Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Picking up where my previous post left off, here are the remaining eleven 'days' for your enjoyment, critique, or total ignoring, as you choose.

30-day TV Meme (Days 20-30):

Day 20 - Favorite kiss -- ( Hawkeye/Hot Lips (M*A*S*H finale) )

Day 21 - Favorite 'ship -- Strictly TV? No movies or books? ( then I've got to say Spuffy )

Day 22 - Favorite series finale -- ( BtVS or DS9, maybe? )

Day 23 - Most annoying character -- Of all TV series that I've watched, ever? ( Dr. Smith must die! )

Day 24 - Best quote -- ( from BtVS 'Earshot' )

Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new) -- ( something currently unavailable to me on premium channels )

Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale -- ( The end of 'Enterprise' sucked the hardest )

Day 27 - Best pilot episode -- ( Sins of the Past )

Day 28 - First TV show obsession -- ( Yes, it's ST:TOS )

Day 29 - Current TV show obsession -- Currently in first-run episodes?( Grimm? )

Day 30 - Saddest character death -- ( The Body )

Here's my version of the first 19 days of that 30-day TV meme that's been going around, just because!

30-day TV Meme (days 1-19):

Day 01 - A show that should never have been canceled -- ( Alien Nation, 1989-90 )

Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching -- ( Vegas, baby? Maybe? )

Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season) -- ( Arrow/Vegas tie )

Day 04 - Your favorite show ever -- ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

Day 05 - A show you hate -- ( 'reality' shows of any type, usually )

Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show -- ( OMWF )

Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show -- ( AYW )

Day 08 - A show everyone should watch -- ( Person of Interest, maybe? )

Day 09 - Best scene ever -- ( so hard to choose... )

Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving -- ( a) ST:DS9, b) X:WP or BtVS, or c) TVD )

Day 11 - A show that disappointed you -- ( a) Man from Atlantis, b) Crusade, or c) a certain Joss Whedon series )

Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times -- ( too many to choose from )

Day 13 - Favorite childhood show -- ( a) Speed Racer, b) Star Trek TOS, or c) Planet of the Apes )

Day 14 - Favorite male character -- ( Spock or Spike )

Day 15 - Favorite female character -- ( Xena or Buffy )

Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show -- ( TVD )

Day 17 - Favorite mini series -- ( Peacekeeper Wars )

Day 18 - Favorite title sequence -- ( Hint: it goes 'whoosh' in a vacuum )

Day 19 - Best TV show cast -- ( Hint: Kirk is my father and Spock is my mother, so . . . )

The 30 Day 'Buffy the TV Series' Meme

Day 2: Favorite Episode?

I am so very tempted to say ONCE MORE WITH FEELING and just leave it at that -- 'nuff said! But . . . I have to admit that THE GIFT and several other episode at least give OMWF a run for its money.

Day 3: Favorite Song Used in an Episode (excluding the musical itself and the musical flashback in "Selfless")

I'd intended to skip over this one, because it's not something I think about much. However, if I had to pick, it'd probably be either STUPID THING performed by Nickel from the episode "School Hard" ('cause watching Spike watching Buffy for the first time while she's dancing at the Bronze is a favored memory of mine) or else -- surprising absolutely no-one -- I might pick THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS sung by Sarah MacLachlan at the end of "Grave".

Day 4: Favorite Female Character?

So very many to choose from, and I loved them all to one degree or another at some point in their journey (even Harmony seemed sympathetic for a moment when she was walking away heartbroken near the end of "The Harsh Light of Day" -- and I liked her much better in season 5 of AtS). But who am I kidding? In the end, it comes down to BUFFY, 'cause she's my hero, first and last, darn it!

The 30 Day Buffy the TV Series Meme (snagged from shadowkat67 because as soon as I saw it I realized it had been far too long since I'd last talked about one of my very favoritest TV series and most-favorite-ever source of fanfic)

Day 1: Favorite Season of BtVS?

SEASON FIVE. Hopefully, the following long walk down memory lane will explain why:

( How I Learned to Love BtVS Even More When It Became a Grown-Up )

Looking back ten years later, I now suspect that a big part of my love for season 5 was the underlying and very grown-up themes of family (families bound together by choice and willingness to go to the mat for one another) and vocation. Watching the first few seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1997-99 as a thirty-something minister recently returned to students status in search of a PhD, I felt an emotional and intellectual joy in the idea of 'My High School Really IS the Gateway to Hell', and soon found that there was a whole lot more going on than just high school developmental issues and supernatural metaphors as a backdoor approach to addressing 'Stuff That's Too Touchy or Scary for Me to Talk About'. But the issues addressed still weren't necessarily my issues.

I recognized the family part of the BtVS season 5 equation at the time (and we had a lovely panel on that subject at the Atlanta "WriterCon" in 2006), but I think the vocation part took a while (say, 10 years or so) to dawn on me -- no pun intended.

Yet, so much of that season was about the characters finding their adult calling for the first time, or finding a new calling and purpose in the face of drastic life (or even unlife) changes.

For instance,

( Light Years Beyond 'Career Day' Counseling )

Okay, this has taken several hours longer than I'd planned, and it's only the first day. I think I'm going to have to skip over some of the rest of the days and just post on the ones I actually have a strong feeling about, or else the 30 days will last through next Christmas.

As a final note, I see that NONE of the days in this meme ask, "Which Season of Buffy First Inspired You to Read and/or Write BtVS Fanfic?" Too bad, too, because I could probably post another incredibly verbose essay on SEASON SIX as the answer to that one, most likely bringing in all that Good Enough Media Mother-Text stuff from my 2004 posts.

Oh, well . . . again!

I just got this email informing me that the 5th issue of Watcher Junior, the journal for undergraduate work in Buffy studies, is up on the web, along with a new blog feature to allow readers to give feedback on the articles. (I'm still on the editorial board -- though I notice I need to update my bio on their website -- but they haven't had any papers submitted in my areas of expertise in the past year or more, so the latest issue is all news to me.)

I've re-printed the general editor's introduction to the three new undergrad research papers published in this issue below, for those who might be interested.

You'll notice that the paper the editor seems most excited about includes an analysis of the visual depictions of Buffy in the Season 8 comics, which I might have to go take a look at myself. There's also a Jungian analysis of BtVS episode 4.22 "Restless" and a paper on alternative readings of 'drugs' and 'addiction' in the Buffyverse.

( David Kociemba's introduction to the 5th issue )

( The Many Faces of Buffy: An Analysis of the Disharmonious Visual Representations of Buffy Summers in Primary and Secondary Texts )

( 'Is it dangerous?' Alternative readings of “drugs” and “addiction” in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' )

( 'I’m beginning to understand this now': Explicating 'Restless' )

I'm sure I'm not the first to mention this on LJ, but I just caught the last half of this report on NPR's Morning Edition this morning, and it did my heart immense good:

Vampire Slayer Buffy Saves Iraq Reporter's Soul
by Jamie Tarabay

'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' saved the world and the sanity of NPR's Jamie Tarabay while she was in Baghdad. Tarabay explores why she needed the slayer during her time in Iraq.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90584068

Since I didn't start watching BtVS until "Teacher's Pet" (missed "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest" first time around), when I decided to give it a try because Entertainment Weekly was raving about it, I guess I have a little leeway in celebrating my personal "10 years of BtVS" anniversary.

So here it is: ( Rev D's disjointed memoirs of 'how BtVS got me hooked for life' )

I've been fascinated by the recent discussion (ably started and added to by shadowscast) of Riley Finn's Christianity on the "First Church of Joss" community (http://community.livejournal.com/churchofjoss/2507.html#cutid1).

Having come to loathe Riley retroactively and perhaps unfairly, after seeing "As You Were" in BtVS season 6, this discussion thread now has me thinking about Riley's possible crisis of faith over the course of his character's development on the series. Maybe, instead of just being the "guy-who's-not-Spike-and-is-therefore-no-damn-good-for-Buffy-in-my-personal-OTP" that Riley turned into (in my mind) by the time he so abruptly left in season 5 . . . maybe, just maybe, there's a lot more Job in Riley than I'd ever noticed before. Maybe there's a place for Riley in the theological chapter of my never-ending dissertation, after all?

( what follows is largely re-copied from my post on the First Church of Joss discussion )

They're posting this on mutliple websites and forum sites, but just in case, here's another copy, for any undergraduate student who may be writing (or planning to write) a BtVS paper.

CALL FOR PAPERS ( details of call for undergrad 'Buffy' papers )

I just read hebrokeaway's analysis of BtVS Season 7 and its possible parallels to Bush's war on terror (by way of mutant_allies), and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in BtVS as social/political commentary or model. This enjoyable and well-written essay is here.