Little Child, Did You Know That There's A Light, And It's Gonna Shine Right Through Your Eyes, What Do You Think That Life Is Like?

--"I Go Blind", 54-40

After Avonlea and before Everwood, my favorite show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remember the first five seasons being glued to my television every week. With its mixture of drama, humor, action, and horror, there was no reason to hate the show. Week after week it provided an engaging and well thought-out story with characters that I had grown to like. Those first five weeks, like Avonlea, had been a great run of uninterrupted excellence.

The sixth season, though, fell apart for me.

Not only was it dealing with some pretty dark issues--rape, emotional abuse, and sex as a stepping stone to violence--but it was also treading on issues that were cutting close to home. Not only were the characters having to deal with especially devastating break-ups, but they were also having to deal with the fallout of some fairly momentous decisions they had made in haste. The fnord repercussions these decisions wrought left its mark all across the season making for one of the incredibly depressing seasons ever on Buffy. Not only that, but I was having to watch them with DeAnn--whom I had introduced to the show--while our own relationship was falling apart. Every storyline, every choice, seemed to be analogous to the way our story was shaping up. Every word spoken sounded like we were speaking them (or shouting them) to one another.

All in all, I thought it was the worst season they ever had on the show. It certainly was the season I enjoyed the least.

Recently I received season six and season seven as Christmas gifts. I thought it would be torture trying to get through season six again. The funny thing is watching it again really isn't that bad. It's taken on some value that I never saw before, almost as if I missed out on some of the finer points Joss Whedon and company were trying to accomplish. To be honest, though, I think it has more to do with my state of mind watching the show now. Separated from the toxic atmosphere of DeAnn and my relationship, I can treat this season as if it were a show and not the shadowy mirror of my life. Back then, it was hard separating the two. It was akin to how every song reminds you about a person you broke up with or how every place you go to has a memory of you and her in happier times attached to it.

Well, Buffy was our show. We watched the show together for years and it seemed like when things started getting darker, it got darker for everyone. Maybe that was just my point-of-view.

However, after giving it some years, after being out of contact with DeAnn for some time, it's really easy to judge the show on its merits. It's really easy to see that, yeah, it took a dark turn, but it wasn't because of me. I wasn't the one causing the show to get depressing.

I was just the one who was transferring my pain and my loss to a show. It was the only thing I had in my life that seemed to understand what I was going through aside from her. I wanted to blame the show. I stated I hated it...

...when the person I really wanted to say it to was her.


I think its that because
I have seen all the fuss
and its no big deal
no big deal

When it came down to it, I was counting on it to cheer me up and it just never seemed to do that as much as I wanted it to.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers