Buffy Midnight Screenings

As I mentioned before, I borrowed Monica's dvds of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and it became one of my favorite shows. But it wasn't until the musical episode, which came pretty late in the run, that I fell in love with it. Joss Whedon reportedly took six months off and taught himself guitar to write it. They blew the budget for the entire season on it. It ran ten minutes long. And they released a soundtrack weeks after it aired. Even among hardcore fans, it ranks as one of the best.

For years, people have petitioned to turn it into a stage musical but there's a major problem. One of the brilliant strokes of Joss Whedon's writing is that the musical episode mattered. It took the plot threads from earlier episodes and advanced them in unexpected ways and set up later stories. It's a perfect episode but not a complete story. Casual audiences couldn't "get it".

So hardcore fans have done the next best thing. They're having midnight screenings and sing-alongs. Much like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (which is a film that deserves its notoriety less) groups have gathered at the IFC to celebrate the show. I just wish the article told me the next time it was happening.