Eternal Love

"Buffy's thrown by the new slayer in Giles' life, but finds her essential when the assassins hit close to home. Meanwhile, Cordy and Xander face the wormman- and something worse- as the gang races to save Angel from Spike's deadly plan to heal Drusilla."
-TV Guide's Program Description of Last Monday's Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode...

I've probably seen more TV than anyone I know with the possible exception of Al, and former Cheapo employee John Baynes, and Jennie Haire, the 1996 MIAC Soccer Player of the Year. Unfortunately the more TV I watch, the pickier I get in the quality of programs I can sit through. So for me it was rather sad to watch the final Beavis and Butthead episode, having come to admire them as the ultimate culture critics.

Still it might surprise some that the only show on now that I absolutely cannot miss is the WB's Buffy The Vampire Slayer which plays at 8 p.m. on Monday nights. I'm a relative newcomer to the show- I only started watching this season, the show's second. I originally tuned in expecting to be amused by its campiness and was pleasantly surprised to see a witty, hip, well written and insightful show about the pain of being a outcast in high school and in society.

The first episode I saw was about a vengeful girl who became invisible because her teachers and classmates ignored her until she literally faded away. It was a timely episode what with stories in the news about school districts that are going to all female science and math classes hoping to solve how young women often get ignored and are seldom encouraged to succeed in coed high school courses. I immediately saw that this highly entertaining show had more to say than met the eye.

The plight of the show's heroine, Buffy, is rather tragic in itself. According to the show every generation has to have its "chosen one" the one who will protect us from the dreadful invasion of vampires. Unlike her predecessors, Buffy isn't your typical vampire slayer. A pseudo-Valley Girl, all Buffy longs to be is like the average California teenager. Instead she has to endure grueling slayer training by her mentor, Giles, the school's librarian who doesn't much care whether or not she has a social life or not. To make matters much worse she is hopelessly in love with Angel, a good vampire who helps her out when she is in danger. Theirs is the ultimate in impossible love stories for a slayer cannot ever be with a vampire and vice versa.

The heart and soul of the show is Buffy's friendship with two other misfits, Willow and Xander. The trio has to endure the chiding of the school's popular elite led by the vapid Cordelia who underneath her shallow material existence has her own redeemable qualities. None of the group of teenagers quite knows what their place is in the school's pecking order and like your typical teenager each is unfortunately in love or infatuated with the wrong person all the while oblivious and ignoring the person who truly admires and cherishes them.

Even the vampires, evil as they inherently are, are despairingly likable. Led by Spike, a Billy Idol wannabe, and his sickly heart's desire, Drusilla, they scheme to rid themselves of the threat of the slayer yet at the same time almost respect the way that only she can rob them of their eternal nature. But the show isn't so much about the supernatural and gory special effects. Rather it is about the all too human plight of a group of individuals desperately longing to fit in with the others all the while trying to hang on to that which gives them their individuality. It isn't quite like anything else that has ever been on TV yet in its own unassuming way probably captures the essence of being a teenager better than anything these eyes have ever seen before. Being the perpetual teenager, that is indeed quite the achievement.