In the spirit of the Incomparable’s Recently Read podcast, here is a collection of my thoughts on TV and movies I’ve recently watched. Like my recently read, these will be short musings, written shortly after I’ve watched them. Mostly, I think my family is getting tired of hearing me over-analyse the TV we watch together, so this will give me an outlet for it. These will be collected in reverse chronological order, so the most recent postings will always be at the top.
The Irregulars, season 1
This is a fun show about a group of teens living on the streets of Victorian London who are approached by one Doctor John Watson to hire them to help he and his business partner, Sherlock Holmes, investigate crimes. As you might have figured out, this is a retelling of the Sherlock Holmes stories told from the perspective of the Irregulars, his network of street urchins that collect evidence for him on his cases. Ultimately, the presence of Sherlock and Watson matters very little to the series, they occasionally show up to give our crew a new mission, but the story is really about the five teens that are our stars. It’s a compelling, fun story about this group trying to find their place in the world and learning about themselves while going on exciting romps through Victorian London.
This does bring me to the major issue I have with the Irregulars, and it’s not something unique to this show. There is a great story to be told here, but I feel like the fact that it’s an adaptation of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories is more of a distraction from the story being told than an enhancement of it. Watson popping in every episode to give the crew a new case doesn’t really bring anything to story other than a moment of “hey, I know that character from those stories that are ingrained in our popular culture”. Same goes for the episode where they go to see Sherlock and Watson’s landlady, Mrs. Hudson, or Mycroft Holmes calls them in for a chat. At the end of the day, I think this would have been a better story if it had been told as a 100% standalone tale set in Victorian London. They could use the exact same scripts and simply change the names of the characters borrowed for Doyle and it would have made for better storytelling, that’s how little impact the existing Sherlock Holmes canon had. It felt like the show was leveraging a well-known name to bring viewers in, rather than trusting their story to be good enough to do so on it’s own merits.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, seasons 1-7
For Halloween last year, my wife and I were trying to figure out what to do to celebrate the holiday in light of the global pandemic and ultimately decided it would be fun watch the pilot of Buffy. We both had watched the series before, but not in at least 15 years, so after watching the pilot we thought it’d be fun to just continue on into a re-watch of the whole series. Just this week (over four months later), we’ve completed the re-watch of the show and I have some thoughts. I’m going to be less concerned about spoilers since this is 20 years old and it’s hard to talk about a whole series with as much cultural impact as Buffy without getting into some details.
What follows is a lot of criticism of this show, which I stand behind and believe is entirely valid, but I do want to be clear up-front that I enjoyed re-watching Buffy and still think it is a worthwhile watch. Buffy is very much a product of its time and has its flaws, but is also generally a very funny, clever show.
Writing
From a high level, I would say that the writing is a mixed bag. There are certain characters and stories that really don’t work in 2021, but some of the storylines are just as relevant and poignant today as they were when they first aired. Much of the show, especially the early seasons, are still very funny and that is a huge part of the show’s charm.
I found Xander’s casual misogyny and predatory comments about women uncomfortable the first time I watched the show, on re-watch in 2021 they are even worse. I’m not so naive to believe that no one still holds those views today, but we’ve at least reached a point where openly stating them in a wildly popular TV show is the hallmark of a character we’re supposed to hate and not one of the lovable sidekicks. While we’re on the topic of “things it’s not cool to show on TV anymore”, the few times throughout the series they use “retarded” are quite jarring.
The season 6 storyline of Willow’s magic use as a metaphor for drug addiction is a bit painful to watch. While I admire that they tried to tell this story, and I will say that it was admirable that there was very little moralizing about Willow’s addiction making her a bad person, they could have done a better job actually portraying addiction. The ultimate conclusion to this storyline, with Willow going through an incredibly traumatic experience and relapsing so hard she becomes the season’s Big Bad is where I would argue things get particularly poorly handled. Yes, relapse is a common occurrence for those recovering from addiction, but the idea that her relapse is so destructive she becomes a murderer who sees total destruction of the world as the only viable path forward is rather problematic to put it mildly. If the goal of telling this story was to generate sympathy for people going through addiction, it was all dashed by turning the person we are supposed to relate to and feel empathy toward into the villain. I will say, as much as I criticized Xander, I appreciate that this storyline gave him a moment to shine and save the world. The day was saved, not by Buffy punching a bad guy, but by the schlubby everyman character showing empathy to the villain and talking them down with genuine love and friendship.
Having said all that, there are plenty of areas where the writing really shines to this day. In particular, the season 5 storyline with Buffy’s mother getting sick and ultimately dying unexpectedly hits just as hard as it did when I first watched. I think it was a bold choice, to take a silly show about fighting supernatural evil and insert a whole storyline about the very natural horrors of cancer and the death of a parent. The episodes after Joyce’s death are heart-wrenching and some of the best writing in the entire show. I would hold the Body up as one of the best depictions of grief on television and made all the better because it is a stark departure from the show’s usual supernatural content and lighthearted tone.
I do think the writing dropped off significantly post-season 5 (with some notable exceptions like the musical episode). In an ideal world, I would have ended the series after season 5 with Buffy sacrificing herself to save the world from Glory. The main season 6 story arcs, Willow’s magic addiction and “the Trio” of incompetent nerds who view themselves as Buffy’s archnemeses is just not good. This is a classic example of spectacle creep, from season 1-5 the stories get bigger and stakes higher, until in season 5 you have Buffy and the Scoobies facing off against a literal god. Where do you go from there? Unfortunately, it does not appear that the Buffy writers’ room knew how to answer that question. Season 7 was better than 6, but it suffers from the problem I have with most epilogues. They clearly knew it was going to be the end of the series, so they felt the need to wrap up every conceivable loose end, which results in endless seasons that just feel like pandering and don’t actually add anything to the story at hand. Not every plot element has to be cleanly wrapped up before the end of a series (looking at you last 30 minutes of the Game of Thrones finale 😡).
Relationships
A related area to the writing that I wanted to address is how the show depicts relationships. I think this is significant enough to warrant it’s own section. Let’s start off with the highs this time!
I will stan (am I using that right? Will the Gen Zers laugh at me for saying this?) the Xander/Anya relationship until my dying breath. The writers really dropped the ball with the way they had Xander leave Anya at the altar, but everything leading up to that was great. This is one of the best written healthiest relationships on the show (and arguably on much of television). I absolutely love the fact that they talk about each other as their best friends and generally treat each other with deep kindness and respect. Even post their breakup, their relationship is well-written with it being clear that they still care deeply for each other in spite of the betrayal and neither of them really knowing how to handle those feelings.
Another relationship in the good bucket is Willow and Tara. Again, I generally love their depiction and how they treat each other and genuinely seem to care for each other. The fact that they were among the first, if not the first, gay couple I ever saw on television goes a long way, but even if they were straight I’d appreciate the writing of these characters. Actually, I would include Willow and Oz in the well-written relationship category too, I think Willow knows how be a good partner and they show it well throughout the series.
Now, let’s talk about the shit show that is Buffy’s love life. I never can tell if the writers wanted us to buy into the whole Buffy and Angel are one true loves nonsense, but I don’t. I find that whole relationship awkward, uncomfortable, and downright creepy. Angel is a 200 year old vampire who falls in love with a 15 year old girl. Let me say it again louder and clearer, Angel is a pedophile who says he fell in love with a 15 year old the first time he saw her and then followed her when she moved cities. Even if we ignore the fact that Angel is literally centuries older than Buffy and pretend that the fact he was turned into a vampire young makes his love for a teenager ok, David Boreanaz does not look young enough for that part. He was nearly 30 when professing a 16 year old as his one true love 🤮. The show does not do enough to call out the fact this relationship is gross at best and terribly predatory at worst. (Much of the same can be said for the brief period when Wesley is on the show and lusting after teenaged Cordelia.)
Next, we have Buffy falling for her TA in the form of Riley. Another example of someone significantly older than her and this time in a position of authority over her! Ugh. Their relationship is generally better depicted than the Angel/Buffy pairing, but they had to ruin what little good there was with Riley’s angst over “you’ll never love me the way I love you”. This relationship reaches its inevitable end when Buffy find Riley in some sort vampire brothel/drug den (it’s really unclear what vibe they’re going for) letting them feed off him because “at least they need me”. To top it all off, Riley is a boring, pretty one-dimensional character outside of his inferiority complex about his girlfriend being strong and independent. He’s a big strong military man, don’t you know his toxic masculinity can’t handle a strong capable girlfriend that doesn’t rely on him?
Finally we have Spike, who is a gigantic asshole from the time he’s introduced on the show and (quite literally) tries to kill Buffy multiple times. In season 6, at the same time Willow is spiraling out of control, we see Buffy mirroring that behaviour by getting into a super toxic relationship with Spike that ends with him attempting to rape her. At least this time, the show calls it what it is instead of calling Angel’s statutory rape his “moment of one true happiness”. It is a good depiction of both characters using each other for their own twisted motives and not actually caring how it makes the other feel, but even before the attempted rape, I have a hard time watching Buffy enter into a relationship (albeit a toxic one) with someone whose love she rejected because he tried to murder her multiple times.
Effects
Somewhat surprisingly, the later seasons have actually aged worse than the earlier ones in my opinion. I think this is a combination of the early Oughts seeing an increase in digital effects and the show having more money to spend. So while in the early seasons they avoid doing anything too flashy (most of the time they don’t even show the vamp face transition on screen), as digital effects became cheaper they used these more on screen and they are jarring in some places. This, of course, isn’t something unique to Buffy, lots of the shows and movies from this period suffer from the same problem. I remember watching things at the time and being amazed at what they could pull off, but now many of the are in the uncanny valley.
Joss Whedon
I would be remiss not to mention how Joss Whedon’s involvement in the show colours it in 2021. We were well into the series when Charisma Carpenter’s allegations of abuse against him came out. I know that there is a debate to be had on separating the artist from the art and whether you can still enjoy works by problematic creators, but for me knowing about Whedon’s behaviour definitely coloured the way I watched the series. I do not have much to say here beyond that I believe the survivors and absolutely feel for everyone who has been on the receiving end of this abuse.
Designated Survivor, seasons 1-3
Anyone who has heard me talk about books or TV long enough will know that I can be very forgiving of the flaws in a work if it starts from a premise I find interesting - Designated Survivor is a show that fits this mold perfectly. The show is based on the practice started during the Cold War of the designated survivor. When the entire presidential line of succession is in a room together for events like the State of the Union, one person in the line is chosen as the “designated survivor” and is kept away from the event in an undisclosed location in case something happens.
Designated Survivor starts the night of the State of the Union address with Tom Kirkman, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, watching the speech on TV from a safe location. Then the unthinkable happens and the US Capitol building explodes, killing the President, Vice President, Cabinet, Congress, and Supreme Court. The first season of the show follows the newly inaugurated President Kirkman, a man who had never run for any elected office, attempting to completely rebuild the US government and track down who was behind the attack on the Capitol. From the very beginning, I was skeptical how long they could draw out this concept. It seemed like a good idea for a miniseries, but how could they maintain this as a multi-season TV series?
In the end, I did enjoy the first season of the show, as a fast moving political thriller about a person thrust into a job he was wholly unprepared for finding his way. The second season, which begins a year after the bombing, became a middling political drama. It still had Kirkman unsure how to do the job of president, but without the excitement of it being the first weeks or months in the role. The third season actually got better again, due in part to it no longer being produced by ABC, but by Netflix instead. In this final season, we follow Kirkman running for re-election as an Independent in the first political race of his life. Owing to it no longer being a network TV show, this season explores many interesting topics, such as trans rights, assisted suicide, addiction and the opioid crisis, immigration, and bioterrorism.
There is a miniseries re-make of the show called Designated Survivor: 60 Days produced in Korea, that I’m very interested in watching. Both to see how the premise is handled by a country other than the US and because I think a miniseries is the right format for this premise.
Their Finest
A slow-moving, character drama set in London during the Blitz, our main character is a young woman who is hired by the Ministry of Information to bring “a woman’s voice” to the propaganda they produce. She learns the story of two girls who “borrowed” their father’s fishing boat to assist with the evacuation of Dunkirk and is ultimately seconded to a movie studio to assist with writing a feature movie telling their story. It’s a well-written slice of life story, providing a perspective on daily life during the Blitz that I hadn’t seen on screen before.
With witty banter and an interesting movie within a movie structure, I thought it was an enjoyable show that was carried by some great performances, particularly Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy (if we’re being honest, I’ll watch anything with Bill Nighy in it).