The CULT TV Book Interview/Giveaway
The Huffington Post has called Soft Skull Press “The literary version of a punk rock label.” Neatoramanauts have a different expression for that: “a big bowl of awesome!” The good folks over at Soft Skull have been kind enough to give us a few copies of one of their latest, most awesome books, The Cult TV Book, edited by Stacey Abbott.
Somewhat long. Here they talk about Buffy:
Did we talk a lot about Buffy. I did try and keep it balanced. But it is a key show particularly in many of the ways we have talked about above. It attracted people who would not necessarily call themselves cult TV fans and they began to engage with the show on a cult level. But to answer your question, I would say that it marked a key shift away from the episodic quality of much of TV toward asking your audience to engage with much broader and developing seasonal arcs. The characters on this series grew up, they evolved and the show grew up and evolved with them. The show has memory and it encourages the audience to share that memory not just move on from episode to episode and forget what came before. As much as I love The X-Files, one of the frustrations of the later seasons is that Scully still plays the skeptic despite everything she has been witness to. It is unbelievable that she would still be so resistant to the supernatural. On Buffy the characters reflect back on the audience and their actions often show how they have evolved as people. This is one way I think that Buffy has influenced TV. Now we see this type of memory in all types of shows.