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:: GROWING UP WITH BUFFY ::

Is Buffy The Vampire Slayer still the same show about fighting the forces of Evil, or has it turned into yet another soap opera? TV Zone takes a look at the evidence...

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Lesbian Witches, Dracula, a mysterious sister, more time in hospital than in some episodes of ER: it's a law of television that as soon as a show has been running long enough, it develops a two-tier fan structure comprised with the newcomers and those with their 'it's not as good as it was' T-shirts. It cannot be denied that this year's Buffy The Vampire Slayer is a very different beast from before, but that's an accusation that can be levelled at any of the show's season: as far back as When She Was Bad we were encountering marked changes in main characters. Change is a necessary part of a show's development, either as part of an organic process to discover what works and what doesn't, or alterations forced upon it by a change in its audience or cast, or simply to avoid stagnation. Buffy moves through its fifth year now with evidence of all three types of change and of course, a fair share of people with those T-shirts.

But no matter why things change, what significance does it have to the characters we watch? Is Riley's departure nothing more than a reaction to fan dislike of Marc Blucas's character? Does the arrival of a 14-year old girl solely signify a desire within the production crew to court the younger viewer? Has Willow become stuck in a gay relationship because bigoted attacks last year have ensured that ending this arc will appear as climb-down? Although it's possible to argue any of these points to a small degree, the deeper truth is that we're watching characters alter, shift and change: we're watching people just like ourselves. Okay, so maybe not quite as dramatic, but then we don't have Sweeps Months twice a year. It's funny that while fans complain that a show isn't what it used to be, they rarely make that reflection upon their own lives.

School's Out Forever

Until Sunnydale High was reduced to rubble in Graduation Day, Buffy The Vampire Slayer had been an episodic series, with most stories separate and the arcs kept short - the longest up to this point being Angel going bad, and even that ran for less than half a season. The school setting helped with this, offering a year neatly chopped up into term times, holidays, career fairs, student exchanges, proms and homecomings. But as Season Four marked the shift into a more grown-up, responsible world, this easy division between the weeks began to dissolve; the university sequences are rarely more than lectures which could have been at any point in the year. A sense developed that Buffy and friends weren't just in Sunnydale for an hour a week, but that a viewer was now only seeing them there for an hour a week. Their lives continued on for the rest of the time. The beginning of events became harder to accurately identify, though the end tended to be easier, as it generally involved a big explosion. For example, at what point do events with Sunnydale's underground monster-fighters begin? Buffy's induction in The Initiative? Our awareness that all is not well with room 314 in A New Man? Or is it with the tazer-using troops encountered in The Freshman? Similarly, Dawn's arrival had been hinted at long before she actually appears, thanks to Faith's cryptic prediction in Graduation Day Part Two.

It's this transition into an ongoing timeline which most obviously illustrates Buffy's move into a more grown-up world, in which events do not precisely stop and start. Note how difficult it is in Season Five to describe episodes as 'the one where...', and also despite some massive cliffhangers (most notably I Was Made To Love You) the traditional 'to be continued' is nowhere in sight. Every week is now a continuation.

Odd-job Xander

The fifth year has even given Xander some continuity in his life, now that he seems to have found a career at last. For a large chunk of Season Four you could easily differentiate between episodes as they would be 'the one where Xander is a manual labourer', 'the one where Xander is a barman', 'the one where Xander is a pizza delivery guy', and so on. True, post-school life necessitates getting a job, just maybe not this many. Giles too has found respectable employment as the owner of Sunnydale's magic shop, and thanks to actually surviving in this role for more than a couple of weeks, will be expecting to hear from the Guinness Book of Records any day soon. Post Sunnydale High he has also spent time dabbling with some extremely dark arcane forces, when in Where The Wild Things Are the Scooby Gang - and the viewers - discover him singing folk songs. Raising deadly demons like Eyghon suddenly seems so small scale: this man is capable of true evil.

However, it's with Anya that the best illustration of Buffy's new grown-up setting is given, which story after story using her child-like approach to the world the changes being made. For this is a place where you need work, you need money, you need health, and through Anya we explore all three. She gets employment in Giles' shop, which presumably avoid those awkward questions about birth certificates that a 1125-years old ex-demon might encounter, and discovers a love of money which sees her, in Real Me, offering to trade babies for money as she plays Game of Life with Xander and Dawn. It's being injured by a vampire that in The Replacement causes Anya to question her mortality (her 'I'm dying!' observation alarming those who'd heard rumours of fatality among the regulars) and her bewilderment in The Body at a death is contrasted with the reactions of the others, to show how firmly they are now in the grown-up world.

The Heart of the Matter

Critics of Buffy's fourth and fifth year point to near continual misery experienced by the main character as one of the show's most disappointing areas, but the truth is failed relationships play a big part in the adult world, and the show is reflecting this. The complexities, difficulties and mistakes are well studied, giving an awareness that we're beyond the smaller world of school dates and crushes. Now love has a price, and that's one that can't always be paid.

Buffy is certainly the show's expert at having a miserable time. Were there a league table of depression, she'd be the Manchester United of it. She's not been in the post-school grown-up world for more than a few months than she falls for (and under) smarmy user Parker. After much deliberation she subsequently allows herself to care for an amiable, boy-next-door teaching assistant, only to discover that he's challenged by her strength, and if he is the boy-next-door type, then she's living next to an armoury. A quick trip to LA to see her vampire ex results in the sort of slapping and arguments you normally only encounter when a birthday's been forgotten. And while her tentative relationship with gentle Ben at the hospital is currently going okay, we already know that there's at least one surprise in store. Actually, in looking back over Buffy's last year and a half, it's no real surprise that she's considering putting the 'convent' into a conventional love life at the start of Triangle.

Willow was a close runner-up in Season Four's league of misery, losing out in the closing weeks on goal difference (she failed to score with Oz). However, unlike Buffy she's been able to find a lasting relationship after an initial heartbreak, and with Tara she has a friendship witch (sorry) has lasted. The portrayal of the friendship has attracted much comment and some controversy, but it's proved to be one of the most stable in the show, even surviving potential upsets such as the revelation of Tara's background in Family.

Ultimately it shows two people in love without wallowing in every single date and kiss, and is well-drawn and mature. It also illustrates to those depressed by Buffy's misfortunes that love can still be found, sometimes when you least expect it. Xander's speech to Anya at the end of Into the Woods shows someone appreciating what he acknowledges is a gift not given to all. The message that the grown-up world doesn't come with any cosy certainties as far as relationships are concerned is a sobering one, but in the relationships that do work, Willow and Tara, Xander and Anya, there's enough to provide hope for all.

New and Improved

So okay, the grown-up world is a scary place: and this is Sunnydale we're talking about. On top of relationship issues, jobs, income worries, accommodation and health to be considered, there are vampires, demons and folk singers. Where's the trade off? What, in essence, makes this a place worth living in?

Firstly, it must be acknowledged that growing up isn't easy, that, to quote from the original Buffy movie, it's time to put away childish things. The vocal minority currently decrying Seasons Four and Five as depressing soap use the same angry resistance to adult matters that most of us felt at leaving our teens behind. In TV as much as life, people have to move on and change, or else get overtaken by the rest. But thankfully in Buffy, as much as in life, people get to improve. They get to be better at what they do.

The Slayer herself is a good example of this, vowing in Buffy vs Dracula to get to the height of her powers, to learn of Slayers past, and be better than ever - we'll ignore that shortly afterward she's had a pointy stick pushed into her by a vampire who looks like Brain May. Willow's magic improves every week, though given her past reputation for bungling spells we hope her development of a sort of solar hand grenade goes okay, or else there won't be a single vampire on the planet, and we'll all be walking round with tans like George Hamilton's.

Leaving Childish Things

Being a grown-up also means you get to understand your place in the world, able to use that peace to learn more about yourself. While Xander's pep-talk to Buffy in The Freshman played the comedy of having him quote Yoda, later stories such as Into the Woods and I was Made to Love You show that finally discovering where you fit is all that's necessary to turn even a village idiot into a voice of wisdom. Xander's pride in his work (once he's decided what it is) brings a new depth to the character, and we see in The Replacement that he's considered good at what he does.

Similarly, Rupert Giles' running the magic shop brings him a new responsibility and satisfaction as he finds something to do other than hit the bottle. After the depths he sank to last year - of which the worst is either watching soaps with Spike or the folk-singing: we'll let you decide - it shows the value of finding where you belong; something you need the freedom of the grown-up world to do.

That's Life

In order to survive as a show, you need to grow, to make the world bigger for your characters so that challenges are always there. In allowing its characters to grow-up and experience a world which many of its audience either occupy or are about to, the producers of Buffy The Vampire Slayer have been braver than most.

They have reduced the distinction between television diamond the real world, even for something as escapist as Buffy. Now the threats posed to our heroes, on top of the demons and vampires, are the same as we encounter: heartbreak, disagreements, even death. In seeing how these characters we've grown to know deal with such trials, we perhaps get a better idea of how we deal with them ourselves.

L'article est accompagné d'encadrés sur chacun des membres du Scooby Gang de base avec à la fin une petite carte de visite résumant les compétences de chacun :

BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS

It was initially a cruel irony that while the Slayer was saving lives all over Sunnydale, she didn't have one of her own. Encounters with boys were a disaster (Owen Thurman, Billy Fordham, Scott Hope, and those are just the casual, non-vampire ones) and she had a mother who graduated from college with a diploma in not-seeing-what's-right-there-in-front-of-you. But after the ultimate lesson in safe sex in Surprise, and then a tormented year after that trying to appreciate that she and Angel would never work, Buffy's love life managed to get even worse. We watch her latest attempts to get a boyfriend with the same horrified fascination which normally causes drivers to slow down and stare on the motorway.

Despite her love disasters, that's not to say she doesn't have her admirers. Angel, after all, loved her so much he had to leave her - no, it doesn't make much sense to us either - Xander still seems to have a little thing for her, and there's another potential vampire lover in the form of Spike. Thankfully, Buffy remembers the first rule of dating - never go out with a man that spends more on haircare than you do - resulting in an enemy with a chip on his shoulder as well as the one in his head.

XANDER LAVELLE HARRIS

Although Xander's Sunnydale High days weren't exactly a bundle of laughs - having his heart broken, then his arm and losing out on a much-coveted class clown award at the Prom - that's not to say things immediately improved. Despite attempting a wide variety of jobs, he was left with nothing more than a wardrobe which looked like the Village People had just moved out. His roadtrip to find himself ended in him actually just showing himself, as a male stripper to raise funds, and work as a barman ended when his customers took over the grunt work. Although by the time of The Replacement we find that Xander's becoming a respected worker, that's not before he managed to break into an old Native American burial chamber and earn himself a dose of 'the funny syphilis'. Just about surviving an encounter not only with his evil twin (or is that vice versa?) but Count Dracula also, Xander finally decided enough was enough. Well, his exacts words were that he was through being evil's general 'butt monkey' but you get the idea. Now he's got hopes, dreams and a girl. So yes, the Buffy universe being what it is, expect very bad things indeed.

WILLOW ROSENBERG

Willow's development post-school has been an interesting one as she discards the mousy nerd persona and becomes an independent woman (even if it one with the dress sense of a kettle). Sadly her relationship with guitarist Oz floundered upon his admission that he was barking, after which she got rid of her Dingoes Ate My Baby albums and replaced them with 'Man, I Feel Like a Woman' instead. Her first date with Tara was the kind guaranteed to bring you together: well, being pursued by floating monsters intent on cutting you heart out has a tendency to do that. Together they managed to defeat The Gentlemen, who might have had their elaborate schemes but were unprepared for two girls doing a good impression of a removals company. Now she works on her education and relationship, though thanks to Buffy we've been deprived of Willow on the stage (take a look at her in Nightmares or Restless and see if you think the Sunnydale Academy of the Performing Arts could have made a difference anyway).

RUPERT 'RIPPER' GILES

Over the last two years, we've rarely seen anything of Giles' dark side as embodied in his nickname, apart from maybe his confrontation with Spike in I was Made to Love You, when he gets so glaring and steely-eyed that he has to take his specs off for a moment. However, you get the feeling that his old bad-boy self would be crying with rage at the thought of eventually becoming a folk singer, in a posy little coffee bar singing songs by The Who, and not even the loud shouty rock numbers at that. 'Hope I die before I get to be a folk star' Roger Daltry might have sung in My Generation in 1965, which would certainly have been the young Ripper's philosophy. And what sort of nickname is 'Ripper' for a singer of the acoustic-guitar, finger-in-ear genre anyway? True, it's a musical realm known for its odd names (the worst being Box Car Willie, but at least you can get a cream for that these days) but Ripper? Might as well call a death metal guitarist 'Fluffy Bunny'. Still, given Rupert's more obvious purchases since Sunnydale High blew up, we assume he's still on his librarian salary (Checkpoint established he hadn't been paid by the Watcher's Council for some time), and if you've got money and free time, then anything goes. Even folk music. Well possibly.

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