TVSquad

Last week, I devoted my first Jane After Dark column to my top five Buffy moments. I was thrilled to read all the responses, both here on TV Squad and at Whedonesque, where the post was picked up. Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are a passionate bunch!

This week, I thought it would be fun to delve into my favorite Buffy hookups. One that didn't make the list but holds a special place in my heart is Giles and Joyce. It was a fleeting moment, but one that was fun and would have made for great storytelling had it continued.

But who to pair Buffy up with -- Spike, Angel or Riley? What about Spike and Drusilla? And while Willow and Tara had a special love affair, there's a lot to be said for Willow and Oz. And what of Xander? Sure, he and Anya had a fun romance, but his hookups with Cordelia and even Faith were intense in their own way.

Oh the choices! Read on for my thoughts, and please add your own in the comments below.

I'm starting a new column here on TV Squad called "Jane After Dark." Some of you know I work the "night shift" here at the Squad, editing and scheduling posts into the wee hours. I'm a big multi-tasker, so I also use those hours to get caught up on all the great shows I've missed along the way.

Over the past year, I've watched some really cool shows, including Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Moonlight, Weeds, Entourage, Gossip Girl, and many others. So I thought it would be fun to write about my After Dark musings, and I hope you'll chime in with your own thoughts about whatever I'm watching.

I just finished Joss Whedon's magnificent Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I loved so many things about the show. No one could look as stylish as Buffy as she slayed those vampires. Angel and Spike were both hot in their own way. The love between Willow and Tara was sweet and gentle, but also powerful. And the characters continued to grow and evolve throughout the series. By the last episode, you really felt like you knew these characters and had grown right along with them.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum Sarah Michelle Gellar is starring in an HBO comedy pilot called The Wonderful Maladys, about a group of dysfunctional New York siblings. The project also stars Nate Corddry (Rob's little brother) and Swingtown vet Molly Parker.

We don't know much about the show's concept yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Being a Buffy fan, anything Sarah Michelle Gellar does instantly pops on my radar. So far, Gellar's post-Buffy career has delivered a few tedious big screen horror thrillers like The Grudge and The Return, but I loved her comic performance in Richard Kelly's Southland Tales. That performance, along with some of her funnier bits from Buffy, have me convinced that Gellar would make a great comedic lead.

Charles Randolph (The Interpreter) wrote the pilot script and TV vet Alan Taylor (Mad Men, Big Love) is directing. Gellar is executive producing the project, which will be shot early next year.

The erstwhile Buffy the Vampire Slayer star is eying a return to the small screen with a half-hour dramedy pilot at HBO, entitled Wonderful Maladys.

According to Variety, the New York-set show will revolve around three adult siblings who lost their parents at a very early age.

Screenwriter Charles Randolph, who wrote the script with Gellar in mind, describes her character as having "a kind of zealous immaturity -- like a drug addict with a to-do list." Sounds just peachy.

The project, which is aiming to shoot its pilot early next year, marks Gellar's first regular TV gig since Buffy ended in 2003 -- though she's appeared on episodes of The Simpsons and Robot Chicken since. Think she'll slay it? Sound off below.

Remember when rock 'n roll was to blame for teenagers being out of control? What about when John Lennon's quote about The Beatles being as big as Jesus drew the ire of the church and resulted in deejays advocating the destruction of LPs and singles?

Well, here's another missive from an "authority figure" about how pop culture is ruining today's youth. Sociologist Kristin Aune claims that Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is responsible for young women not attending church.

Dr. Aune, who's written Women and Religion in the West, and is a teacher at the University of Derby (that's in the U.K.), doesn't know if Buffy has also affected young men. Her research doesn't address if boys are abandoning the church, too, so I guess they're safe.

This is no joke, although it does sound like a good way to promote a book that would otherwise be ignored. Mentioning Buffy is a good way to let the world know that Dr. Aune wrote it.

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of classic TV shows.

(S04E10) Well, it was a close call, with the top three candidates separated by two votes or less. So while I almost got to experience the Buffy musical experience with "Once More With Feeling," or the fifth season episode "The Body," it was instead the silent episode "Hush" that came out on top. Now, understand that this is by no means an intention to say that the entire series can be fully appreciated by one episode. In fact, I have every intention of watching the whole thing. Maybe I'll even give you guys season-by-season updates as I go along.

What I did learn from this is even several years after it's end, Buffy and Angel fans are as passionate today as they are about their favorite shows when they were on the air. And it makes me even more depressed at the poor treatment Whedon's other television masterpiece Firefly got at the hands of FOX. Maybe if it had been on UPN or The WB, it would have had a chance to develop as Whedon envisioned. But to the matter at hand. How does someone who's never seen a single episode of Buffy or Angel take an experience like "Hush?"

Our pals over at AOL have a fun new list up featuring their picks for the Top 25 ad icons of all time. As with any list, you can debate the results. I'll not spoil the list for you, but my pick was bumped all the way down to number nine. I bring it up here for two reasons. First, it's a fun trip down memory lane watching all of the old commercials. Seeing a young David Naughton singing and dancing about Dr. Pepper, or David Leisure pitching for Isuzu, is certainly a better use of your time than anything your boss had planned for today.

More importantly, given that this is Buffy week, a familiar face pops up on the list -- it's the one and only Anthony Stewart Head. If you're not of the Hanna Montana generation, you probably recall the series of spots for Nescafe from years gone by. They featured an ongoing story about a couple, Head and Sharon Maughan, tracing their relationship. It had all the classic bits. There was another woman, jobs getting in the way of their courtship, and even a Three's Company-style misunderstanding that gave him all the wrong ideas. In the end ... well, you can watch it all unfold, after the jump.

Okay, I'm a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, but not a normal one. I've read all the comic books for both properties and seen the original movie that launched the phenomenon about three times over the years. And yet, for some reason I've never seen a full episode of either show.

When Buffy first came out, I lived in a city that didn't have The WB. And by the time it was available to me I was already several years behind, and I hate coming into the middle of something. Then, for whatever reason, it has remained on my "to do" list over the years.

So where does that leave me for the Retro Squad Buffy/Angel week? I want to participate, but in a way I'm a newbie to the show. So how about you guys tell me a good episode to immerse myself into the world of the Buffy-verse? In fact, maybe one from each show? I'm hearing from the Squad that 'Hush' is a good candidate.

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of classic TV shows.

Allow me to get in touch with my feminine side just for the sake of this article. Having my girlfriend as a sounding board also helped.

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the airwaves in 1997 as a television adaptation of an unremarkable movie, no one ever expected the show to be a success let alone establish itself as a part of modern philosophy.

It looks like academia is going to study the Slayer. A three-day academic conference has been at Henderson State University in Little Rock, Arkansas to study the works of Joss Whedon, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The conference is to focus more on the philosophical themes of the series. Several books have been published on this particular subject matter (one of which sits on my own bookshelves).

"It has staying power," said Kevin Durand, an associate professor of philosophy at the school. "It's like I tell my students in philosophy a lot of times: We're not so much about necessarily finding all the answers as wanting to ask better questions. 'Buffy,' I think, does that. 'Buffy' never really leaves you with nice, pat answers. You have even more questions than when you started."

My only question is: where were the Buffy philosophy classes when I went to college? Oh yeah, Buffy wasn't around yet.

From March 14th to March 27th, The Paley Center for Media is presenting the twentieth-fifth annual William S. Paley Television Festival. The Paley Center, formerly the Museum of Television and Radio, says that the festival celebrates "television's rich and diverse programming and the creative process behind the medium." This year the festival includes Chuck, Friday Night Lights, Pushing Daisies, and Gossip Girl among others.

Last night, I attended the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reunion. For what happened during the panel discussion and some pictures, read on past the jump...

As Brad mentioned last night, a few new projects were mentioned during the Sci Fi Channel's upfront presentation. The one I'm most excited about (though at the same time frightened by) is the Battlestar Galactica spin-off, Caprica, which will have a two-hour "back-door pilot" shown probably later this year.

Another project mentioned which surprised me was Alice, described as a "modern day telling of Alice in Wonderland," much like Tin Man was for The Wizard of Oz. What surprised me about this is how Mark Stern, executive vice president of original programming for Sci Fi, reacted when I actually asked him about this idea last year during my visit to the sets in Vancouver.

Sarah Michelle Gellar says that she doesn't think she could ever do a one hour series again because it is too exhausting. The former Buffy star goes on to say, "A movie is an hour and twenty minutes, and we were filming almost that every week." By almost that she means 45 minutes. It's possible that she may have vowed to never take another math class at some point too.

I don't put a lot of weight behind her proclamation though. Sarah Michelle is having a good run of it with the movies right now. With The Grudge 2 in theaters, three other movies in post-production, and two more in pre-production, her plate is awfully full. And I am really looking forward to Alice. Still, those runs have a way of drying up, and we have seen all manner of movie stars come back to the small screen. A few years from now maybe, if the choice is random drama on random network or Scooby Doo 5, TV might look pretty good.

Related:
Unaired Buffy pilot on YouTube
Mercedes McNab's Playboy shoot - NSFW
Retro Squad reviews Buffy season one

(S01E19) Sanctuary, on a personal level, is where we perform the job of taking care of our soul. -- Christopher Forrest McDowell

The consequences of Faith's actions during the last episode are coming to fruition, and there are a number of people who aren't happy with her. Let's take a look at who wants a piece of the slightly insane slayer.

1. Wolfram & Hart -- Considering the fact that the law firm hired Faith to get rid of Angel, they're a bit miffed at her not fulfilling the contract. So, they hire another assassin to eliminate both Angel and Faith at the same time. Unfortunately, the assassin who was hired to kill the assassin who was hired to kill Angel failed at his task as well.

(S01E08) Cordelia: Batten down the hatches, here comes Hurricane Buffy!

For the last two months (has it been that long already?) I've been pretty much praising the first season episodes of Angel. While still having ties to the Buffyverse, it was working its way to becoming something different and, dare I say it, a bit more sophisticated than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And, the last seven episodes showed growing inner strength and maturity in the characters.

The eighth episode? Well, not so much of that strength and maturity. In fact, it actually seemed that both Angel and Cordelia took a big step backwards in their character development all because Buffy Anne Summers decided to show up in Los Angeles. Thanks loads, Slayer!