-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/19927.html <A HREF="http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/19927.html">Culture News from Wired News </A> ----- Buffy Goes Underground by Declan McCullagh 4:30 p.m. 27.May.99.PDT When Warner Bros. executives decided to yank Tuesday's much-anticipated season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they didn't count on their fans' dogged use of the Internet. Citing the tumult over recent high school shootings in the US, the network pulled the plug on the episode that depicted a demon wreaking havoc at a graduation ceremony. But the show aired as scheduled in Canada. It took just a few hours for a digitized version of the episode, called "Graduation Day," to appear on alt.binaries.multimedia.buffy-v-slayer and a GeoCities Web site. Buffy fans scrambled to download the blurry 13-MB files that ran for 41 minutes, complete with snippets of "Ontario Savings Bonds" ads. "I like the fact that people care enough about the show to do that. But I sort of wish they wouldn't anyway," Joss Whedon, the show's creator and executive producer, said in an interview late Thursday. I'd like to be the Grateful Dead and encourage all the bootlegging, but at the same time it hurts my network.... But I'm not losing sleep over it," Whedon said. Some readers agreed with WB's plan to air the episode in July. "I've got to be one of the few who agree with postponing the eppy after seeing it ... the anarchy of the graduation scene DID remind me just a little too much of the footage from Columbine. Not the weapons, just the similarity in chaos," one participant wrote in a discussion group on buffy.com. But for the most part, Buffy fanatics were eager to have any chance to view the rest of the two-part finale. "People want to see the show," said Kristin Hykawy, a 19-year-old who lives in Ontario and goes by the alias SlayerGrlB. "I mean, come on, it was a two-parter and you don't let them see the end? Of course they are going to do it illegally. People have offered me like $50 for a copy of the tape I have. People will do anything to see it." A few enterprising fans even posted their videotapes for sale on eBay, though by Thursday afternoon the entries were listed as "no longer available." One reason the final show was so anticipated was that it capped a season that chronicled the ever-increasing deviltry of Sunnydale's mayor (Harry Groener). In the last episode, the mayor prepares for the "Ascension," which transforms him into a 60-foot serpent-with-attitude that promptly starts to devour the graduating seniors. Sunnydale's only hope for salvation from the beast? Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends, who came prepared with crosses, flaming arrows, and assorted other weaponry straight out of a Renaissance Faire. The climatic scene is typical of Buffy, a show that has always been careful to separate fantasy from reality. It's OK for Buffy or other slayers to mow down soulless vampires, but when Faith (Eliza Dushku) slaughters a human, she pays dearly and ends the season in a coma. Still, the spectacle of a lizard-lipped green demon munching on the corpses of the assembled Sunnydale student body was too much for WB execs. "It is out of sympathy and compassion for the families and communities that have been devastated by the recent senseless acts of violence perpetrated on high school campuses that we have decided to delay the broadcast. Our decision is also borne out of a deep sense of responsibility to the WB's loyal young audience," WB CEO Jamie Kellner said in a statement Monday. For years the Internet has provided a way for people to distribute files without permission. Soon after the French government banned the publication of Le Grand Secret, a book critical of the late president Francois Mitterand, mirror sites sprouted in the US. Critics of Scientology have often relied on Usenet as a way to pass around the church's no-longer-very-secret scriptures, and a bootleg videotape of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace has reportedly surfaced online. "It just goes to show you how pervasive the Internet has become and how difficult it's become for anyone to restrict content," says Rick Kaplar, vice president of the Washington-based Media Institute. Especially when a corporation is up against fans eager for a season finale. "There is a difference between showing gun shootings and random acts of violence on television, as opposed to showing Buffy and her friends attacking a giant snake," says Richard Dunkle, a frequent poster to buffy.com. "I mean, c'mon. Even if there is a confused middle school or high school student who has contemplated taking a weapon to his or her school, I don't think watching Buffy kill an obvious bad guy, a demon that looks like a snake, will motivate that person to action against his school." Whedon, the show's creator, said that next season's Buffy, scheduled to begin filming in July, will continue to experiment with technological themes. "We're going to veer a little towards the modern.... The modern and the arcane will come head-to-head in a big way next year," he said. Angel (David Boreanaz) will move to Los Angeles, where he'll be assisted by the shapely Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter). He'll have his own eponymous show, scheduled to air after Buffy at 9 p.m. "He'll be helping people with their personal problems, which generally are large monsters," Whedon said. The show's namesake will remain in Sunnydale, and will finally have a less-stressful life as she enters college. "We're going to hopefully lighten things up for her a little bit," Whedon said. "Eventually she's probably going to have to have a new honey." Copyright � 1994-99 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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