. In the long term though, I think Joss needs to get another movie or show out there quick. He’s lost a lot of heat in Hollywood since Buffy ended, and particularly after leaving the Wonder Woman film, he needs to get a new project going quick. Otherwise he could slip into Chris Carter territory, once the hottest thing around, then forgotten a few years later. An original film is a good idea, but I’d really like to see Joss back on TV. His storytelling talent lies there, and Serenity shows that his writing just isn’t as special when compressed into the constraints of a three act feature film. But, really, get something going or else he’s going to be writing a lot more comics in the future.