Today I watched the last ever episode of Buffy. I was a bit of a latecomer to the show, having twice tried to start watching it then losing track. Eighteen months ago, I finally gave in to the peer pressure and took the plunge, buying up the DVDs and watching through the entire first season (most of which I'd seen before) just before Christmas 2001. On new year's eve, I started watching season 2, and in the next 13 days I watched 4 entire seasons of Buffy and 2 of Angel - I was hooked. Thankfully, the latest season were then showing on pay-TV, so I could continue watching (although there was the whole digital-TV-company-going-bust thing, but the Boss came through with copies of the last few episodes.
Last autumn, the advent of DSL allowed me to keep up to date with downloads of the latest episodes from the states - there was no way I was going to wait 4 months for them to reach UK TV, even if I did have to put up with the strange scheduling. As noted yesterday, things almost got tripped at the final hurdle, but some quick rejigging of my network and BitTorrent came through with the goods. The swansong itself? It was Grand, and indeed a Finalé. It didn't pack the powerful emotional punch of Sleeping in Light (the final ep. Babylon 5), but was very good in it's own, typically Buffy, fashion - comedy and drama, action and romance...
Thanks, Joss & co., for 232 almost uniformly high quality episodes in the Buffyverse, and hopefully a good few more to come, albeit not in the original show. I'm reminded of an anecdote I read about Joss Whedon (the guy behind the show) appearing at a convention - the fans do the whole "We are not worthy" thing, and he deadpans his reply: "No, you're not."
