Tag: television

Remembering Anthony Head in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Is it as far back as early 1997? It’s hard to get my head around that fact. Buffy the Vampire Slayer goes back that far. I must admit that, when it first came out, I wasn’t aware of this enduring off-beat American TV series. I came to watch it later when its reputation started to rise. People started to say: have you seen?

We were in the age when video tape was thought to be advanced technology in the home. Dial up internet consumed time and energy even to do the basics. Phones had wires. On reflection that period, just before the millennium, was a significant one both culturally and in terms of emerging technology.

Vampire stories are nothing new. Ideas have been cycled and recycled ever since the printed word was placed in the hands of avid fiction readers. What’s refreshing about the Buffy saga is that it did venture onto new ground. The idea of a “Hellmouth” opening under an ordinary California school mixed-up lots of crazy notions about what the forces of darkness might do in a sunny community. As a plot device for a series of stories, having a dangerous and mysterious “portal ” is a clever idea.

What’s incredibly smart about the stories is the role of the “Watcher” whose job it was to train and educate Buffy as she faces relentless evil challenges. The character Giles steers her through volumes of supernatural history and helps investigates new perils.

Perfect as the Watcher was actor Anthony Head. He added an authority and stability to what could have become a stream of silliness. He fitted the juxtaposition of a normal, even slightly boring, schoolteacher with a wizard like seriousness of a mature elder. His Englishness added to the contrast between the 1990s and a world of timeless monsters.

With his passing, I’d like to remember Anthony Head as the actor who gave the Buffy series a wide appeal and stopped it becoming no more than a wacky teenage romp. It’s a series that is eminently watchable. The passing of nearly 30-years hasn’t diminished its sense of youthful drama and pure entertainment value.

There’s a list of categories that can describe this TV series. Horror, supernatural, comedy, rites of passage, and even romance. It’s that peculiar mix that makes it so iconic. There’s a 100% focus on the key characters without the inevitable virtual reality stuff that would make it now.

I don’t think it would be possible to remake Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was of its era. Thanks to those who played their parts so well. It’s watchable anytime. Thank you Anthony Head. 

Note: ITV X have the series to stream:

https://www.itv.com/watch/buffy-the-vampire-slayer/10a5896

Cynicism to Appreciation

A couple of things came together this week. I had the pleasure of enjoying 35 degrees in Brussels. The joy of the odious metro, the brutalist main station and the wandering herds of tourists. Overhead one couple saying do you know that they have a statue of a little boy having a wee. I flinched because I genuinely thought everyone in the world knew of the Manneken Pis[1]. How can anyone not know?

It was a Canadian who prompted me to undo a prejudice of mine. Loving the air conditioning in the hotel, I looked to my iPad for late evening entertainment. There was the man – Clarkson. Irritating prankster and motorhead. Not known for meaningful commentary. I’d resisted watching his series Clarkson’s Farm[2] on the basis that I’d want to throw bricks at the screen.

This week I watched the first series. Made pre-COVID. Fine, it’s not a serious documentary about the trials and tribulations of British farming in the 21st century. True to form it’s pure entertainment. Edited highlights of comic moments and true to form tomfoolery.

My mind is changed. I started as a cynic. Here’s a moneymaking scheme for a wealthy landowner who made riches in the television world. To here’s a have a go spirit let loose on what people often assume is easy but, in fact, is mighty hard to do. The series is an engaging journey of discovery all but made for the small screen.

How can you not make a profit out of a highly desirable spread of a thousand acres in some of the most beautiful countryside in Britain? Experience counts and when you have none, it counts even more. Watching the lights come on in Clarkson’s head is well worth a watch.

Farming with drone shots and a camera crew following is obviously not the real world. Nicely edited highlights tell the story on the page. Put aside any cynicism. The show has a way of story telling that brings out the awkward, funny and frustrating reality of farming. Folly, errors and mishaps are all part of what happens in that colourful industry.

There was a world pre-COVID. Going back even further, there was a world before the fireworks of the year 2000. It was summed up by the brothers Gallagher. Yes, I am talking about the getting back together of Oasis. A band that was a bit more than an everyday rock band.

Having survived watching last week’s televising of the one millionth Glastonbury festival (exaggeration), the memories of the “real” contrast with the artificial, bland and merely controversial for the sake of it. Those years in the mid-1990s were good ones, if only I’m using the trick of selective memory. Remember when people who supported leaving Europe were strange and social media was only a rare tacky e-mail.

Maybe I’m getting more Clarkson-like as time flies.

[1] https://www.introducingbrussels.com/manneken-pis

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10558964/

Evolution Politics

Wake up John. The herald of today was there in the late 1990s. There was me fascinated by the possibilities of the INTERNET. Buzzing modem squeaking down a phone line. With such peculiarities as Y2K behind us the new century provided broadband access to everyone. Almost everyone. Eventually, being off grid became a sales tag for remote rural settings.

Meanwhile, good old-fashioned popular entertainment media was desperately trying to make itself relevant to the new era. Proliferation of reruns were not enough. Stale formats dwindled. In that maelstrom, reality television was born. Technology shaped what became possible. It was a horror to me but then again, I was just out of touch.

Big Brother is a strange beast. Watching joe average or minor celebrities make complete fools of themselves for big bucks – how could that work? It did, bigtime. Undeniably scoring with the public. It spawned lots of similar shows bombarding us with unscripted chat seen through the tight lens of an edited television show.

Not quite like throwing Christians to the lions, familiar to Romans, but a social experiment open to participants combative as much as caring behaviour. Watching relatable and unrelatable volunteers try their best to seem nice or nasty as they thought appealing.

25-years on, now British politics begins to resemble reality television. That creation provided a pathway through our screens to capture our attention. To make names out of relatively unknowns. Or to revive careers waning.

I said “begins to resemble” without realising that I’m being a dinosaur. It’s here. A politician can’t anymore stand on a soap box and pontificate about the world. The grand ark of a well written speech is destined for the dustbin. Every presentation needs to be framed as if they are in the jungle (I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here![1]).

Reality shows are becoming a training ground for political personalities. Forget the serious need to do an apprenticeship. That one has been hijacked too. The basic grind of administration and casework can be bypassed if the candidate is a good enough showman or woman.

Going back to the 1990s, I think a lot of us were naive about the coming technologies. There was an imagining of the information superhighway[2] as a great educator. A positive liberator. A forum for better communication. Making it easier for people to have a real dialogue with the elected officials. Thus, solving problems, cutting down bureaucracy and engaging communities.  

Of course it is those things. The naivety came with the blindness to the huge entertainment possibilities. How reality and make-believe can get intermingled. How dominant personalities would capture the cameras like Hollywood stars.

With that fuzziness between reality and make-believe storytelling takes on a new importance. That’s what political managers have discovered in abundance. Medium and message have always been closely linked. Now, a would-be star or demigod must take that ever more seriously to win.

[1] https://www.itv.com/imacelebrity

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/czv20818q2no