On BtVS

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS for short) remains the benchmark for judging television programs. People make jokes about it, critical darling, over-rated. It is still the best tv show ever. What made it great was the introduction of Spike and Dru - the recognition the dramatic tension of a vampire love interest (the sometimes ridiculous David Boreanaz) was insufficient to drive the show and the revelation that the villains were far more interesting than the heroes (the obvious exception being Alyson Hannigan's Willow). Although the show ran for 7 seasons, season 3 is still the high point for me. It is BtVS at its very best: funny, winning, complex, and deeply odd. Mostly because of the villain – the Mayor.

Compare the Mayor to the Governor from The Walking Dead. They gave the Governor the better part of a season and a half to try to add flesh to a 2D caricature. And it didn't work. The attempts to give him depth and a psychological reality failed badly. The Mayor, on the other hand, had a kind of reality to him despite the disadvantage of being blatantly, obviously, and intentionally ridiculous. He was evil because he wanted to be and no other reason. Yet, his fatherly relationship with Faith made him both interesting and hilariously funny. There is probably no other tv show in history in which an out and out villain uses the words, "miniature golf" or dresses down his henchmen for cursing.

Books have been written (and more surprisingly published) about the philosophy of BtVS and the Mayor always features prominently in them. He is Janus. Not literally, Janus is invoked in season 2 to make all the kids become what they have dressed up as for Halloween. The Mayor is benevolent and malign, caring and destructive, thoughtful and thoughtlessly evil. You can think deeply about this kind of duality but I prefer to just enjoy the character, brought lovingly to life by the wildly under-appreciated Harry Groener.

The IMDB has a page of quotes from the Mayor and it's worth having a look at, if you aren't going to watch the whole season again. I'm going to watch the whole season again. I have all the episodes on old VCR tapes but no VCR. I used to have them all on DVD. Probably still do in a box somewhere. I guess I'll download them. Something the Mayor would scold me for.

NOTE: this part was added later.
It's funny watching these episodes now. The first thing I noticed was no cell phones. That's impossible to imagine these days. When Buffy disappears at the end of season 2, there is no Facebook page to keep her friends up to date. There is a classroom with computers in it (great white hulking things) but that class was presumably canceled when Angel killed the teacher. These kids don't carry laptops. No iPads or iPods either. Oz wears a huge Walkman in some of the episodes. They spend all their in-school time in the library. Where the books live, according to Willow. But no digital index, nothing we would identify as technology at all. Giles still uses a rotary dial phone! I'm pretty sure those won't work on the regular phone lines anymore. I am middle aged but this shit makes me feel old. Season 3 was broadcast in 1998! 15 years later and being a teenager is no longer about the simple joys of slaying vampires. These days it's all about the fancy geegaws.