Nick asked:
> >And the "science" in Buffy is exactly what?
Debbi replied:
Well, if you want to look at it that way...Why the Initiative, of course; how else are you going to made a human/demon cyborg with super strength and speed and the ability to upload data from a disc inserted into its chest?You gotta have the secret laboratory, and the crazy scientist chick, and some fanatical drugged warriors to protect your research facility. Don't forget the cool military-type gadgets, either, or the hidden door...
There was also a Frankenstein episode ("Some Assembly
Required," early second season), the episode where a
demon gets scanned into a computer and starts
wreaking havoc on the internet (it was a demon that
was bound into a book, and to release it you would
have to read the pages -- since the book was scanned,
the demon was released into the computer, and eventually
had others build it a "robot suit" to download itself
into; the episode was called "I Robot, You Jane", first
season), the android episode where John Ritter plays
Buffy's Mom's new boyfriend, who turns out to be a
psychotic android ("Ted," second season), the episode
where some chemical akin to steroids only derived from
fish which is being given to the swim team causes them
to start mutating ("Go Fish," late second season)...
Season 3 is remarkably devoid of technology, but season
4 has The Initiative and all their (pseudo-)scientific
stuff, and the 5th season saw the introduction of the
Katrina-Bot ("I Was Made to Love You") and the Buffy-bot,
among other things...
:-)
You could also say that Buffy (and some of the other
characters in the show) are basically superheroes, and
superheroes have usually been lumped into the category
of science fiction.
And despite all the silliness, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
still manages to be a great dramatic show. And it really
is a drama that just happens to have a lot of comic and
"genre" elements, sort of a _Kolchack_ or _X-Files_ with
a more consistant core mythology and people who have a
somewhat unusual sense of humor.
Just like any book, movie, TV show, or piece of music,
Buffy certainly isn't for everyone. But a lot of
folks ignore the very strong characters and fantastic
writing. I think the fact that the poll in SFX has
four characters from BtVS certainly speaks to that.
Reggie Bautista
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