My Personal Journey into the Buffy Fandom starting in 1997.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer turned 19 this week. To be clear, this is the 19th anniversary of its air date, not the final airing. So, no, we're not quite that old. I thought it aired 20 years ago...in 1996 while I was still living in Kansas City, but alas, no, it aired in 1997. I didn't have a tv for a period of time in 1996, and then for about six months...a tiny black and white tv. In fact, I didn't get Cable until around 1999 or 2000, so I could see La Femme Nikita. I remember finally getting a VCR in 1998 - which permitted me to tape Buffy and not miss episodes, which happened a lot back then.

WB and UPN, by the way, were not reliable channels, they usually aired on affiliate broadcast networks, not in HD (there was no such thing), and often had horrific reception. Plus lots of preemptions either for Basketball or some weird news event. I remember when the musical episode aired - you were lucky to have seen all of it. Because it went over - and some stations didn't show all of it. They cut it to ribbons for commercials. See - the affiliate stations control the number and length of commercial interruptions, not the network broadcaster or the studio.

I got the whole thing in NY - the first airing, but repeat airings on F/X or even on UPN were truncated.

Another problem with distribution was they didn't always send the right episode to the distribution channels in the correct order. Luckily there was enough time for most of the channels to get it right,
but in one instance the people who were watching it on their computers by downloading it from the satellite feed - got the episodes out of order, the two episodes they got out of order were Entropy and Seeing Red. While the vast majority of people were watching Entropy, they were watching Seeing Red. Which would have been okay, if the show was something like Elementary or still in its first season, but alas, no, it was heavily serialized by this point. At the end of Entropy, Tara returned to Willow, Xander and Buffy caught Anya and Spike shagging, and the team figured out that the Trioka was spying on them. In Seeing Red - Tara and Willow are shagging, Buffy fights the Trioka and sends two of them to jail, and Spike assaults Buffy. (You can sort of see how watching those two episodes out of order would be a problem.)

Oh, and the station didn't always air an episode. There was one episode that aired months after it was slated to air...Earshot, mainly because it's original airdate was right after the Columbine Shooting. And the subject matter was a wee bit too apropos. Some affiliates would air episodes, some wouldn't. For instance? There were various episodes in the latter seasons that affiliates in certain areas refused to air. They can do that -- they don't have to bow to the network. Or if an episode got pre-empted by an evil Basketball game or High School Football Game (if you lived in Texas)...the affiliate may not choose to air it or they'd air it at 2 AM on a Sunday night, and not tell you. Some stations would carry the sports, some didn't, so the episode rarely re-aired and you'd have to wait until it popped up on F/X.

This is where being an active member of a fandom came in handy. Fans would mail each other tapes of the episode or send them via the internet (which was dicey, since we all used broadband and at times it was impossible to download, due to memory and width space, without crashing your computer. Also some vids came with viruses...unfortunately.) Being a fan of Buffy back then was frustrating. Unlike the DVR, VHS was unreliable. If the show started late? You got half of it. Sometimes the VHS would tape something else. Or not at all. I remember skipping out on social events early to ensure I didn't miss the episode. My friends made fun of me. Oh, you can't miss Buffy!

In case, you haven't figured it out by now, I was one of those rare fans that actually watched the series live as it aired in real time. Not on videotape or in reruns on F/X or DVD -- those came later. And I held off on the whole DVD thing...due to cost. I didn't buy a DVD player until roughly 2003-2004. So, I re-watched via VHS, F/X reruns (back then F/X had no original programming and basically just showed Buffy reruns every night). We had a lot less television back then.

What follows is somewhat lengthy history of how I joined the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fandom and came to love the series. Detailing what it was like to watch the series live as it aired, without the benefit of DVDS or always reruns, and handling the internet in the 1990s and early 00s, when it is was just beginning to get its footing. Also, how I ended up on livejournal.

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Film Review of Mr. Holmes...

1. ( personal crap )

2. Finished watching the film Mr Holmes which surprised me. It was a brilliant character piece. And amongst the best depictions of Sherlock Holmes that I've seen. Ian McKellan was insanely good.

In the film, Mr. Sherlock Holmes is 94 years of age and living in a small cottage off of the Dover Cliffs, with a housekeeper and her eight-year-old son. The film focuses on his relationship with the boy. It also focuses on three mysteries - one that happened in the distant past, one the not so distant past, and the third present day. The first is the case that ended his career and he retreated from the world because of, it was also the case that had ultimately estranged him from Doctor Watson.
The second - is the reason he was brought to Japan to pick up the prickly ash, and why his correspondent brought him there. And the third has to do with who or what is killing his honeybees.
With the help of Rodger, the housekeeper's eight-year-old son, he is able to slowly remember the specifics of each case and resolve them. This Holmes is vulnerable, fallible, and suffering from the early stages of senility. His memory wanes.

But the bulk of the story focuses on his relationships and his feeling of being alone and disconnected from the world. When in truth, he's not, he only chooses to see himself as being disconnected from it. The connections are there staring him in the face..he only has to reach out and grasp them. Which he eventually does...in a manner of speaking. To say more would be to spoil you.

Loved it.

3. Also saw the first episode of The Family - the new ABC twisty crime drama. It...is compelling. But also a bit too much like all the twist crime dramas that have come before it. The formula is front and center, if you've seen similar shows. Which makes it a touch more predictable than it should be. I may stick with it for the performances. Haven't decided yet.