The Guardian's top 50 television dramas of all time

[Azrael]

Link to the apology [from Buffy and "Seeing Red" writer Steven Deknight), please? I bet he wasn't actually saying 'sorry for being homophobic.'

Hold your your hats, it gets geeky. "BytrSuite" (Sat Oct 12, 2002 11:51 pm ) posted up the first apology from Steven Deknight (loving that name!) over at a Willow & Tara fansite, over comments he made after "Seeing Red" aired. ("We're so over the gay thing," or words to that effect.) And then, he came over himself (Steve DeKnight, Mon Oct 21, 2002 3:23 pm). I remember being surprised that a writer would take time out to do that years back when someone posted up the link.

Of course he didn't say, "Hands up, I'm a gay basher." No one (not even that fansite, which go even further than I do) claims that he, or anyone else on the show, was.

No. Several episodes into the next season after he'd gone and got his sould back so was a different person.

From the next ep, "Villains". (Looking all this up is bringing back memories!)


DAWN: Fine. I want to go to Spike's.
BUFFY: All right.
XANDER: What?! Not all right. Are you kidding? After what Spike did-
BUFFY: Xander!

Spoiler: spoiler

XANDER: You're not gonna really leave Dawn with Mr. Attempted Rape.

BUFFY: He won't hurt Dawn. I, he-he physically can't. Besides, he wouldn't.
XANDER: Well, after the other night, I'd say all bets are off on what he's capable of.
BUFFY: Dawn feels safe with him. We don't have a choice. Right now, he's all we've got.[1]

Spike's gone when they get round to his place.

Thanks for making my point for me. Having women and lesbians mistreated was appropriate for the setting of OANTOF. Having everyone treated terribly was appropriate for the setting of Buffy. It's stupid to complain about characters being hurt and killed in a TV series which is about fighting vampires and other evil beings.

Yep, it would be. The specific way they were hurt is the problem. Buffy season six remorselessly beat down on every character on the show, to (barely) varying degrees. The misogynistic implications come from combining this with the intro of a frothing woman-hating psychopath as a villain, and implied that the only way the lead character could go on was by allowing herself to be slapped around by a demon. A relationship they played for laughs most of the time, up until

Spoiler: Seeing Red

he tried to rape her.

Mr Psycho then succeeds in

Spoiler: Seeing Contrivance

murdering Tara, and sends her girlfriend onto a revenge crusade, culminating in an attempt to wipe out the human race.

Intended? Nope. Cack-handed? Yep.

It's obvious they were trying to make an anti-misogynistic point. Fine. They just went about it in completely the wrong way, and ended up with a nasty atmosphere all round.

Buffy was the opposite of misogynistic and homophobic.

Yep, in the early seasons. It jumped the shark badly at the end of season six (actually, I think it was on its way at the end of season four, but that's by the by.) I don't for a minute think the writing staff turned into the employees of Sterling Cooper. They just wrote a lot of crap, and didn't notice they'd screwed the pooch until it was too late.

 

[Azrael]

Writer's conceit that tho, and it is applied equally across the board.

I know it's tragic, but for me the saddest of the romance plotlines is

Spoiler: buffy

Xander and Anyanka. Xander, for being a cock and listening to D'Hoffryn and dumping her on her wedding day. I *heart* Anya, and never forgave Xander for it

I never bought into Xander and Anya's alleged epic romance. It was a relationship centred around casual sex that got shoehorned into a Trew Love mold because the plot demanded it. They had to suffer, gorram it! The Xander character deserved better, and Anya was too one-note for me to care either way. (Well, in later seasons, she was sassy and cunning when she first appeared.)

 

[Reno]

I don't hold with the wisdom that Buffy jumped the shark with Season 4. Maybe the overally continuing storyline wasn't as good as that of the previous two seasons, but it had several fantastic stand alone episodes, best of all Hush and Restless which are my two favourite episodes in the entire series and among the best TV fantasy ever. I also liked Willow falling for Tara. Season 5 was great and I think Season 7 is good fun and rather underrated. Season 6 is the only one I don't care for too much, though the last few episodes were excellent.

In any case, Buffy fully desreves its inclusion in and best TV drama ever list. It was smart and funny and occasionally it broke my heart unlike any other show.

 

[kyser_soze]

Sorry, but the actual criticism, and drawing the parallel of the evil minority cliché is flawed, because Willow's behaviour is exactly as one would expect it to be if someone had just murdered a characters lover. I reject the basic criticism, and TBH Mr Darknkight was an idiot for apologising to an incorrect criticism.

The irony, of course, is that in making this criticism, those arguing it are actually making Willow and Tara's characters and relationship as less than the one portrayed on screen - it's only about them being gay, and not about them being gay people.

 

[Azrael]

Sorry, but the actual criticism, and drawing the parallel of the evil minority cliché is flawed, because Willow's behaviour is exactly as one would expect it to be if someone had just murdered a characters lover. I reject the basic criticism, and TBH Mr Darknkight was an idiot for apologising to an incorrect criticism.

You'd expect someone who's lover's been killed to try to

Spoiler: Grave

exterminate the human race?

Extreme!

Mr DeKnight was apologising specifically for his stupid comments after the episode aired. If I recall right, several writers later accepted that they'd stumbled into a cliche.

The irony, of course, is that in making this criticism, those arguing it are actually making Willow and Tara's characters and relationship as less than the one portrayed on screen - it's only about them being gay, and not about them being gay people.

They're arguing that it walked straight into a honking great cliche, as bad as "the black sidekick who dies first" or "Albinos, evil sharpshooters" and all the other ugly caricatures in film and TV. I'm not one for identity politics, but I accept that the people who complain about these cliches have a point, and they should be avoided. While it's wrong to reduce a character to one aspect of their identity, it's naieve to avoid it entirely.

Besides which, the shooting only came about as a hackneyed plot device to inject some drama into a moribund season. It was a rehash of what happened at the end of season five, with the brain-suckin'. No one accused Buffy of propagating cliches over that.

 

[belboid]

well I hope no one has only got through the first four seasons of the buffster, cos there are some mighty spoliers for the rest of it here now!

 

[Azrael]

I don't hold with the wisdom that Buffy jumped the shark with Season 4. Maybe the overally continuing storyline wasn't as good as that of the previous two seasons, but it had several fantastic stand alone episodes, best of all Hush and Restless which are my two favourite episodes in the entire series and among the best TV fantasy ever. I also liked Willow falling for Tara. Season 5 was great and I think Season 7 is good fun and rather underrated. Season 6 is the only one I don't care for too much, though the last few episodes were excellent.

Actually I agree about season four. Walking plot device Riley was inoffensive but a mistake, but the Big Bad was compromised by an actress leaving earlier than expected. (Not sure it'd have been that much better anyway, mind.) Still, season four had some of the best dialogue, Spike was good, and Willow and Oz/Willow and Tara was nicely done. The return of Faith, excellent. Nothing that couldn't be put right.

I think Buffy was on its way at the beginning of season five with the intro of Dawn "long lost sister" Summers, who the show immediately focussed on. It really went to pot shortly after the beginning of season six.

In any case, Buffy fully desreves its inclusion in and best TV drama ever list. It was smart and funny and occasionally it broke my heart unlike any other show.

Undoubtedly. I'd put it in the top five.

What's the criteria for this list, anyhow? Is it "lankmark/worthy" TV, or timeless, fun TV? Buffy scores in both columns, though.

 

[kyser_soze]

You'd expect someone who's lover's been killed to try to...

Yeah. I've read enough fiction where a character's father/mother/brother/whatever is murdered and they decide to exact vengence in some hugely disproportionate way. Shit, Grand Moff Tarkin exterminated a whole planet just to attempt to extract some information from a prisoner. Extreme!!!

They're arguing using student identity politics; the action was consistent with Willow's character development over the season. The simple fact is that their position would have any gay character who manifests any bad behaviour as being homophobic. Which is nonsense.

 

[Reno]

You'd expect someone who's lover's been killed to try to

Spoiler: Grave

exterminate the human race?

Extreme!

I don't think Buffy should be taken to literally. It's allegory. Just as when Buffy looses her virginity to Angel, he turns evil and dumps her was an exaggeration of how a young girl would feel after having been taken advantage off and been dumped by her boyfriend. To her he would be evil, in Buffy he literally becomes the personification of evil.

Equally Willow feels an all consuming rage after her lover gets killed. It's an exaggeration of human emotions we would feel in this case. I saw her as a tragic (anti-)heroine rather than a homophobic stereotype. I certainly cheered her on when she skinned Warren alive.

 

[belboid]

They're arguing using student identity politics; the action was consistent with Willow's character development over the season. The simple fact is that their position would have any gay character who manifests any bad behaviour as being homophobic. Which is nonsense.

all of those articles seem to be no more than student identity politics. they are embarassingly bad and would barely scrape you a pass in a first year critical studies course

 

[scifisam]

Hold your your hats, it gets geeky. "BytrSuite" (Sat Oct 12, 2002 11:51 pm ) posted up the first apology from Steven Deknight (loving that name!) over at a Willow & Tara fansite, over comments he made after "Seeing Red" aired. ("We're so over the gay thing," or words to that effect.) And then, he came over himself (Steve DeKnight, Mon Oct 21, 2002 3:23 pm). I remember being surprised that a writer would take time out to do that years back when someone posted up the link.

Of course he didn't say, "Hands up, I'm a gay basher." No one (not even that fansite, which go even further than I do) claims that he, or anyone else on the show, was.

The definition of 'dead/evil lesbian cliche' doesn't fit Willow or Tara at all:

gay people in general, all people of color - are introduced into a storyline in order to be killed or play the villain

Unless you think Willow was in the entire series just to be the villain.

The writer of that post then defines dead/evil lesbian cliche as:

That all lesbians and, specifically lesbian couples, can never find happiness and always meet tragic ends. One of the most repeated scenarios is that one lesbian dies horribly and her lover goes crazy, killing others or herself. (Sound familiar?)

Which does fit Willow and Tara - but wait! It's clear that she wrote that definition only because of Willow and Tara. NONE of her other examples fit that definition at all.

There is a cliche of lesbians going evil. It is very rare for a lesbian relationship to end happily in films and on TV, even in genres where relationships ending badly is commonplace. There's quite a lot of homophobia still in the media and in the past there was even more.

That does mean that every lesbian character who goes bad (for ONE episode) is an example of this cliche. The show was full of characters, male female and undefined, who were evil. It's complaining that the show is prejudiced against Irish people because Angel turned evil. Or against straight women because Anya turned evil.

From the next ep, "Villains". (Looking all this up is bringing back memories!)


DAWN: Fine. I want to go to Spike's.
BUFFY: All right.
XANDER: What?! Not all right. Are you kidding? After what Spike did-
BUFFY: Xander!

Spoiler: spoiler

XANDER: You're not gonna really leave Dawn with Mr. Attempted Rape.

BUFFY: He won't hurt Dawn. I, he-he physically can't. Besides, he wouldn't.
XANDER: Well, after the other night, I'd say all bets are off on what he's capable of.
BUFFY: Dawn feels safe with him. We don't have a choice. Right now, he's all we've got.[1]

Spike's gone when they get round to his place.

Ah, I see where the confusion lies - the next time she actually leaves Dawn with him is after he's resouled, but she did attempt it straight away. But only because she had no choice and his actions are hardly condoned.

Yep, it would be. The specific way they were hurt is the problem. Buffy season six remorselessly beat down on every character on the show, to (barely) varying degrees. The misogynistic implications come from combining this with the intro of a frothing woman-hating psychopath as a villain, and implied that the only way the lead character could go on was by allowing herself to be slapped around by a demon. A relationship they played for laughs most of the time, up until

Spoiler: Seeing Red

he tried to rape her.

Mr Psycho then succeeds in

Spoiler: Seeing Contrivance

murdering Tara, and sends her girlfriend onto a revenge crusade, culminating in an attempt to wipe out the human race.

Intended? Nope. Cack-handed? Yep.

It's obvious they were trying to make an anti-misogynistic point. Fine. They just went about it in completely the wrong way, and ended up with a nasty atmosphere all round.

Only if you want it to be that way and view events very selectively. With selective viewing you could make that season out to be anti-male, anti-British, racist, anything you like.

And good Lord, if Warren (who, FWIW, was one of three bad guys, two of whom didn't hate women) was 'frothing' then what were the other, much more ebullient, bad guys in other seasons? In comparison they must have had more froth than an exploded cappuccino machine in a Carling factory.

Yep, in the early seasons. It jumped the shark badly at the end of season six (actually, I think it was on its way at the end of season four, but that's by the by.) I don't for a minute think the writing staff turned into the employees of Sterling Cooper. They just wrote a lot of crap, and didn't notice they'd screwed the pooch until it was too late.

There we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Azrael]

Yeah. I've read enough fiction where a character's father/mother/brother/whatever is murdered and they decide to exact vengence in some hugely disproportionate way. Shit, Grand Moff Tarkin exterminated a whole planet just to attempt to extract some information from a prisoner. Extreme!!!

Well yeah.

Didn't buy it then, don't buy it now. Willow's chosen fate for Warren, perhaps (although even then ...). Trying to commit the genocide to beat all genocides, and becoming in a stroke worse than Stalin, Hitler, and Richard Nixon combined. Nah.

They're arguing using student identity politics; the action was consistent with Willow's character development over the season. The simple fact is that their position would have any gay character who manifests any bad behaviour as being homophobic. Which is nonsense.

Erm, they turned against the show only when Warren's victim was gunned down. Willow had spent the best part of the season before that acting like a grade A-1 shit, including

Spoiler: All the Way

mind raping Tara

. So you claim that they demand gay characters be paragons don't fly. Student identity politics probably would demand that every gay character nobly suffer.

 

[scifisam]

Hold your your hats, it gets geeky. "BytrSuite" (Sat Oct 12, 2002 11:51 pm ) posted up the first apology from Steven Deknight (loving that name!) over at a Willow & Tara fansite, over comments he made after "Seeing Red" aired. ("We're so over the gay thing," or words to that effect.) And then, he came over himself (Steve DeKnight, Mon Oct 21, 2002 3:23 pm). I remember being surprised that a writer would take time out to do that years back when someone posted up the link.

Of course he didn't say, "Hands up, I'm a gay basher." No one (not even that fansite, which go even further than I do) claims that he, or anyone else on the show, was.

I finally read through that thread (and man, they have a whole site devoted to Joss Whedon being evil for what happened to Willow and Tara? A whole site for that? Jesus Christ - that's freakishly obssessive) and found the quote:

I know a lot of you feel that my recent apology on the Bronze was far too little and way too late, and I apologize for that, too. But it was sincere. There were no ulterior motives beyond the need to express how sorry I am that my insensitive remarks hurt so many of you. That’s really all there was to it.



I know it’s going to take more than words to heal the wound that I so insensitively aggravated. I learned a valuable lesson from my mistake on the Succubus Club, and I hope my actions in the future will balance the understandable feelings of ill will I’ve garnered from so many of you.



- Steve DeKnight

Why did you claim that he was apologising for the storyline? He was apologising for calling some fans homophobes - he wasn't apologising for the storyline in any way, shape or form.

 

[kyser_soze]

Then they're idiots for then going on to claim that the end of the season is a homophobic cliché. Or indeed, in any way different to the tragedy that befalls all the other characters at some point in the show.

Spoiler: buffy

I suspect that, on a Willow and Tara fan club site, that it has more to do with redirected pissed-offness at their beloved character getting offed and then hanging a convenient critical trope on it then anything else

.

 

[Azrael]

That does mean that every lesbian character who goes bad (for ONE episode) is an example of this cliche. The show was full of characters, male female and undefined, who were evil. It's complaining that the show is prejudiced against Irish people because Angel turned evil. Or against straight women because Anya turned evil.

If Angel had turned evil after drinking himself silly, and trying to buy arms for the 'ra, then yeah, I'd say the show was showing a hint of bias against Irish folks. There's no sweeping movie cliché against straight people I can think of (given that they're the majority) so can't think of an equivalent for Anya, on that basis.

On the Willow and Tara thing:-

Spoiler: spoiler

Willow spent the season alone and miserable, and finally reunites with Tara. Tara is promptly shot above the bed in which they've spent the past day going at it like Anya's phobia. Willow goes crazy, torturers the murderer to death, and tries to commit the biggest genocide in history.

There are unfortunate implications there, alright. I was dubious about the claim myself at first (I always loathed it as a sloppy plot contrivance) but read the arguments, and was forced to agree. You could say it's coincidence, but then the same argument was repeatedly used for the black sidekick who got bumped off. After a while, it's a honking, negative cliché, and something to be avoided. Poor show for a show that set itself up to subvert clichéd writing.

Ah, I see where the confusion lies - the next time she actually leaves Dawn with him is after he's resouled, but she did attempt it straight away. But only because she had no choice and his actions are hardly condoned.

No, they're loudly condemned by Mr Righteous, which makes it even worse. She didn't have no choice. She made a very strange choice.

Only if you want it to be that way and view events very selectively. With selective viewing you could make that season out to be anti-male, anti-British, racist, anything you like.

True enough, but what have I selected? The main plots of the series. The only thing I've not really mentioned is Xander being a prick. Although if Xanders prickisness was combined with a female villain who ranted and raved about how selfish and feckless men were, I think you could fairly take that as having misandrist implications.

On matters bubbly, the other villains all had an agenda and a decent plan. Warren was nuts, and ... what was his plan, again. He seemed to exist for no other reason than to be a drooling woman hater, and to facilitate the real Big Bad at season's end. I've seen flatpacks with more depth!

 

[Azrael]

I finally read through that thread (and man, they have a whole site devoted to Joss Whedon being evil for what happened to Willow and Tara? A whole site for that? Jesus Christ - that's freakishly obssessive) ...

Well, I don't agree with their line, but can sort of see where they're coming from, after all the smokescreen BS the writers put out about a certain character being "central to the show" and so on, capped with an appearance in the credits of "Seeing Red".

... and found the quote:
Why did you claim that he was apologising for the storyline? He was apologising for calling some fans homophobes - he wasn't apologising for the storyline in any way, shape or form.

I said he went there and apologised, couldn't remember the exact details (it's years since I've read through all this). Several other writers, while not saying the character shouldn't have died, admitted that the way they handled it was a mistake.

 

[kyser_soze]

I was dubious about the claim myself at first (I always loathed it as a sloppy plot contrivance) but read the arguments, and was forced to agree.

Comme ci, comme ca. I've read them and disagree, quite vehemently in fact.

You could say it's coincidence, but then the same argument was repeatedly used for the black sidekick who got bumped off.

And we're talking about which character here? Or is that a more generic argument about the evil/murder cliché which takes no account at all of the storyline leading up to the point under contention?

 

[Azrael]

Then they're idiots for then going on to claim that the end of the season is a homophobic cliché. Or indeed, in any way different to the tragedy that befalls all the other characters at some point in the show.

Spoiler: buffy

I suspect that, on a Willow and Tara fan club site, that it has more to do with redirected pissed-offness at their beloved character getting offed and then hanging a convenient critical trope on it then anything else

.

It's not just them, some articles turned up other sites, notably afterellen, saying much the same thing.

I thought exactly the same as you when I first saw the argument. But the whole badly written soap opera from season six does fit the template uncomfortably well. If nothing else, it was spectacularly poor and contrived writing. Warning, plot device at 100 paces.

 

[Azrael]

And we're talking about which character here? Or is that a more generic argument about the evil/murder cliché which takes no account at all of the storyline leading up to the point under contention?

If you mean the redcoat black sidekick cliche, so far as I remember, it applies mainly to generic 80s action movies, where a black actor was hired to play a comic sidekick who got bumped off to "make it personal" for the (white) hero, thus reducing black people on screen to a means to an end. This one's so infamous I wouldn't have thought it was seriously disputed.

 

[butchersapron]

If nothing else, it was spectacularly poor and contrived writing. Warning, plot device at 100 paces.

It was a program on the telly to be fair to it.

 

[Azrael]

It was a program on the telly to be fair to it.

Yeah, and it was still better than most shows, but it used to avoid this sort of signposted writing.

Spoiler: season 2 'Buffy', way back when

It wasn't obvious that the boyfriend was going to turn into a bloodsucking fiend.

 

[strung out]

i think it's disappointing that the longest running science fiction programme of all time didn't make the list

 

[The Octagon]

i think it's disappointing that the longest running science fiction programme of all time didn't make the list

Que?

 

[Azrael]

Give Moffat a chance, and it might show in the next one.

 

[Azrael]

Que?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5390372.stm

 

[strung out]

Give Moffat a chance, and it might show in the next one.

it should have been in this list, considering some of the crap that's on it

 

[The Octagon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5390372.stm

Ah right.

Don't rate it personally, but then again I'm arguing the toss over Buffy The Vampire Slayer, so swings and roundabouts

But Buffy's far superior.

 

[_angel_]

How do You Want Me? Was great, Dylan Moran and the late Charlotte Coleman, although I though it was more of a comedy than a drama.

I do like it but surprised to see it here. GBH should be on that list.

 

[scifisam]

If Angel had turned evil after drinking himself silly, and trying to buy arms for the 'ra, then yeah, I'd say the show was showing a hint of bias against Irish folks. There's no sweeping movie cliché against straight people I can think of (given that they're the majority) so can't think of an equivalent for Anya, on that basis.

You're not getting me. Having a lesbian character turn evil isn't that significant in a show that has loads of evil characters, including some who were formerly good. It'd be like complaining that a gay male character in Ugly Betty was working in the fashion industry even though the entire show is about the fashion industry.

On the Willow and Tara thing:-

Spoiler: spoiler

Willow spent the season alone and miserable, and finally reunites with Tara. Tara is promptly shot above the bed in which they've spent the past day going at it like Anya's phobia. Willow goes crazy, torturers the murderer to death, and tries to commit the biggest genocide in history.

While all the other characters have simple, happy relationships, right? None of them ever have their lover die (in their own bed), turn evil, cheat on them, try to drain their life force, anything bad at all.

There are unfortunate implications there, alright. I was dubious about the claim myself at first (I always loathed it as a sloppy plot contrivance) but read the arguments, and was forced to agree. You could say it's coincidence, but then the same argument was repeatedly used for the black sidekick who got bumped off. After a while, it's a honking, negative cliché, and something to be avoided. Poor show for a show that set itself up to subvert clichéd writing.

In those shows, the black character dies while the white characters live. In Buffy, the lesbian characters get done over while the straight characters all get done over too. Not the same thing. If every lesbian character they'd introduced was treated worse than the others, you might have a point, but

Spoiler: spoiler

Kennedy survives and she and Willow have the happiest ending of all the characters.

No, they're loudly condemned by Mr Righteous, which makes it even worse. She didn't have no choice. She made a very strange choice.

What other choice did she have, then?

True enough, but what have I selected? The main plots of the series. The only thing I've not really mentioned is Xander being a prick. Although if Xanders prickisness was combined with a female villain who ranted and raved about how selfish and feckless men were, I think you could fairly take that as having misandrist implications.

You've selected only stuff about Willow and Tara and then only some of the aspects of that that fit your theory. That's missing out a fair few plots in the series.

On matters bubbly, the other villains all had an agenda and a decent plan. Warren was nuts, and ... what was his plan, again. He seemed to exist for no other reason than to be a drooling woman hater, and to facilitate the real Big Bad at season's end. I've seen flatpacks with more depth!

We have different definitions of frothing psychopath, then. Mine means someone who is over the top, energetic, excitable, crazy in ways humans normally aren't crazy - not disorganised and a bit nuts.

 

[scifisam]

Well, I don't agree with their line, but can sort of see where they're coming from, after all the smokescreen BS the writers put out about a certain character being "central to the show" and so on, capped with an appearance in the credits of "Seeing Red".

I said he went there and apologised, couldn't remember the exact details (it's years since I've read through all this). Several other writers, while not saying the character shouldn't have died, admitted that the way they handled it was a mistake.

That's not an apology for the storyline, which you claimed. I bet the others weren't apologies for the storyline's handling either. Again, you're seeing what you want to see.

You reckon it was signposted? You mean you guessed that

Spoiler

Tara was going to die?

Not only that, but lots of people guessed? They would have if it were signposted.

I don't believe you. This is the same audience who, according to you, wouldn't have guessed that the boyfriend was going to turn into a bloodsucking fiend. The vampire boyfriend.