im sad buffy has finished that's my take in general though it's time was coming fast (some will say it already had a few seasons a go)
as for the article sorry i got bored half way through when i realised there was still a hell of a lot more to read.

Interesting well written article (Goodness did I say that about a rival newspaper?!? )

I think it might just have a few readers realising what all the fuss is about.

I'd love to be doing a Masters in Media at Uni now... The full ark of Buffy would provide so much great material to wok from

As for my personnal thoughts on Buffy ending... I'm sad (What on earth will I do with my Thursday nights?) but i think its right. I'm sure I'll have fun in later years watching the whoel story unfold. I love the idea that things will be tied up neatly (or as neat as they can be) rather than thing petering out and 'jumping the shark'

Roll on June 12th

Yep, pretty good article.

The sod is, I'm onl on terrestrial, so I've gotta wait... hmm... eternity (really the right word to use in the context of vampires and such? ) 'til the Beeb decide to air it. Pretty much Sucky McSuckington.

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by Evilwillow
as for the article sorry i got bored half way through when i realised there was still a hell of a lot more to read.

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thats the trouble with young people today no stamina

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by Koala
(quotes)

thats the trouble with young people today no stamina

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*Younger*

*Read it all*

* @ the use of "phantasmagoria"*

Read it all.

This is what passes for being an intellectual these days is it?

Pretty lacking in insight I thought.

Well, that may be true - but at least a "serious" newpaper is acknowledging the actually very clever ideas behind what is usually written off as "just another American teen show"

Shame it took them until it was over to recognise it, really

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by Kate
Shame it took them until it was over to recognise it, really

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Not really, the Independent has had plenty of articles praising Buffy over the years (well...at least 3...)

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by Incandenza
Read it all.

This is what passes for being an intellectual these days is it?

Pretty lacking in insight I thought.

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If you're such an intellect yourself, Inc, why aren't you a being on a higher plane of existence? Or have you descended to our level to try an enlighten us on a mission from the PTB?

And, if so, why do you support Liverpool FC?

Not everything has to have been written as if to be published for a doctorate. There is such a thing as intellectual snobbery you know

The only hole I would pick with the article is that the writer obviously didn't research his Buffy too thoroughly otherwise he would have known there were 144 eps of Buffy and not 154

(Edited by Whistler 22/05/2003 19:18)

The article also says Angel is an ex-vampire, which i noticed yesterday but wasn't feeling picky enough to mention

(Edited by Watcher girl 22/05/2003 19:45)

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by Whistler
Not everything has to have been written as if to be published for a doctorate. There is such a thing as intellectual snobbery you know

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No, but if an article says it is written "On behalf of the world's intellectuals" then it's entirely reasonable to judge it in that light.

As it is, as Inc says, it contains nothing of any intellectual interest, and probably too many long words for everyone else.

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by In a State of Dan
(quotes)
As it is, as Inc says, it contains nothing of any intellectual interest, and probably too many long words for everyone else.

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And it never made any reference to breasts either or Big Brother.

What is modern journalism coming to?? Standards really are slipping.

*looks at the article on her desk....yawns....puts it away*

My brain is too fried to read this...I hate English essays

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by Whistler
If you're such an intellect yourself, Inc, why aren't you a being on a higher plane of existence? Or have you descended to our level to try an enlighten us on a mission from the PTB?

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How do you know I'm not? I'm sure Plato said something about the unreflected life...

More seriously, there are degrees of intellectualism, but this article offers nothing substantial by way of analysis.

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And, if so, why do you support Liverpool FC?

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Everyone has to have a weakness.

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There is such a thing as intellectual snobbery you know

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That cuts both ways. Inverted snobbery exists too.

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by Whistler
(quotes)
The only hole I would pick with the article is that the writer obviously didn't research his Buffy too thoroughly otherwise he would have known there were 144 eps of Buffy and not 154

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You obsessive Buffy nerd

And yeah I got bored halfway through the article too

Not sure why people are only getting halfway through, the article’s only 2,200 words long; didn’t even fill two tabloid pages in the Indy.

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by Incandenza
How do you know I'm not? I'm sure Plato said something about the unreflected life...

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It was Socrates actually, though that's probably not overly important here ...

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More seriously, there are degrees of intellectualism, but this article offers nothing substantial by way of analysis.

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From the Indy article:

Above all, the ostensibly silly fantasy elements - demons, monsters, bloodsuckers - offered a beguilingly fresh way to explore adolescent anguish about identity, sexuality and authority. Far from trivialising everyday experience, the supernatural backdrop lent it an extra dimension.
Think the witches in ‘Macbeth’. In some sense, every 17-year-old yearns to get out of the house in order to save the world, and despairs that any parent could ever understand. Yet ‘Buffy’s occult tasks also raised intractable questions of love, faith, responsibility and suffering that go way beyond the standard teenage peaks and troughs.

Figures of fantasy, these spectres still talked and acted in a way that made perfect sense for their time and place. As much as Aristotle, ‘Buffy’s creators grasped that the deployment of convincing impossibilities depends on rules and a respect for limits. In Sunnydale, the laws of nature and morality apply in all non-occult contexts.

Seems an awful lot like analysis to me, and a good deal more substantial than most braindead newspaper reviews of the series I've read. (Even the likes of The Guardian referred to Buffy as a "16-year-old vamp-killing Californian cheerleader" when reviewing a Buffy season 7 episode!) To us, it won't appear to be the most original of articles, because we're so familiar with the series, and will have previously read many of the points and allusions raised in the piece. But the leading article of the Indy's "Review" section (is had a very cool front-page sadly missing from the online version) has to pull in a general audience and give an overview of the entire Buffy mythos in addition to its specific subject. It wasn't going to be thesis standard, and nor should it. Considering that, I think Boyd Tonkin did a first rate job.

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by Byron
It was Socrates actually, though that's probably not overly important here ...

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What are you implying, Byron, that the majority of people on here don't know their philosophers?

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by Whistler
(quotes)

What are you implying, Byron, that the majority of people on here don't know their philosophers?

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We know the Philosephers Song from Monty Python, does one need anything else?

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by Watcher girl
We know the Philosephers Song from Monty Python, does one need anything else?

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You mean there's another way?

Pop that on the sylabus at uni and they'd all be PhDs by the next round.