The first season, such as it was, introduced us to the main characters, and was pretty formulaic – the gang identify the bad guy/demon/monster and Buffy eliminates him/it – and even with the whole Master storyline, the vamps never completely took the centre stage. The dominant concept behind this series seemed to be just to set up the situation in which our group of reluctant heroes had come together, and to drive home the point about the Hellmouth.
With the second season, however, the formula began to take a back seat to the generic story arc which kept us all enthralled for 22 weeks: fundamentally the emotional pairing of Buffy and Angel, and all the various plot devices that entailed, as well as the absolute tour de force which was Spike and Drusilla.
What has also become increasingly obvious – to this viewer at least – are the increasing parallels with Anne Rice's vampire mythology. Whether this is an intentional nod – such as Spike's derisive comment in 'School Hard' about people falling for the notion that vampires are romantic, slushy characters as typified by Rice's work – or a seemingly coincidental matter such as the music swelling throughout the series to a more profound and epic style as found in the film of 'Interview with the Vampire', it has become far more dominant an influence as the series has progressed.
Angel seems to be the key to all this – a vampire with a human soul, a vampire who has not killed a human being for a century but existed on animals alone, a vampire who is more mortal than undead, capable of emotions and tears and a desire to protect the humans who he cares about. If these aren't all echoes of Rice's Louis I don't know what they're supposed to be! There are even occasions when he sounds like Brad Pitt's depiction of Louis in the film.
It would follow then that Spike were the Lestat character, and this again is borne out by the series. With his bad boy attitude, bleached blond hair and sheer exuberance for his vampiric existence, he fits the bill perfectly. His devotion to Drusilla even has a fatherly aspect to it when they first appear, when Drusilla is playing the innocent Claudia role, weak, dependent and with an unhealthy obsession for dolls.
And then there's Dru herself, whose transformation became so central to the pattern of season two as it unfolded. When she arrived, she was seemingly too weak to hunt for herself and too mad to be safe even to herself. She drifted around for a few episodes wearing flowing white gowns, looking for all the world like a lost soul from some forgotten Hammer film, where the women go all weak at the knees just because Dracula's flapped through the window! But as the series progressed, she became something altogether more powerful and more dangerous, even overtaking for a while her erstwhile father figure Spike and completely able to wrap the re-born Angelus (the evil, soulless part of Angel) around her finger. She took to wearing sumptuous scarlet velvet and dark, vampish make up, and became very much the femme fatale, discarding her dolls to play with humans and vampires alike as her toys. Very much the Claudia transformation, even down to her change of costume and the predatory sexual elements to her nature which never completely come to the fore, locked as they seem to be in a child-like innocence.
In another fine nod to Rice, the manuscript which restores Drusilla's strength to her is the du Lac manuscript (named after Louis of the same name in 'Interview...') This is done by draining her sire, Angel, thereby weakening him and indirectly Spike, who is injured and spends much of the rest of the season in a wheelchair being insulted and jibed by Angelus.
There were even more bizarre Ricean elements coming into play as the series progressed, such as Angel losing his soul and becoming the evil (and deliciously entertaining) Angelus, as Louis transforms after the death of Claudia into an avenging angel, albeit briefly. And in the spooky and strange episode 'I only have eyes for you', there's even a bit of body-thievery going on, as Angel inhabits the body of a dead woman in order to break a cycle of violence which has kept a restless spirit earth-bound at the school.
And then, just when I thought it could get no more sublime, the final two parter 'Becoming' happened along. The 'Interview' style music was going into hyperdrive as we witnessed how Angel became a vampire in late 18th century Ireland, and the sight of him wandering drunkenly around in a big shirt and knee breeches should have been enough to set most hearts a-fluttering. Then there's the flashbacks of Dru's life before she met Angel, the mortal driven half crazy by the visions she has which she believes are sent from the Devil (remember how Lestat used to rave about his 'golden moments' which seemed sent from the same source?) Yet another flashback, to the point where Angel's soul is restored by a gypsy curse, had definite Dracula overtones – though it was never explicitly stated where this happened, it had an unmistakable Eastern European flavour to it.
And the final cliffhanger, the one which kept us poor BBC viewers on tenterhooks for several weeks, where Angel is despatched to hell with the demon Acathla, is surely reminiscent of Lestat's descent into Hell in 'Memnoch the Devil'. I have no doubt whatsoever that Angel will be back after some significant tour of duty in the underworld with some valuable lessons learned and maybe even some new powers.
There has even been an attempt at portraying a vampire 'cult', which was quite hilarious in its execution in the episode 'Lie to me'. This involves a group of vampire obsessives who give themselves ludicrous names and dress up in ultra-gothic stylie, and who want nothing more than to die and become vampires – though typically when the vampires finally show their brutality, the poor deluded mortals run screaming for cover! As a pastiche of both the US vampire role playing community and the so-called 'Real Vampyres' contingent (elements of both of which are also prevalent over here), the episode was gloriously funny as seen with an insider's eye. Quality stuff.
If you still haven't started watching 'Buffy' by now, then what the hell's wrong with you? Sublime scripts, some incredible castings, a blistering soundtrack, an involving story arc complete with a plethora of monsters and a conspiracy theory worthy of 'The X Files' at its height – 'Buffy' really is the only thing for the modern vampire about town to be watching.
see also on this site: Anne Rice Interview with the Vampire
Home
Back to Issue Listing
Back to Literary Header
Previous
