Hmmm. Farscape, maybe. Or Angel.

I would like to nominate Fringe.

Okay, I *have* seen Fringe, and I'm surprised at that. Their science seems to be totally whatever's-required-this-week, and I don't know how many people agree with each other or the writers on what happened last season--did he switch timelines, did he stay put and change one, what? Mytharc-wise I know they're paying more attention than X Files ever did, but the entire first season is pretty much a wash as far as structure is concerned.

Farscape strikes me as a good one--I don't recall experiencing big holes, or thinking X would happen and Y could not, and then Y is what happened.

Angel suffered from the Buffy problem of "What exactly do demonity and soul-having mean?" I think the vampire stuff was pretty consistent, but when they made the Lorne/Doyle point that being a demon didn't mean anything morally, I remember being confused about what having a soul meant or didn't mean. When you look at Angel or Spike, it seems pretty sensible--demon wants carnage and all the will in the world won't stop it--nothing short of a soul or the sticking plaster of a Pavlovian implant will alter that behaviour.

Is the premise, then, that the Merles of the world were demons with souls, and vampires were demons without? I mostly remember confusion on the point--I couldn't bring up any citations supporting anything.

Hmmm, fair points. I meant more in terms of the feeling of the altverse seeming fully formed and real, rather than coherent, consistent mechanics.

I think Farscape's world-building is, in fact, the most consistent, since it's mostly physical and political, rather than philosophical/theological, like the Buffyverse or SPN.

Is the premise, then, that the Merles of the world were demons with souls, and vampires were demons without?

I think... I think that demons don't have souls, but the demons that make vampires are a specific type of demon, and that's why they're so awful?

I dunno. It never made much sense to me,

I think... I think that demons don't have souls, but the demons that make vampires are a specific type of demon, and that's why they're so awful?

If I had to make an argument, it would be along these lines. Most demons are either good or evil, soul-having or not (which raises the question of why it's ok to kill evil demons when it's obviously not ok to kill evil humans, but...moving on). Because vampires take over human bodies, they have their own special vampire soul issues that other demons don't deal with.

Ok, I withdraw the Buffyverse from contention.

BSG was very consistent, except when it wasn't, but I can pretend those eps don't exist and then everything's fine.

What other sorts of "stuff" was contagious in the Buffyverse--where do werewolves rank on the ensouled scale? Did a person become a demon? Or just a monster?

Yeah, my problems with the Buffyverse are all theological/soul-related. Most of the world-building quibbles I can think of with shows I watch are theological, really (BSG, SPN, TVD has additional problems...). Still haven't watched Farscape, so I can't weigh in on that one. Fringe has really interesting world-building, but they stay consistent (to the extent they do) by changing the reality of the Fringeverse pretty frequently...which I am actually okay with, but can't endorse as sound policy.

Buffy herself seemed to treat werewolves as mostly people and therefore ensouled, I think. The 'verse, I'm not sure.

That Seth Green was able to get training and be able to control himself implies he was souled - no implant or addition of a soul needed. Vampires are explicitly dead people animated by an evil demon.

I think part of the Buffy/Angel-verse problem came when they started writing in-story differences between demons that were supernatural evil guys hybridized with humans (vamps, D'hoffryn, dudes like that) and demons that were just sentient beings from other universes (Lorne, whatzername the princess played by Bai Ling, dudes like that), but never actually said what the difference was. For a while, the main difference seemed to be that Angel and crew treated non-harmful demons like people and Buffy just kinda stabbed anything non-human (unless it was cute), but that broke down towards the end of the series. But then there's Doyle, earth-born hybrid demon, but I'm pretty sure he had a soul.

Hunh. I dunno.