I’m sitting here, watching Phineas and Ferb – Got Game, and all the stuff about the F games got me thinking.
When Buffy was shown in India – it was the turn of the century – liberalization was well underway, Cable TV had pretty much penetrated the cities and I was in my second job.
I had come to satellite TV late and probably the only thing that I watched was reruns of M.A.S.H, which was considerably softer than the movie I loved. I remember seeing promo ads for Buffy, and dismissing it as another 90210.
I usually watch TV while I eat – Daljit Dhaliwal on the BBC World news during breakfast was a regular, and one diner, I channel surfed to see a guy in monster makeup chanting “The Sleeper will wake” in front of a pool of some kind.
The scene cut away and there was this pretty little blonde examining dresses in front of the mirror – “Hi, I’m an enormous slut”. I grinned. I was interested, despite being sure that I should be looking down at this and thinking “Ah, for the days of good British Comedy”. . What followed seemed to be mom/teen stuff, until the blonde says something like “Oh, I plan to hang out with the living”?. (WTF, Necrophilia? Really interested now). By the time the encounter with mysterious stud who gives her a cross and tells her that she needed to kill them all, I was into it.
And so I watched the attempted staking of Cordelia, Rupert Giles (Rupert? Really?) thumping the thud book with “VAMPYR” on its cover, chuckled at this exchange
Buffy: Oh, please! Look at his jacket. He's got the sleeves rolled up, and the shirt! Deal with that outfit for a moment.
Giles: It's dated?
Buffy: It's carbon dated. Trust me, only someone living underground for ten years would think that was still the look.
and watched the Master rise and ask for “something young”. I watched Willow try to seize the moment and end up in the master’s crypt with Darla and Jessie and watched Buffy really kick ass until Luke appears and do some ass whipping of his own, till the Batman style ending.
Thankfully, the next episode came right up. The Harvest. “Sunrise”. “….in about nine hours, moron”.
It was the show I waited for. “The Witch” was OK, as was “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date”. I never got to see “Angel”. Consecutive power cuts drove me to my sister’s house for the repeat, but wouldn’t you know, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board got in ahead of me just as I entered her apartment.
It’s funny, but the show was the only thing I could talk about. My evangelism was always met with rolling eyes and snorts at work. “You and your Buffy!” my co-workers would say. I even tried to push it on my coworkers when I was in Italy – and I remember Sergio telling me – “It was nice, but nothing great” after watching Teacher’s Pet.
I couldn’t explain why I enjoyed the show so much. This was when the internet was something that was as ubiquitous in India as it is now. Even at work. Not for the first two seasons. I began to think that this must be some kind of shameful trip – like - searching the internet for topless photos of Marina Sirtis.
It was only when Buffy was in the 4th season on the US and on hiatus in India that I started visiting websites for my Buffy fixes. I mean, if you’ve just finished seeing season 2, you need your fix pretty desperately right? You’ve watched some 88 minutes of the most amazing TV ever – Becoming, parts 1 & 2 – with those unforgettable lines about Happy Meals with Legs, Spike and Joyce on the sofa – “You hit me on the head with an axe…” and the whole heartbreaking climactic swordfight.
So, it was buffyworld.com, spoilerslayer.com, buffyguide.com, buffistas.org and almost every site I could find. Lurking, of course. But with the comforting feeling that there was this whole group of people who were as rabidly obsessed as I was.
So anyway, here I am, several years after the series finale, going through all my DVDs, scrounged from various amazons and still squeeing like fangirl teen at the familiar scenes, still cheering at that rousing Nerf Herder score trying to come up with a top ten.
In no particular order
Nightmares
Hush
The Body
Fool for Love
The Gift
The Pack
Becoming
Something Blue
Passion
Once More, With Feeling
Oh, there are sure to be so many more, but at this point of time….