Speedy Gonzales

I saw a boy at work, maybe 4 or 5 years old, who was wearing a t-shirt with Speedy Gonzales on the front. I don't see many kids wearing clothes with older cartoon characters, so I thought it was pretty cool he was wearing it. Then I realized the boy was really young, too young to have watched Speedy Gonzales. To him, the character isn't the fast, Spanish-speaking mouse that ran around our Saturday morning television screens. The boy probably thinks it's just a cartoon mouse with a huge hat. I bet he can name the current characters on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon but not many (if any) from Looney Toons.

Back to BlogSpot

I'm going to change the domain name back to BlogSpot (http://digitalfare.blogspot.com), so if there are any regular readers out there, please be prepared to update your bookmarks. The RSS feed won't be affected.

I've also thought about making this site less formal and more of a blog, a place where I can write out my thoughts. The topics will still be media-related, but the posts will hopefully read more like a conversation/thinking out loud than a news article or review. More personal.

Can Buffy be our Doctor?

TV Overmind posted an open letter to Joss Whedon that discusses the potential of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to be the "legacy" program in the U.S. that Doctor Who is in Britain. I love Doctor Who and Buffy, and I'm not opposed to anything Joss Whedon does, so let's take a look at what would and wouldn't work if Buffy were a continuing series.

The Doctor regenerates after he's mortally injured, and a new slayer is called after the current slayer dies. In both series, it's easy to switch out the main actor and use someone else. You're not replacing Darrin Stevens--it's a logical progression in the show. The Doctor's personality is slightly different with each regeneration and each slayer could take a different approach to her responsibilities. The Doctor can go anywhere in space and time to have his adventures. Slayers could be from anywhere on Earth, so there's the possibility of dealing with mythology and lore from various countries, and that’s pretty cool. The Doctor has different companions and he meets new people. Likewise, the slayer can have a new watcher, her own set of friends.

Where it falls apart

The Doctor, despite his regenerations, is the same character. Same man, new everything. He keeps his memories, his knowledge…the core being of the Doctor. The Slayer, however, would be a completely new person after the previous one died. She would need to discover who she is, go through training, and learn about vampires and the other baddies all over again because she’s a different person and new to slaying. It could get repetitive.

The Doctor’s character is a progression over time. Experiences that he has change him, and he retains everything he knows with each regeneration. Every Slayer, though, would be a different approach to the same type of character. You can have a Slayer that’s with it, wants to fight evil and does a good job most of the time (like Buffy). You can have the spunky, aggressive, violent Slayer we saw with Faith. You could have a timid Slayer, one who doesn’t want the job. You can have a Slayer that’s a mix of what we’ve already seen. My point is, how many times can you re-hash the Slayer? Every time there’s a new one, you need a different approach, something that’s new and creates a new character that make sense in the fictional world we're dealing with. Can you sustain something like that for very long? I think after a few Slayers, they’ll be too many similarities to care about the new one. Here's another girl who fights evil just like the dozen before her. Yay.

Every new Slayer would practically be a new show. New cast, new place, new problems. Doctor Who has those new things too with each regeneration, but the core character of the Doctor and his TARDIS keep everything together. The audience has something to hold on to while everything else changes. In a Slayer franchise, that constant thing would be the Slayer’s responsibilities, fighting evil, and I’m not sure that’s enough continuity between Slayers to keep the show captivating.

I’d love more Buffy or a similar show about a Slayer, but I don’t think it can hold up as a continuing program the way Doctor Who has. A collection of mini-series about vampire slayers, though? Yes, please. (Whedon being the one to do it would be amazing, but he’s pretty busy at the moment. Sigh.)