By M. Andrew Grant

For a show that was intended to be a half-season filler, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has experienced phenomenal success. This is perhaps even more surprising given that after the 1994 film starring the now neglected and out of favour Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry, who have yet to do a major successful film between them since the original cinema flop, Whedon had categorically stated that he would never work with Kuzui again, the latter having forced so many critical changes to the script and final version.

I must confess to having loved the original film and one of the main strengths of the TV series, whimsically capricious one-liners, is strongly evident in the film, Perry crafting the facetious sidekick boots Brendon was to fill four years later.

The TV series is, however, a different class entirely. Whedon's simple premise, that of a beautiful blonde, somewhat sloanish, cheerleader with an unwanted arcane calling, is a classic role-reversal. It is so clearly good against evil that the simplicity of the conflict makes it easy to settle down and begin falling in love with the main characters and begin rooting for the home team. Whedon's main explanation for this idea is uncontroversial - he watched horror films as a kid and wondered what would happen if the blonde girl fought back. Well, now she does and it really is true to say that slasher films are unlikely to be the same again. The trend is evidenced by Neve Campbell in the Scream series and indeed Gellar gives good account of herself, as does Jennifer Love Hewitt, in both I Know What You Did Last Summer movies. It is my feeling however, that it is more important that the protagonists are so easily digestible and eminently likeable. Each is characterised with simple lucidity and careful sympathy beginning with a uncomplicated trait which allows them to develop over time a number of different levels while not foisting too much on the audience at once.

The First series is astoundingly watchable. Yet, as early as half-way through, there is a tangible change of attitude and style. The title sequence changes with the introduction of Anthony Stewart Head in voice-over outlining the Slayer's role. There is also a definite change in feel to the whole show. Yet it loses nothing of its early promise. Whedon does not sacrifice characterisation at a very early stage for the premature advent of a good story. This is what makes the later Series 2, 3 and 4 so successful. We have grudgingly fallen in love with all the characters by the end of Harvest and the end of the double-pilot, with its whimsically brat-pack 'take on the world' musical overture tantalises us with the promise of more adventure and swashbuckling high-jinks. Characterisation at this stage of a show which has twelve episodes to run is more important even than story. It is the characters that bring the audiences back time and time again.

To begin the second-series the way he does, with 'When She Was Bad' was no real risk. By that point, we have already fallen in love with Buffy and her coterie, and it is with sympathy and understanding that the episode is received. To pass it off as teen angst is to devalue what is attempted by Whedon - setting of a basis of future characterisation. Buffy is not superhuman - she is simply stronger and faster - with all the attendant problems that having to cope with her calling has. She is still just a seventeen year old girl, but with problems that no other seventeen year old girl has to cope with. Add to that falling in love with a vampire and well, one can forgive her the odd lapse of faith and bad mood. And, does she get into a bad mood.

Series 2 is, in my view, the best series to date. In order to create a niche for the show, it had to be good. The love affair between Buffy and Angel is in no small measure what the show is about. The stories are, often, secondary to that plotline. The fact that it is an impossible love makes it all the more heartbreakingly watchable. Series 2 takes that love affair, the kind of love almost every human being hopes to experience at some point, which is why it is so near to the mark, and sees it through to its logical conclusion - Buffy and Angel consummating that love. And then... Bang. Whedon's masterstroke. Angel's soul is what sets him apart from the monsters that Buffy faces and losing that soul, he becomes the monster he should be. Boreanaz and Gellar are really quite outstanding in this. Boreanaz goes in one fluid motion from dark, brooding hero - with whom we all empathise and for whom we all secretly cheer to the most evil and exquisitely nasty individual imaginable. Praise to Boreanaz for the seamless transition. The support cast of Brendon, Hannigan, Carpenter and Head will probably admit that Boreanaz and Gellar steal the whole series despite some virtuoso performances, particularly from Brendon. Surprise, Innocence and Becoming, the main plotline episodes are brilliantly written and so very well scripted. Whedon uses everything to get the effect he wants and the theme from Christophe Beck, particularly at the conclusion of Becoming is ethereally melancholy.

Series 2 is what Buffy is all about. Good and evil is not white and black nor simple and easy. On the one hand, Gellar wanders around beating up bad guys and saving the world and we're all comfortable with that, but then one of the people we all care about, and here is where the initial characterisation makes the difference, suddenly turns evil - none of us know what to do. Of course Buffy and Angel will get together - that's the way of things, isn't it? A few years back a poll in the States put Ross and Rachel in Friends as the two people viewers wanted to see get together. We like seeing two people get together - that is why romantic comedies are so successful. To have them torn apart at the last minute, to have them sacrificing their love for the good of the world, when we know they're meant to be together, makes the whole thing that much more painful for us poor viewers. Hence the success of the fourth season crossover between Angel and Buffy, where Angel becomes human for 24 hours. Gellar is again astonishing. I understand from an interview with James Marsters, who plays Spike, that Gellar just did that take straight-off without any thought for the way she looked and what she was doing. She just cried and went for it. You've got to give her credit for it. She's very good.

There are several points to Buffy which make it eminently entertaining. First, the love affair between Angel and Buffy, which I have already discussed. Secondly, the music is well-chosen, contemporary and varied. It mixes hard rock for the upbeat tempo shots of the campus and soft guitar for the more poignant moments. Also, it is bloody good stuff. However, what makes the show first rate is its comic relief value. One can only take so much heartbreak without a hiatus. Whedon has thought of this and made the whole thing on the one hand a serious as it gets - saving the world from the most despicable evil, and on the other - well, remember, these are High School kids doing this. It's funny. The one liners are superbly thought out and immaculately delivered. I don't know if Nicholas Brendon and Matthew Perry are friends or if Brendon is a fan of Perry's, but his delivery is carbon-copy Matt Perry mixed in with some of his own unique charisma. It makes for a whimsical and coolly comical edge to the show. Sure, Gellar weighs in with a few funny moments, particularly based around the juxtaposition between her seventeen year old American high school sloane and Tony Head's forty-something stuffy Englishman, devoutly obsessed with his Watcher position and irreconcilably serious. However, without Brendon, and Hannigan, I cannot honestly see the show having been anywhere near as successful. Good comic writing is difficult, but good delivery is even more difficult to get spot on. Brendon is by far and away the master, but the journeymen Gellar, Hannigan and Head are well worth it as his pupils.

The introduction of James Marsters as Spike, and Seth Green as Oz, both intended to be short-term characters who have reaped the benefit of Whedon's ability to go with his gut and keep popular characters (the best example by far is Angel himself who was intended as a three or four episode character), are two of the defining sub-plot moments of Series 2 and leading into Series 3. Oz's love for Willow and Spike's loathing for just about everything except Drusilla and Manchester United (insert expletive here) again add fresh flesh to the bones of the show, adding more dimensions to each character. Willow gets to have a love affair, Buffy and Angel get a long-term enemy who is, quite frankly, splendidly played by Marsters which is probably why he was kept on.

There bad points to Buffy. Some of the episodes are so very clearly fillers that it is disappointing - Inca Mummy Girl and Reptile Boy for example. However, it is impossible to have top quality episodes every week, but these really are bad. Also, Whedon seems to have a penchant for stereotyping all Englishmen as either Oxbridge tweed jacketed snobs or cockney wide-boys with too much stubble. It is mildly annoying, if somewhat rectified by Alexis Denisof being given a greater depth in Angel. Further, there are some discrepancies in the lore of Buffy. How many Slayers can there be at once? How many of them are training? Kendra was not born overnight when Buffy died which tends to suggest a periof in which she trained. The Watcher's Council is a little limp wristed and ill defined and the Initiative simply defies belief as a realistic governmental organisation. But then, who cares? That's not what it's about.

All in all, Buffy is aimed at teens to twenty-somethings. It hits the mark directly and most of all it's fun. We enjoy it because it is harmless escapism with depth and thoughtfulness. The characters are almost soap-opera like in their ability to inspire feelings of devotion and the writing is crisp, eloquent and insightful. The action is, especially later on, well choreographed and Gellar is excellent as a street fighter. Most importantly though, we all wanted to save the world as kids. Now we get to watch some people we actually like doing it for us.