I thought I’d bring back my Way Back Wednesday feature for a special retrospective on two of my favorite shows: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess. You might ask, “Why these shows? Why now?”
Well, for various and unimportant reasons I decided to rewatch all 7 seasons of Buffy this summer. It was no problem since they are all available through Netflix instant watch. I had watched the show back when it aired, but had stopped watching at a certain point and could not remember how it ended. It turns out that I had stopped watching after only season 4. Meanwhile seasons 5 and 6 were two of the best seasons of television I think I have ever watched. The character development and the really dark plots of those seasons were absolutely amazing. Some stand-out episodes include:
- “Into the Woods”
- “The Body”
- the “Smashed”, “Wrecked”, “Gone” trio
- “Dead Things”
- “Villains”
Despite the heaviness of those episodes, especially after Joyce’s death and after Buffy is brought back from the dead, Joss Whedon was able to bring a certain lightness to the show with a musical episode. “Once More With Feeling” is quickly becoming one of if not my most favorite episode of TV ever. The music is addicting, there’s comedy, there’s drama – it’s got everything. It’s right in the middle of season 6 when Buffy is dealing with being pulled out of Heaven and starting her very steamy relationship with Spike. TV doesn’t really get much better than that.
After wrapping up season 7 of Buffy, which was good but did not live up to season 6’s awesomeness, I realized that I was totally hooked on the “girl power” vibe that Buffy exudes. So I turned to another favorite show, Xena: Warrior Princess. This is a show that I watched in reruns on Saturday mornings (with Hercules, Jack of All Trades, and Cleopatra 2525) for years. Because of this arrangement, I never really saw the show in any sort of chronological fashion. I’m only about halfway through season 1 out of 6, but I’m already remembering a lot of the episodes. I love the campiness and the blatant disregard for the laws of physics. But it’s not meant to be historically accurate or have amazing special effects – it’s supposed to be Xena being awesome and kicking some butt.
Without realizing it, the same week I started rewatching Xena was the same week as the show’s 15th anniversary. A number of TV blogs and sites talked about the impact the show has had on pop culture and it’s influence on many other “girl power” shows – including Buffy. This caused a lot of arguments to break out between Xena and Buffy fans. Personally, I believe that both shows had enormous influence and each in their own way. I know that both shows had strong, positive lead females who were huge role models for me growing up. The shows had good morals but didn’t shove it in your face. They also both addressed lesbian relationships in ways never done on TV before.
Needless to say, I’ve been greatly enjoying rewatching all these “girl power” shows. It makes me very nostalgic, but it also makes me really angry with current TV. The last show to do “girl power” right, in my opinion, was Alias (and before that, Dark Angel), but that’s gone too. Nothing has really stood out since then, which is supremely disheartening. So, if you’re listening TV networks, please bring back confident, mold-breaking, powerful women in TV, because the current selection frankly sucks.