Tag Archives: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

‘The Fades’ has left me wanting more

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Nine years after its departure, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has left a big, hellmouth-sized void in TV fantasy. But a couple of shows are filling that void.

As much as “Lost Girl,” the Canadian series airing on SyFy, fulfills our minimum daily requirement for “Buffy”-style wit and fantastic action, the BBC series “The Fades” — which has finished airing on BBC America, but can still be found On Demand and on DVD — features other “Buffy” touchstones.

The show is about a teenager, Paul (Iain de Castecker), who comes to find out he is the chosen one, destined to lead the forces of good (Angelics) in their battle with the Fades, a murderous group of walking dead who feast on the living.

But the Fades aren’t just mindless zombies. As led by John (Ian Hanamore in one incarnation, Joe Dempsie in another), the Fades have apocalyptic plans for the world in general and Paul’s town in particular.

It’s up to Paul to protect not only his nerdy, pop culture-obsessed friend Mac (Daniel Kaluuya, whose Brit speak can be hard to figure out but whose constant nerdy references and opening story recaps are a highlight of the series), but his mom (Claire Rushbrook), his obnoxious sister Anna (Lily Loveless) and Jay (Sophie Wu), Anna’s friend and object of Paul’s affection.

Like Buffy, Paul must balance his duties as an unwilling and initially unwitting Angelic with guidance from Neil (Johnny Harris), an Angelic who becomes Paul’s mentor.

But Neil is no Rupert Giles, whose loving but sometimes exasperated guidance of Buffy was one of the cornerstones of that show. Neil is a bastard obsessed with egging Paul into facing off with John and the rest of the Fades.

The show is given texture by other characters, including Sarah (Natalie Dormer), an Angelic who is killed and returns as a Fade.

And hanging over everything, literally, is the end of the world. “The  Fades” shares with “Buffy” the central character’s ability to see the future. Paul’s visions of the end of the world — ash-filled skies and even more dead bodies than are popping up during the normal course of the day — cast a pall even over the daily horrors.

You might find that “The Fades” starts off with a slightly ragged tone. Hang in there. This is a series that starts uneven but very quickly finds its pace.

“The Fades” is punctuated by humor but is as grim as “Lost Girl” is light-hearted. Before the six-episode first season is complete, some very dire things happen to the characters.

The show premiered in Britain last fall and I’m not sure if a second season is underway or planned. I hope it is. Although the threat of John and the Fades is, to a great extent, resolved by the end of the first six episodes, the fate of the world is not. Things look pretty grim as the final scene fades to black.

For “The Fades,” it’s the perfect ending.

‘Lost Girl’ has a ‘Buffy” feel to it

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There’s never really been an heir apparent to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” as TV’s most clever supernatural drama. I’ve never gotten into the “Vampire Diaries” or “Supernatural” habit. “Buffy” and spin-off “Angel” were hard acts to follow.

So there’s something very enjoyable about discovering “Lost Girl,” a Canadian TV series that’s airing on SyFy, the former Sci-Fi Channel.

With the exception of “Alphas,” the “X-Men” style series about a group of super-powered government agents, I can’t abide much of what SyFy airs. Aside from a grab-bag of awful and intentionally awful movies, ghost-hunting shows and wrestling — the hell, SyFy? — there hasn’t been much there for me since “Battlestar Galactica.”

So after hearing TV experts like Maureen Ryan praising “Lost Girl,” I decided to check out the show.

“Lost Girl” is about a woman named Bo who works as a bartender and occasionally feeds, somewhat like a vampire, on assorted passersby. Bo, played by the striking Anna Silk, befriends Kenzi (Ksenia Solo), a young human grifter who is saved by Bo from a date rapist.

Bo saves Kenzi by feeding on the jerk, kissing him and sucking his life force out.

Bo and Kenzi are captured by agents of the Fae, supernatural creatures who have been living below the radar among human society for thousands of years.

The Fae tell Bo she’s a succubus, a super tough, super sexy predator. For Bo, abandoned by her parents as a baby, that explains a lot.

They also tell Bo that she must choose to join either the Light or the Dark Fae clans.

Bo proves herself in battle and wins the leverage to decline to join either group.

During the course of the early episodes, Bo and Kenzi move through a tough urban landscape, trying to avoid the Fae for the most part but being drawn into their battles.

The series has a straightforward, even flat look that reminds me more of “Law and Order” or some other police procedural than a supernatural series. The cast, led by the seductive Silk and the pert, spunky Solo, is totally unknown to me — hello from north of the border, eh? — but appealing.

The biggest surprise of the series is the tart, clever writing. Bo and particularly Kenzi are given more than a few sharp, funny lines. “Boy, you don’t know how to read women,” Bo tells one potential love interest. In another episode, a Will o’ the Wisp who seeks Bo’s help is a paunchy, slovenly type. “I struggle with my weight,” he acknowledges.

“Lost Girl” has been running for a couple of seasons on Canadian TV but has only just started on SyFy. It’s pretty cool to discover a sexy, funny series with more than a few episodes to air. If the show works out, it could be a longterm relationship.

 

Okay, so no Spider-Man in ‘The Avengers?’

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Joss says no.

We’ve mentioned in this blog lately the Interwebs rumors — based on a random comment in an interview with actress Jenny Agutter — that Spider-Man would make a cameo appearance in May’s “Avengers” movie.

This got everybody who wasn’t looking at porn on the Internet very excited.

Then, on Wednesday, during a Twitter chat with a few “Avengers” cast members, director Joss Whedon said this in response to a question about Spider-Man being in the movie:

“There is no Spider-Man cameo. But the Avengers do turn off the dark.” (Ha Joss! Broadway humor!)

Okay, on the face of it, that would appear to settle the matter. Joss says no Spider-Man cameo. And that’s perfectly reasonable. After all, different movie companies, yadda yadda yadda.

And I think he’s telling the truth.

But …

This is the devious genius behind the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV series, after all. The guy who devised, or at the very least approved, the addition of fan favorite Amber Benson, who played Tara, to the show’s opening credits … on the same episode in which she was killed.

Talk about bait and switch.

So Joss says no. No cameo.

He didn’t say anything about an appearance of more substance than a cameo, however, did he?

Nah. Couldn’t be.

 

‘The Fades’ is creepy fun

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If “The Fades,” a new supernatural series on BBC America, seems a little familiar, it’s no wonder. After all, it’s about a teenage outcast who discovers the ability to detect and battle supernatural creatures. The teen is aided by dorky friends and mentored by an adult monster-hunter.

Sound like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” Well, yes and no.

Paul, the British teen at the center of the series, is no Buffy Summers. He’s not especially heroic. He wets the bed.

But “The Fades” very well might take the “Buffy” premise and turn it into its own brand of good, creepy fun.

The show, which has been airing in the UK for a while but just debuted on BBC America (the first episode is still available for free On Demand; the second episode airs this Saturday), does employ the same kind of pop culture references that Buffy enjoyed. At some point, after Paul explains to dorky friend Mac that he’s able to see Fades — once-human walking corpses — Mac says he’s heard it before, in “The Sixth Sense.”

Mac becomes a believer, however. And Paul already has support from Neil, a disheveled middle-aged “Angelic” — living people like Paul who can see Fades — in his efforts to figure out what’s going on.

Among the mysteries: What is the violent, ultra-creepy Fade that’s attacking Angelics? And why does Paul have visions of an ash-filled global apocalypse?

The first episode of “The Fades” had a lot of intriguing ideas (although I confess I might have missed a few in the rapid-fire, Brit-accented dialogue) and some genuinely spooky scenes, especially those in a vast abandoned building.

I’m looking forward to seeing where “The Fades” goes next.

‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Graduation Day’

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At the close of “Graduation Day,” the final episode of the third season of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the character Oz, the laconic werewolf, observes that their band of monster slayers had survived. No, not another epic battle with a demon. They had survived high school.

The 1999 episode — which aired months after it was originally supposed to because some panicked TV executives thought the plot was uncomfortably similar to the just-happened Columbine school massacre — marked a high-water point for the series.

In our household, we’ve made it a habit of re-watching episodes of “Buffy,” which aired for seven seasons and pre-dated the recent “Twilight”-inspired vampire craze. (And topped it in every way except for notoriety. But I digress.) Before the series was available on DVD, we watched old VHS tapes from original airings.

So, in a Halloween frame of mind, we were thinking tonight about what to watch and decided on “Graduation Day.”

If you’ve never seen “Buffy” — maybe you were put off by the deliberately ironic title, or the earlier but vastly inferior movie — you really should. As created by Joss Whedon, the series is about a typical California teenager, worried about school, friends and dating.

Buffy Summers, quite reluctantly, finds herself proclaimed as “the chosen one,” the one-girl-in-a-generation selected to battle vampires and other demons. In a tradition dating back thousands of years, as the show eventually explained, the slayer — endowed with near-superhuman power and a knack for killing vampires — is all that stands between us and the creatures lurking out there in the darkness.

Surrounding herself with a core group of friends — Xander, whose love for Buffy was unrequited, Willow, the nerd-girl pal who grew into one of the most complex characters on TV, Cordelia, the vain rich girl, and Giles, the school librarian who turned out to be a member of the Watchers Council, the group that oversees the slayers.

By the third season, Buffy (played with appealing vulnerability by Sarah Michelle Gellar) had saved the world more than a few times as she balanced the demands of school, her increasingly concerned mom and her relationship with Angel, the vampire with a soul who fought on the side of right. As played by David Boreanaz, Angel went on to star in his own spin-off series.

With graduation in the wings, Buffy’s life was complicated by the appearance of Faith (Eliza Dushku), a slayer with few of the moral complexities and doubts that plagued Buffy. By the end of the season, Faith had changed from ally to enemy and was helping the plans of the town’s mayor (the priceless Harry Groener) in his plan to transform into a huge, snake-like demon.

And eat all the newly-minted graduates.

The episode was funny and poignant and, as the series always did, defied expectations. Faith and the mayor had the kind of complex, caring relationship that the villains of most series would not. Angel took advantage of Buffy — even if it was against his will — alienating her friends.

Maybe “Graduation Day” wasn’t the scariest choice for pre-Halloween viewing. Like most “Buffy” episodes, the show was less about vampires and demons and more about the everyday horrors we all face: alienation, loss and heartache.