The world outside

As a connoisseur of fine television (as well as some particularly spectacular trash) one of my favourite TV shows is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And (as I've said before) I believe that its creator Joss Whedon is freakishly talented and an eccentric risk-taker of epic proportions.

I'm not sure I have favourite episodes of the show, rather I have favourite moments - because there are so many throughout its eight seasons. But a memorable episode for me was The Body, in which Buffy, our superhero who saves many a damsel, dude and demon in distress, arrives home to find her mother Joyce dead of natural causes.

Whedon shot the entire episode without any background music or a soundtrack of any kind. I read in an interview that his intention was to not offer audiences any of the usual 'comforts'.

Although it is the later scene involving former-demon Anya's blunt but innocent  confusion over death and its wastefulness* that always had me in hysterics-of-the-bad kind; the part that always hit home was one of the earlier scenes. After Buffy has found her mother and called paramedics, she opens the back door of her house. The sounds coming from neighbouring houses, including children playing, is in stark contrast to the shocked silence of her own house.

When I first saw it I was reminded of my grandmother's death. I recall accompanying my mother to the funeral director's office to make the decisions-you-don't-want-to-make when it struck me: the world around us was still turning. People were going about their everyday business - laughing, talking, bitching and so forth, while my own family suffered in silence.

When I later saw the Buffy episode, I was immediately reminded of the isolation and aloneness that comes with death and devastation. Although it impacts directly and even indirectly on a whole range of people, many MANY others continue to live and breathe in ignorance, without a care in the world. As they must.

My own father died last night. Peacefully. Thank god. It had been close for a few days. On Sunday he started gasping for breath and my mother, my brother and I searched each other's eyes for comfort as my father struggled. At the time we were sitting in dad's palliative care room with the door open to allow some fresh air to sneak into the stuffy room.The place was full of visitors. At that very moment families were crowded around outside tables in the courtyard. As we sat clasping my father's hands in an attempt to eradicate his pain and comfort him into whatever came next a little girl's voice drifted in from outside.

She was a cutie. I'd seen her in the corridors earlier. Clad in bright pink, her long dark curly hair bounced about as she frolicked. In the courtyard she'd found a small fern tree which housed her height perfectly. "Look at me and my umbrella," she shouted repeatedly to gain the attention of neighbouring adults. Despite my father's fading presence on the bed in front of me in the silent room, I was drawn to the life outside. And I was hopeful and sad at the same time.

*From Buffy's Anya:

But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why.

More on my dad: his dementia and his borrowed heart.

Appreciating Joss

I check out other blogs from time to time and one caught my eye recently.  Sufficiently impassioned, I felt obliged to respond to the author.  In a positive way. 

Kaye Dacus recently wrote about her favourite (new) shows which are currently airing in the USA.  One of these was the new Joss Whedon show, Dollhouse. 

I suspect it won’t be here (in Australia) for a while.  Some of my recent favourite TV series (Mad Men, Dexter) are actually here on DVD before they appear on our Free to Air television.

Nonetheless, I will look forward to the show – whenever it arrives.  

For those not-in-the-know, Joss Whedon is a director, come writer (etc) who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and now Dollhouse.  I was thrilled to see that blogger and writer Kaye (a sane, intelligent woman and not a sci-fi freak, as you so often see with Joss’s fans) appreciated his work.  And, as a result, I felt obliged to add my glowing recommendation (in response to her and in my own blog).

I became a Joss fan during the Buffy years.  Not the early years, as a show about a vampire slayer wasn’t something I would have even considered watching.  As it happened, in 2000 I was living in Asia and – in desperation – I succumbed to cable tv and one night (for something to do) watched an episode of Buffy.  I was intrigued so went back for more.  I then bought the DVDs to see all of the earlier episodes and waited for new episodes with a surprising impatience. 

I am aware a lot of Buffy-viewers were ‘goth-like’ characters themselves and loved ‘all-things-vampire’.  I must admit to fast-forwarding through some of the fight scenes, and cringing at some of the other-worldly characters as what I loved most about Buffy was the dialogue.  The witty-repartee, the Buffy ‘catch-phrases’ were what stuck in my mind. 

It would be easy to write off the show as trite, light-viewing, featuring some teenage-superhero-wannabe. 

I was well into the series before I realized how incredibly talented Joss Whedon and his crew were.  Through interviews accompanying the DVD series’, I learned that Buffy’s mother (Joyce) knew that she was to be killed off years before she was (and the episode of her death is one of the most poignant things I have ever seen on tv).  The obscure references to her sister Dawn’s arrival a year or two before she appeared intrigued me as well.  I guess I had thought the writers sat around informally and randomly came up with ideas and scripts.  I hadn’t expected that much rigour, talent and intelligence around the process.  

I read later that Joss is known for mapping out his shows in advance, but the commitment and adherence to detail that must go with that level of focus is amazing.

I can only imagine then, how devastating it was when his (post Buffy & Angel) TV series Firefly was cancelled after one season.  He must have decided long before what would happen to these new characters he created.  The movie, Serenity which came out later, I suspect was an attempt to get some closure.  And not only for the fans. 

Interestingly Joss has a habit of re-using actors he favours in his shows.  Eliza Dushku appeared as the rogue slayer, Faith, in Buffy and now stars in Dollhouse.  Nathan Fillion went from creepy bad guy in Buffy to sexy lead in Firefly.

He creates strong female characters: from the slayers and witches in Buffy; to River (the brain-washed and reluctant superhero in Firefly); to the ‘dolls’ being programmed in Dollhouse.  In an era when so few female role models exist on our screens, and women still so-often play the sidekick to the lead detective, it is refreshing to see quirky and (slightly) flawed female leads. 

So, I have missed Joss from our screens – he has an eccentricity that is rare and tries things others wouldn’t dare.  He seems prone to some self-indulgence (writing his own theme songs, appearing in some episodes) and I gather he is a tad ‘precious’ – wanting things HIS way, which I suspect is usually the right way.  Who else would think to write an entire episode of a show (Buffy) where no words are spoken, or another where all dialogue is sung. 

But, it seems I can now look forward to Dollhouse, though gossip is that its network is considering axing it – already.  Perhaps like Buffy it takes some time to whet viewers’ appetites and incite their addiction.    In the interim, I will await its arrival here with anticipation.