Arty Buffy Eerily Imitates Life
After reports tv executives were meticulously combing through several premieres (all filmed prior to the Sept. 11 attacks) looking for possibly offensive content, one wonders who was passing out the Molsons at UPN when they threw the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the VCR. It's almost unbelievable the show wasn't red-flagged before it aired last week, especially as so much of the program's previous season now reads like a promo for the WTC disaster.
Faithful viewers of the old WB version (which inspired a Trekkie-esque fan club) remember that the last time we saw star Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers) was in the best-written finale in television history. For weeks prior audiences were kept on the edge of their sofas with the build-up of evil forces in Buffy's ironically named town, Sunnydale. Action came to a head in the form of Glory, a bad woman/demon thing who planned to unleash all the forces of hell upon the world once she possessed "the key," a symbol of universal goodness that turned out to be Buffy's younger sister, Dawn. Naturally, unleashing hell would involve an elaborate ritual, wherein Dawn must be "bled."
By the final episode of season five, Dawn had been captured by Glory. Consulting several ancient texts, Buffy's friends learn that the moment bleeding begins, the only way to stop the ceremony, and total chaos on Earth, is to kill Dawn (who is quickly embodying enough Jesus imagery to satisfy a lit survey correspondence course). Buffy, who has spent years of her life sacrificing numerous boyfriends and college keggers to her fight against the dark side, considers this the final straw. No, she vows, the world may go to hell in a handbasket, but nobody's gonna sacrifice her little sister. Yet pretty soon Dawn is atop a large, shaky construction tower (so tall you can see the entire burg of Sunnydale laid out below) with tiny cuts all over her body.
Presently, the shit hits the fan around them?cars falling into huge cracks in the road, winged goblins appearing in the sky, etc. Buffy has a choice: save Dawn, and let the world be damned, or kill Dawn, thereby restoring order and peace. Suddenly, remembering wise words once told her that her "gift is death," Buffy realizes she and Dawn are part of each other, and plunges off the tower to fulfill the sacrifice herself. Dawn climbs down to find Buffy's friends (who start to look a lot like the apostles) in various stages of mourning around the body. But at least Dawn is safe, the civilized world is safe and the Buffy team quits while they're ahead. The episode ends with a shot of a tombstone, the words "Buffy Anne Summers, 1981-2001/Beloved sister/Devoted friend/She saved the world/A lot," and more than one tear from yours truly.
The response to the news that Buffy would be back this fall on a new network was, shockingly, not entirely welcomed (several purists immediately announced plans to boycott and stick to Sunday night reruns). So it was many a confused, dubious, 30-year-old male who set aside his blow-up dolls and Thor hammers last week to view the resurrection that, thanks to plenty of UPN previews, he knew would involve a real live Buffy Summers.
The result was anticlimactic, even for people who've never touched a human breast. Seems Buffy's friend Willow (a Wiccan) has spent the summer working out a way to bring her pal back. Another character voices the audience's concerns, questioning whether it's right for them to play god. After all, last year they tried to bring Buffy's mom back to life with disturbing results. Hadn't they learned their lesson, he begs?
"This is different," Willow answers, explaining that Buffy's mom died of natural causes, whereas Buffy's death had a "mystical element." (Eyes roll.)
Sure enough, Willow brings Buffy back. Buffy is forced to claw her way out of her own coffin, and is afterward, quite understandably, disoriented. Making her way up the same construction tower she once plunged from, Buffy stares down and reckons she ought to jump again, believing (after clawing her way out of a coffin and all) she is currently in hell. Dawn, luckily for Buff, wanders up and begs her sister not to jump. As Buffy ponders the situation, the tower begins to give way beneath them. The girls jump, and somehow survive, as the audience watches a rickety mass of scrap metal tumble down on top of them (the shot being from Buffy's perspective on the ground).
Besides the obvious, it was painful watching a teenage girl cling to her sister (who after their mother's death has been her only guardian) and then literally will that sister back to life. Everyone who has lost someone, and certainly those who've lost a parent as a child, can attest to how difficult it is to accept death. How many sleepless nights are spent wishing circumstances could miraculously change. That the cancer isn't really in its last stages. That the operation didn't go as badly as the doctors claim. That they just hadn't gone to work in the morning.
Gellar was interviewed on local news stations after the airing, ostensibly to explain the episode. But if a painting needs an accompanying three-page thesis to support it, somebody dropped the brush. Certainly no one is arguing that all art post 9/11 has to be realistic and touchy-feely to be valid, but in this case, making good art and sending the "right message" would have been the same thing.