5.20.03

i moment of silence, please, for the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. goodbye favorite show, now i’ll have no reason to rush home on tuesday nights. i confess that my eyes teared up just a little bit at the very end of the series finale, but then again, i’ve cried along with Buffy and the gang for several years, so what’s one more pulls-at-the-heartstrings episode? hell, i saw the Scooby Doo Movie just so i could see Sarah Michelle Gellar kick some more evil butt while wearing 3″ heels, which is, well, what she does best. in college i turned up my nose at the Buffy fanatics, but then i spent the better part of a year laying on my sofa with an undiagnosable balance disorder, and Buffy Night became a highlight for me. my theory as to why the show was so successful is that it’s a classic comic-book formula: villains that look like big lizards and zombies, a superhero who has to struggle to balance her personal life with her superhero life and the emotional isolation caused by that split, a team of side kicks who have their own quirks and skills, a mentor who is older and wiser but ultimately can’t help the superhero make difficult choices…it’s all there. plus, beautiful actors and an excellent lighting director. it really couldn’t go wrong.

i won’t spoil any surprises for those of you who haven’t had a chance to see the finale yet, but i have to say that i thought Giles, Zander and Andrew passing away a sleepless night by rolling dice and moving characters around an RPG gameboard was a nice touch. Giles: “Great! Now I’m an injured Dwarf with the strength of a doily!”