Buffy the Vampire Slayer

By Graeme McMillan Get your humpday started properly with AMC showing of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie at 9:45 in the morning, and then stick around for Reign of Fire - one of our favorite dragon war movies ever - at 3pm. In fact, when you add in more showings of Batman, Batman Returns and Batman Forever (at 8...

By Graeme McMillan Yes, vampires. You knew they were coming, and here they are: Mainstream Culture's Favorite Super Creeps. But here's the question: Can a witch defeat a vampire? Which is quicker on the draw, the hypnotic gaze of a vamp or some kind of speedy spell to stake toothy nemeses? You'd think that year...

By Lauren Davis Joss Whedon is perhaps the master of this particular brand of horror. Though the series was filled with man-eating monsters, death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is often random, senseless, and poignant. Few moments in the show stand out as clearly as Joyce's death from an aneurysm, or Tara's...

By Annalee Newitz But then there are other scenarios that fail because they are too murky to really bring on the shivers. The Mothman Prophesies is like this, with its nebulous alien/moth guy visions. Vagueness is almost never terrifying. Then there are haunted house flicks like 13 Ghosts and Amityville Hor...

By Charlie Jane Anders Joss Whedon's Buffy empire, including a movie and two television series, pretty much deserves its own category, and it came along with a slew of other TV shows and books featuring (frequently female) heroines facing tongue-in-cheek magical/horrific threats, including Charmed and X...

By Charlie Jane Anders This is similar to the use of dreams as foreshadowing, but usually the foreshadowing dream also includes some actual useful information that our heroes can decipher and use against the monster/villain later. The prophetic dream is a plot device as well as (or sometimes instead of) a grac...

By Graeme McMillan Vampires with souls, sarcastic werewolves in bands and demons with perfectly justifiable fears of bunnies. Joss Whedon's calling card may have specialized in making heroes out of monsters - even Dracula helped out the Slayers in the Season Eight comic series - but he made sure to keep the...

By Caitlin Petrakovitz Movies: AMC is running all-day marathon of spooky delights including Young Frankenstein, Amityville Horror, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, 13 Ghosts, and Return to House on Haunted Hill to name a few. Spike is playing Friday The 13th Part III at 12 PM.

By Charlie Jane Anders Whedonites rejoiced when it was announced Joss Whedon will direct an episode of television's best show, Glee. But you know what would be even cooler? If Whedon could pick up some tricks from Glee and bring them back to Dollhouse. So here are a few things we'd love to see Joss Whedon bring back t...

By Stephen Goldmeier In a lot of ways, the Buffy-Angel relationship is Joss Whedon's prototype for messed up relationships. For starters, their story is essentially a supernatural Romeo and Juliet. In a dangerous and deadly way, Buffy and Angel are very much star-crossed lovers. Buffy's sole task is to kill va...

By Lauren Davis Buffy the Vampire Slayer "After Life:" Actually, bringing a body-stealing demon into the world of the living was probably the least of the disastrous consequences of resurrecting the Slayer. Still, when a demon gets loose in Sunnydale, the Scoobies have to kill it before it kills Buffy.

By Annalee Newitz Movies like Superbad and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist showcased the sweet, romantic side of nerd boys by placing them in ordinary teen courtship situations. The genius of Zombieland is that it swaps out high school for a surreal landscape that nevertheless clearly evokes the emot...

By Annalee Newitz Who made that a freakin wagon, anyway? Ever since Willow had to swear off using her witchy powers on Buffy, there's been this dumb idea in pop culture that "using your powers" is like getting drunk. I can see the whole vampirism = alcoholism idea since it actually involves drinking and harmi...

By Graeme McMillan When it comes to television series about people with magical powers, we don't think we're alone in thinking that Joss Whedon did everything right. Mixing just the right amounts of humor and tragedy into the supernatural and superpowered stories, Buffy is everything that superhero show...

By Lauren Davis Miss French (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Teacher's Pet") Nature of Her Hunger: Mantis-Like. Actually, she is a giant praying mantis. Preferred Food Group: Male virgins, no matter how much they boast about their supposed "experience."

By Lauren Davis Buffy the Vampire Slayer "I Robot...You Jane:" We all learn a valuable lesson about chatting with strange men when sweet, awkward Willow starts an online romance with Malcolm. She thinks she's found the man of her dreams — or at least someone to help her forget Xander for a while. Tragically, "M...

By Charlie Jane Anders The really annoying thing about both Andrew and Reg Barclay, of course, is that they went on to represent their respective shows on the inevitable spin-offs. While the actual cast members of TNG and Buffy were too busy trying to escape from being typecast, we got to revisit both Andrew and R...

By Lauren Davis Sunnydale High (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Location: Sunnydale, California Notably Villainous Alumni: Willow Rosenberg, Amy Madison, Jonathan Levinson, Andrew Wells, Harmony Kendall and numerous others (many of whom never made it to graduation)

By Charlie Jane Anders You probably already know the story of how television shows got arced: It used to be that every show was like the original Star Trek, with a neat resolution (and, usually, forced laughter by the main cast) at the end of each episode. And then shows like Blake's 7, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Bab...

By Lauren Davis What they changed: Joss Whedon financed the original pilot himself, formatting it as a half-hour episode. It is, for the most part, a shortened version of "Welcome to the Hellmouth," but with different casting. The role of the Sunnydale library was played by Torrance High School's librar...

By Graeme McMillan My theory that Bewitched was the Buffy the Vampire Slayer of its day started, I admit, as a half-assed joke, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It's not just that Elizabeth Montgomery was the Sarah Michelle Gellar of her day - albeit with a nose wrinkle instead of a stake, a...

By Charlie Jane Anders As for Torchwood — sure, "Children Of Earth" was one of the best pieces of television we've seen in recent years. But just imagine Torchwood done in the style of Angel or Buffy, with more weird humor, more out-and-out struggle against the forces of evil, and more identity crisis for our hero...

By Graeme McMillan As always, you can find a list of all the books being released this week here, and then look for your local comic book store here. Just beware of mysterious figures offering to expose new sides to you that were unaware of; it never ends well.

By Meredith Woerner Brodie's Comic Collection, Mallrats The Van, Fanboys The Trio's Van, Buffy The Vampire Slayer Who doesn't want a copy of the Watchmen Babies DVD that set off comic book writer Alan Moore? Wayne And Garth's Batman Exit Strategy, Wayne's World 2

By Grey_Area Sir Maurice scoffs at spiritualism and superstition, even though some of his c ases have involved the supernatural. He bows before the altar of Rationality and is enthralled by the mighty airships, graceful clockwork androids, and the other mechanical wonders of his age. Miss Hobbes fin...

By Lauren Davis Snake Eyes (GI Joe) Silent? Yep. When rescuing his beloved Scarlett from a burning helicopter, one of the windows exploded, damaging his vocal cords. In the comics, though, he does manage to speak her name once after many years. Deadly? Indeed.

By Lauren Davis Caleb (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): In seven seasons of villains, Caleb may have been the most chill-inducing of the lot. Nathan Fillion gave him sufficient charm to understand how he managed to lure two girls to his death, and his link with the First Evil gives him the power to defeat even the...

By Charlie Jane Anders How much darker can Dollhouse get, now that we've glimpsed the end of everything? Just how far will Joss Whedon go to explore the themes of searching for identity against impossible odds? We asked Whedon. His answers may shock you. All of which made us wish Joss Whedon would get some robots. Bu...

By Annalee Newitz Some fans have begun to rebel against the power of this new Hollywood church, fighting legal threats and celebrating independent comics. Others fight among themselves, unsure where to turn. Thus we saw the great Twilight Rebellion of Comic-Con 2009, where protesters held signs that rea...

By Charlie Jane Anders The four megastars met on stage as part of Entertainment Weekly's "Wonder Women" panel. Weaver, of course, starred in the Alien movies, plus Ghostbusters and countless other genre classics. Saldana is playing Uhura in the new Star Trek movies as well as an alien in Avatar. Dushku has co-sta...

By Charlie Jane Anders The Gem of Amara in Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. In the big cross-over episode between Buffy and Angel, a magical ring allows Spike to become invincible, and to wander out in the daytime. Too bad it falls into the sweaty hands of an evil sadist whom Spike hires to terrorize Angel.

By Alexis Brown The Whedonverse's most emo couple, Buffy and Angel, come in for their share of mockery as well. Most famously, there's the great scene involving Spike providing his own voice-over for Angel's superhero run. But there's also this barely remembered Cordy/Wes gem instead. The point is, it co...

By Graeme McMillan Yes, we know that people have gotten mad when we suggested remaking Farscape before, and to them - and to those keeping the dream alive with the current Farscape comics - we'll suggest this: How about we don't reboot the series entirely, but relaunch it and find a new focus without undoing e...

By Annalee Newitz In Blood: The Last Vampire, a sword-toting, half-demon schoolgirl matriculates into high school on a US military base in 1970s Japan. She's there to whack some demons, fry your eyeballs in their sockets, and entertain the hell out of you.

By Graeme McMillan The three page short "Almost Darkest" - written by Whedon and illustrated by Jo Chen, the artist behind the amazing covers to the current Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic - may just end up as a seemingly random dream indulging fans' and Whedon's fantasies (Buffy marrying Warre...

By Meredith Woerner Sunnydale Where does it appear? Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe Locals: A slowly declining population of families and commuters, with a thriving underground community of demons and vampires. Gotham City Bon Temps Where does it appear? Smallville TV series, Superman

By Annalee Newitz Fray, the comic book shown here, is a classic of the post-apocalyptic future vampire genre. Created by Joss Whedon, the short series chronicles the life of a future vampire slayer named Fray. She works in a city divided between the healthy rich and the mutant poor, aiding her mutant buddies...

By Stephen Goldmeier The Strain, Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan (William Morrow) Master of Horror Guillermo del Toro brings vampires back from their whiney post-Buffy image. From the io9 review:

By Charlie Jane Anders But really, the Buffy/Angel love isn't where Buffy got into real trouble, and helped to inspire Edward Cullen. The real crux of the problem is the vampire who pretty much took over as the new Angel after Angel left: William the Bloody, aka Spike.

By Charlie Jane Anders But for superhero films to be a worthy genre, and not just the same movie over and over again with minor variations, they have to start breaking out of the rut. Audiences are familiar enough with superhero lore that they can enjoy a movie that departs from the usual pattern. (And yes, it's all b...

By Graeme McMillan B5 set a trend that was followed by Buffy, Battlestar Galactica and even Doctor Who, Wright argues, and soon continuing storyarcs ruled television and made it increasingly difficult for viewers to drop in and out of the show. I have to admit, I tend to like the larger storyarcs of shows like...

By Mark Strauss So yes, Schlozman's lecture is actually quite funny, and liberally sprinkled with other pop culture references including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. But the underlying science is serious. His lecture is a tour of the human brain, using the living dead as a narrative theme.

By Graeme McMillan I'm not suggesting that we wish for a world where everything is Transmorphers instead of Transformers, but I can't help but wonder whether Defenders and CJ7 point to a new middle ground that would allow everyone to keep their sacred cows idealized in memory yet relive them in new forms, un...

By Charlie Jane Anders 8) Get a real writer. Please. In addition to feeling invested in the characters, we have to buy into their conflicts and quote their snappy dialog. Seek out one of the legion of Joss Whedon apprentices and press-gang him or her. I'm thinking Drew Goddard, who moved on from Buffy to write Cloverf...

By Charlie Jane Anders Graves in Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Schizoid Man." This pompous scientist is dying, but he has a plan to transfer his brain into a computer network. Instead, though, he downloads his consciousness into the android Data, whereupon he starts reciting crappy poetry about himself, fe...

By Alasdair Wilkins Absolutely, yes, all of it is real. By which I of course mean no, none of it is. Much as I'm sure it pains all of us to admit it, Futurama is just a TV show. So, technically speaking, I suppose none of it is actually real. But that's not what we're dealing with here. Much as Bender's line represents a gre...

By Alasdair Wilkins The episode "Normal Again", the Trio unleashes a demon on Buffy that causes her to suffer severe hallucinatory episodes. She suddenly imagines herself in a mental institution, where she is told she has spent much of the last six years in a catatonia. Her doctor and her parents, who are still...

By Graeme McMillan Hope you've got a healthy appetite when you hit the comic store tomorrow, because with comics about teen vampires, werewolves on the moon and culinary detectives, there's a lot to chew on in this week's comics. Oh, and a new Batman comic worth picking up, as well.

By Graeme McMillan If we're looking for someone who has Vampire Slaying experience, why not the writer of Cloverfield? Goddard got his writing start on Buffy and Angel, before going on to work in the JJ Abramsverse with Alias, Lost and that New York monster movie. Right now, he's directing Cabin In The Woods,...

By Graeme McMillan Yes, I know the idea of a Whedonless Buffy sounds like blasphemy, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like exactly what Buffy and Joss need, even if the hardcore fans don't agree. Join the dots that are my scattered reasoning:

By Alyssa Johnson 4. Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) In the hundredth episode, "The Gift," Buffy sacrifices herself for her sister Dawn. After she's been dead for five months, she's brought back by her friends in "Bargaining." Whoever said you can't get by with a little help from your friends?

By Charlie Jane Anders It didn't hurt that last night's episode, "True Believer," was written by Tim Minear, author of many of the best Angel and Firefly episodes. (Including the Firefly episode "Out Of Gas.") A man who could write an hour of television about two old men playing Scrabble, and it would rock.

By Charlie Jane Anders Steven S. DeKnight, of course, is the guy who wrote a bunch of episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. (He helped rescue Angel's Shanshu Prophecy from irrelevance and did a lot of the heavy lifting to build it into a real mythos.) And he was a writer/producer on Smallville, where he was i...

By Charlie Jane Anders Let's face it: Firefly and Buffy had weak concepts, and they soared thanks to masterful execution. A gun-slinging crew of Western frontier bandits in space? A teenage girl who fights vampires and demons in between running for homecoming queen? Neither of those ideas particularly screa...

By Nisha Gopalan From his role as the as the unflappable werewolf Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer to his part in co-creating TV’s lo-fi nerd-satire Robot Chicken, Seth Green has almost effortlessly amassed an adoring fanbase. The actor hopes to expand on that niche appeal with his first directorial effort...

By Charlie Jane Anders First of all, you've talked before about how your writing for BSG is way less comedic than your writing for Buffy or Firefly. But some of the Baltar scenes in "The Hub" felt very comedic — especially Baltar's "special" communication methods with the Hybrid, and his little sermon to the Cent...