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I think the thing with "Buffy..." is that over the 7 seasons it moves from more-or-less a series of self contained episodes to full season length arcs. This was
by tomgp 10y ago
I think the thing with "Buffy..." is that over the 7 seasons it moves from more-or-less a series of self contained episodes to full season length arcs. This was a broader trend in TV as we moved towards box set binging and then on-demand viewing and I think it's key to Buffy's place in the TV canon that not only is it well written gripping and bold TV but it speaks to -- and seems to crystallise -- broader cultural trends in TV consumption.
Other shows had moved in this direction (eg. the Star Trek franchise esp. over the span of DS9) but none I think as fully or as satisfyingly as Buffy did.
- dnautics 10y agoBabylon 5 did the full series arc before Buffy, as did Earth 2, and space: above and beyond, though those series were less successful.
- digi_owl 10y agoLikely because sci-fi seems to be a hard sell in general. They are likely to be expensive to make (can't just rent a school for a vacation to shoot some scenes, or reuse some generic back lot) and appeal to a narrower audience. Buffy was basically suburban/teen drama with some supernatural/horror comedy spoofs tossed on top.
- dnautics 10y agosorry, the punctuation was unclear. I meant to imply that B5 was successful. I'm not personally a huge fan of B5 (just kind of like it so-so), but the series did spin off several telefilms and at least one series. The series was also not too expensive to make because of heavy use of CGI.