Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Well, they do highlight several recent movies and a bunch of novels that -- in their view -- DO provide a well-balanced view of reality (that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and all you can do is decide how you're going to go on living in spite of that terrible thing that's undeservedly befallen you or your loved one, etc.) and DO support a participatory (as opposed to "spectator") view of democracy. Stories in which people don't have all the answers or the super power to restore us to some mythical never-was Eden, but are honestly trying to make things better, anyhow.

Under that rubric, I would argue that BtVS and AtS and DS9, at the very least, qualify as 'The Good Stuff' -- no big win, and at the last it's not about 'saving the world' but rather changing the world, even if only by fighting a hopeless battle to show the Powers and Principalities of this age that human beings (super-powered and undead or not) will not go gently into that good-night.