Things haven’t been all that sunny in Sunnydale lately, which has dramatically changed the complexion of the WB’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” over the last several episodes. The Slayer’s home base has been downright dark and depressing.
The television version of the feature film about a reluctant teenage vampire fighter (winningly played on the tube by Sarah Michelle Gellar) became a hit partly because of its breezy, spoofy combination of teenage life and horror/sci-fi frights–a “Clueless” meets “The X-Files.”
But the tone has been moody over the last several episodes, mainly because of the transformation of Buffy’s vampire boyfriend Angel (David Boreanaz), who, after a night of passion with Buffy lost the human soul that separated him from his blood-thirsty brethren. He’s now a killing machine who mocks the love he once shared with Buffy, making her one depressed Slayer.
One episode saw Angel brutally taking the life of high school computer teacher/gypsy Jenny Calender, a recurring character played by Robia La Morte.
In last week’s episode, part one of the two-part season finale (part two airs at 7 p.m. Tuesday on WGN-Ch. 9), Kendra, a Slayer played by Bianca Lawson, had her throat slit by vampire nemesis Drusilla (Juliet Landau); Buffy’s friend Willow (Alyson Hannigan) was seriously injured when vampires dumped a bookcase on her; and Buffy’s mentor Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) was taken hostage.
All this, as Angel tried to release a demon with the power to “swallow the world.”
Whatever happened to fun episodes about women who were really praying mantises or mummies, kids who transformed into Halloween-costumed characters, and guys who tried to make girls from individual body parts?
“It has gotten a little darker, which is neat,” says creator-executive producer Joss Whedon. “I like neat.”
Whedon wrote the original “Buffy” movie, and shepherds the TV version. He likes how the series moves from the dark episodes like Angel’s tormenting Buffy, to such light fare as Buffy’s buddy Xander (Nicholas Brendon) taking a potion which makes him a “love god” to the girls of Sunnydale.
“It has the ability to stay very light and frothy and fun, so it doesn’t become just a Greek tragedy all the time,” Whedon says. “And so we bounce back and forth, which is nice because we don’t get bored.”
“Buffy” has become a series in which lots of young girls can find a role model, one of the few shows that does so. But the dark edges that creep into some episodes can be hard to take.
Whedon is sensitive to that, but he also feels viewers should be exposed to both the good and dark sides of characters.
“I’m certainly never going to soften things because I think I need to make it easy on the viewer,” Whedon says. “I think you need to jar the viewer every now and then. I think you need to challenge people. Don’t give them what they expect.”
Whedon says Tuesday’s conclusion of the two-part season finale will be “pretty harsh,” so don’t say you haven’t been warned.
– Monsters gnashed: One thing that Fox should have learned from its association earlier this season with the “Independence Day” production team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin (the pair made the woefully underachieving “The Visitor” for the network this season), is that size does matter.
Fox is tub-thumping “Gargantua,” the monster flick premiering at 7 p.m. Tuesday (on WFLD-Ch. 32), as the “biggest and most ambitious original television movie” the network has ever made. One spokesman said the movie cost around $7.5 million.
Unfortunately, it looks it.
Trying to ride the coattails of Devlin and Emmerich’s “Godzilla,” which invades theaters on Wednesday, Fox makes itself look small with “Gargantua,” a predictable, slight movie about chemically enhanced salamanders that peril the Polynesian island of Malau.
The whole thing has ambitions of “Godzilla/Jurassic Park” dancing in its head, but comes off as a flimsy Disneyesque caper–perfect for the toy- and book-marketing plan Fox has in place. The presence of a cuddly, Cheese Balls-eating little monster salamander doesn’t dispel that.
Earthquakes in the area unleash a creature that mutated because of a steady diet of dumped pesticides. A jungle chase results in the capture of a nine-foot monster, which doesn’t look all that gargantuan.
In fact, one of the few true surprises in “Gargantua” is that the title misleads the audience. But that name game can’t make up for unrealistic special effects.
Fox has said “Gargantua” is the tip of a new wave of “big event” movies it is planning. It has a long way to go to reach the level of “Merlin’s ” $30 million budget for two installments and the roughly $20 million poured in for four hours of “Moby Dick.”
