The wife and I just finished our run-through of Buffy and are a good chunk into the final season of Angel. There will be a number of posts on those shows, rest assured, but this is not one of those posts. What struck me was that my wife had that sense of loss of finishing something and knowing that these characters are done. I realize that there are the comics for continued adventure but even at their best they’re still a bit off from the tone of the show. So, as the cast sang at the end of “Once More With Feeling”: where do we go from here? Take my hand, gentle readers, and I will show you. I will offer you up more television shows to help fill the excavated hole in your heart.
And the loss doesn’t have to be recent. Who among us doesn’t get that periodic twinge when they realize that a beloved series has ended. A random remembrance of that fact out of nowhere. A flash that Harry Potter has grown up and moved away, that your favorite Starfleet ship has been decommissioned, that while you can relive Frodo’s journey again and again you will never be able to take one more new step with him. That if your home was in Sunnydale you truly can’t go home again.
So where do you go? It depends on what you’re missing from the series. People have the seasons they love and the seasons they don’t. That’s because Buffy is an amalgamation of a bunch of different genre shows which means that, depending on the story arc, it shifts in tone. That means you might like the quirky word play from the Scoobies or the emotional knife twisting of season 5. So I’ve come up with a couple of different aspects of Buffy and a show to match each one. Hopefully there’s something here to fill your yen.
The Middleman
An art student is recruited into a secret, crime fighting organization
For those who miss the early seasons, when it was quick and light.
This show is all about satirizing tropes and making good characters. The key element here is fun with an emphasis on word play. You know that ‘whedonesque’ patter? This has it in spades. From the banter between Wendy and The Middleman to the small side characters like Noser everyone here is quick, even when they’re being slow. It has a heavy hand of goofy in it, so if you really don’t like early Buffy then that may put you off
Veronica Mars
The daughter of a private eye takes on her own cases at school
For those who miss later, complex seasons.
This keeps the quick dialog going but thematically focuses a lot more on the darker side of life. If you were interested in the idea of Buffy and Spike breaking down what abusive relationships are (whether or not you think it was successfully done) then this is the show for you. Once again, it’s a cast that feels like Scoobies. They’re quick, pop culture savvy, and whenever someone is at a loss for words it’s a character moment and not a break in the script. But it is dark. I’ll say trigger warning here and just take it as a given if you watch the show. You will squirm in some episodes, but you’ll laugh in almost all of them. And just like Buffy, the description of the show turned my off while watching one episode hooked me. The summary is a high school girl investigates crimes. But taking the show as just that would be like assuming Buffy is just a standard teen vampire romance. And you know it’s so much more.
Lost Girl
A woman finds herself in the middle of Fae politics while trying to control her powers
For those that want the urban magic, and maybe some Dark Willow.
Do you want another fantasy show? Do you miss urban skewed mythological creatures? Did you enjoy the darker side of magic? Then this is the show for you. Take all of that and roll it together with a better portrayal of liquid sexuality than Willow ever got and you’ll come up with Lost Girl. The actual plot? It’s mainly thin magical political machinations draped over a frame of personal drama. But it’s fun! I’d say that the two leads, Bo and Dyson, get the plot but the fun characters are their sidekicks, Kenzi and Hale.
Todd and the Book of Pure Evil
There’s a high school and some Satanists and also Jason Mewes and it’s gross and funny. And there are a couple of musical episodes
For those that wished there was a Buffy/Evil Dead 2 crossover.
This is basically the hybrid of those two. If the silly episodes of Buffy and the last season of Angel is Urban Fantasy Marx Brothers than Todd and the Book of Pure Evil is Urban Fantasy Three Stooges. It is gross and over the top and hilarious. This show is so much more than the sum of its parts that describing it won’t sell you on it. Just go watch if the above sounds like your thing.
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