Buffy the Vampire Slayer
In a world where all vampires can do is look angsty and make teenage girls’ hearts melt, it’s almost quaint to look back at a vampire show that’s heavy on action (every vampire knows karate!) and even heavier on sass.
Buffy gave us a whole world of beasties and, um, beastie fighters over its seven seasons and you can catch up on all of them on Netflix and Hulu Plus (which are both now $7.99 for all you can stream). It also inspired a spin-off and launched Joss Whedon to his current nerd-genius status.
I missed the boat on Buffy the first time around, and I have to admit I haven’t quite caught up on all 144 episodes, but I have a few questions… Can someone be a werewolf and a vampire at the same time? How about a witch and a vampire? Why is there so much hand-to-hand combat involved in slaying vampires? And isn’t Angel just dreamy?
Uh… never mind that last one.
Of course, as with most TV shows that are almost old enough to drive, watching Buffy is like a constant parade of Before They Were Stars. It should be a drinking game… if you spot an actor you recognize in a bit part, you have to take a shot. (Don’t actually do that, I don’t want to get sued.)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 1 on Netflix
Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu Plus
And a special bonus: the original movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie on Netflix
Firefly
Star Trek has the reputation for being a short-lived sci-fi series, but it’s got nothing on Firefly. Fox bought the show, ran the episodes out of order, and killed it after only 14 were filmed. Nonetheless, Joss Whedon’s dystopian space western launched a cult following that, while not quite of Star Trekian proportions, was large enough to result in the film Serenity, which closed out many of the show’s story lines. (Fans of Firefly are called Browncoats, BTW, which you will understand shortly into the series.)
If this is your cup of tea at all, you might as well run out and get the DVDs (actually, if you knew about it and didn’t hate it, you probably already own the DVDs), but in case you’re not sure, the complete series is available on Netflix and Hulu Plus (and Serenity is available on Netflix, as well).
A stand-out character in the series is Adam Baldwin’s Jayne. If you like Baldwin in NBC’s Chuck (which had its fourth-season premiere last night), you’ll definitely dig him in Firefly and Serenity. Plus it features Nathan Fillion displaying all the charm he shows in Castle and Dr. Horrible (and that he didn’t not in the short-lived Drive).
I’m purposefully leaving out the details of the show, because I think it’s better to go in open to discovering what it has to offer. But in a television landscape that is increasingly full of remakes or retellings of the same old stories—or worse, reality show tripe—shows like Firefly are rare. If it had only been successful, maybe we could have a slew of space western clones instead of spinoffs of The Girls Next Door.
Firefly: The Complete Series on Netflix
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Way back in 2008 Hollywood had a little problem: the writers and studios couldn’t come to a collective bargaining agreement, causing a work stoppage. Some writers kept on creating, just outside of the studio system. Geek hero Josh Whedon worked around the strike to produce an extremely successful web series called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. If you weren’t paying attention at the time, you may have missed it entirely, though, as it was only posted online for a short time.
Fortunately for the rest of us, we can still see Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and crew on DVD and Netflix streaming. Don’t let the fact that it’s a musical stop you from checking it out, or I’ll be forced to track you down and shoot you with my freeze-ray.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on Netflix
