Posts Tagged ‘ Angel ’

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The one-word review thing got tired (mainly because I didn’t want to repeat words over and over again) so instead, I’m going to be trying to do a very quick review of books I picked up this week.

Only no grading, because I could never do that consistently anyway.

Action Comics #878 – Four issues in to the new status quo and I’m still not sold. The only reason I’m still here is because (a) it’s got Lois, and (b) it’s going to loop back around to the other Superman books in a few months.

Batman #687 – You really have to tilt your head and squint to make this fit in with Battle for the Cowl – presumably because it fit in with writer Judd Winick’s scrapped version – but it’s not bad. Dick’s a bit mopey but it sets up the new status quo nicely enough, plus we get a scene where Dick and Alfred learn of Bruce’s death – which should probably have been shown sooner. Not a bad start.

Booster Gold #21 – It feels like this book’s got a kick in the ass after the last lackluster arc. Jurgens delivers the goods with what looks to be the start of a showdown with the time-traveling Black Beetle and some nice interplay between Booster and the new Batman. Wonder what happened to Booster’s ancestor, the second Supernova, though? The back-up – sorry, second feature – with Blue Beetle was fun but disposable. Good to see Paco and Brenda again, but the story felt like something more suited to Gail Simone’s old All-New Atom title as opposed to Beetle. Maybe it’s just me.

Flash: Rebirth #3 – A third slow issue about the fastest man alive. Huh. On the plus side, nice art, a last page reveal that makes the first page make sense, the return of two heroes – even if one of them appears to get wiped out again immediately – and one good line from Barry to Superman almost make the issue good. Honestly, though, if this is a big a deal as everyone makes it out to be, it should be a more interesting read.

Green Lantern Corps #37 – There’s an awful lot going on here: Sodam Yat’s so-obviously-not-final sacrifice, Arisia rallying the Daxamite population against Mongul, riots on Oa and rogue Guardian Scar generally raising hell and causing big, big problems. Tomasi, Gleason and co pack a lot in, but not so much that it’s unreadable. Although, seriously: Arisia, guerilla leader? Come on.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #5 – I’m not sure what’s going on with the art here. The character work is great, but the space battles look rushed. Story-wise, things move on a little bit, Vril Dox plots away and we finally see the real Starro. I kind of liked the big starfish version myself but whatever. It’s a quick read that may be better served in trade format.

Red Robin #1 – I’m on the fence here. On the plus side, I’m not as down on Tim and Dick’s interaction as everyone else seems to be – I didn’t read this as Tim being forced out of the Batfamily by any means. Similarly, I like that he has a clearly defined mission – find Bruce Wayne – that’s sending him globe-trotting across the, er, globe. I also liked the appearance of a certain Bat-foe, and I thought that Yost and Bachs make a pretty good creative team. On the minus side, I am a little worried that Tim – one of the most optimistic DC characters at one point – is now going all dark and moody, and that one of the character’s great assets in the past was his non-super supporting cast which are now all gone. Also, this paragraph is way too long.

Amazing Spider-Man #597 – I think for such a ‘big’ storyline, team Spidey could have assigned one penciller. Chechetto’s work here is actually very good, so good that I don’t think we needed Phil Jimenez on part one of the arc. Kelly’s story is tight and sharp, and full of nice moments as Spidey tries – and fails – to masquerade as bad-ass Venom in amongst the Dark Avengers. Good stuff. And two pages teasing the return of a classic villain in #600 made me realize just how much I’ve missed him. Good issue.

Deadpool #11 – Crazily good fun. I haven’t always been a fan of Daniel Way’s work, but this is just great – and Paco Medina’s art here is perfect for the madcap main character. Bullseye and Deadpool go at it, and neither really want it to end – and neither do I.

Fantastic Four #567 – The only reasons I’m still buying this right now are because I’ll be damned if I let this crappy run kick me off the book, the run’s almost over, and more importantly I hold out the teeniest, tiniest hope that it’s going to end with Doom coming back and kicking seven shades of shit out of his so-called Master. Also, I’m assuming that the guy’s permanently-shadowed apprentice is an alternate Reed Richards. Or Wolverine, because that’s just how Millar rolls.

Lockjaw And The Pet Avengers #2 – Severely, severely awesome. Pick this up.

Uncanny X-Men #511 – What a clusterfuck. Land’s art has people posing all over the place in confused fight scenes and Fraction’s script seems to assume that you just don’t care if a story makes sense. This whole Red Queen thing feels like it was just to get Psylocke back, and it’s been tortuous getting there. The book needs new blood, stat.

War Of Kings Savage World Of Skaar – Gorgon and Starbolt play Enemy Mine. Or, you know ‘Skaar, when the walls fell’ (bonus points for getting the misquoted reference!). Pointless and predictable, with merely adequate artwork and script, but oddly engaging all the same.

Wolverine #74 – Er, haven’t read it yet as I want to dig up #73 and read both in one sitting. But it sure looks pretty.

X-Men Forever #1 – I…okay, I can’t honestly say that this was a good book, but I can say I enjoyed it for what it was – a nice, nostalgic look at what might have been, complete with modern take on the corner box. Grummet’s artwork is as solid as ever (except for the oddly static cover) and there’s a sense that things will be different this time out – I fully expect the death of an established X-Man to prove a point in the first few issues. But ‘Remy Picard’? Seriously? I’d guess this is a fake name as LeBeau hadn’t been revealed as Gambit’s name at the time X-Men #3 shipped, and Jean Luc LeBeau hadn’t been…Jean Luc…Picard…oh. I’ll get my coat.

Angel: Blood & Trenches #4 – This has been an enjoyable throwaway series with gorgeous pencils by John Byrne. And I mean gorgeous. Unfortunately, the last issue here is a little rushed, and the final two page denouement feels completely unnecessary – honestly, there are some things that just feel a little bit off, and having Angel save Hitler is one of them. Otherwise, a decent read.

Some might say it’s a stupid (perhaps monumentally so) idea but would a Buffy remake without the input of Joss Whedon really be so bad?

I mean, what could possibly go wrong? THR says:

Vertigo and Kuzui are looking to restart the story line without trampling on the beloved existing universe created by Whedon, putting the parties in a similar situation faced by Paramount, J.J. Abrams and his crew when relaunching “Star Trek.”

Well then the answer then is simple: time travel, gentle reader, time travel.

At some point in the future, a member of the Buffy cast – not one who’s working, recognised, or expensive – so, let’s say the obvious one is Tom Lenk (sorry, Tom, it’s not that I’m saying you’re not any of those three things, it’s just that I haven’t seen you on TV since you played coffee guy #2 in some show that I was flicking past).

So we have Andrew, travelling back through a rift in space-time to contact…well, he won’t be contacting Giles, as he wasn’t the first watcher assigned to Buffy; instead he’ll be warning Merrick, played by Donald Sutherland in the original movie. This time though he’ll be played by Kiefer Sutherland!

Because this Watcher doesn’t just! watch! dammit! he! DOES!

Andrew’s mission is to make sure that the evil Nobody Guy (a brand new villain with little or no backstory introduced just for this movie) doesn’t destroy the world by killing Buffy before she has a chance to go to Sunnydale, where she’ll end up saving the world several times over. He intends to do this by killing Buffy when she’s six years old before she develops her powers.

Of course, Merrick doesn’t believe Andrew and tortures him at first – eventually, though they’ll team up to foil Nobody Guy’s attack on Buffy. Andrew will die heroically, causing Nobody Guy to go and lick his wounds for – let’s say ten years. Or maybe Andrew won’t die, he’ll go to England to work with the Watchers Council. That would work and we could use him in future movies if we needed to!

Unfortunately Buffy’s parents die in the attack leaving her alone, bitter and disillusioned – and even though Merrick takes her under his wing, she rails against her destiny. We can do a quick montage of Merrick training the young Buffy – kind of like Leon (or as you Americans know it, The Professional).

Then we’ll skip forward ten years so that we can get an actress playing Buffy that we can put into skimpy clothes that rip a lot. Merrick’s moved her to Sunnydale early so that she can be in place for the future, and Nobody Guy returns to kill her again – only this time, he’s going to do it by opening the Hellmouth, and he offs the Master to do this. That way we can really show that this isn’t the original timeline.

And let’s say that Nobody Guy is going to open the Hellmouth using something that Andrew brought back with him so there’s a kind of irony there. Maybe some kind of crazy axe? Or a red ball of hell stuff?

Anyway, because she’s in Sunnydale we can have lots of winks to fans of the show with little in jokes – maybe Merrick ends up as the reluctantly gruff librarian at the school; there’s a nerdy girl and guy that Buffy ignores because she’s so angry; we can have a dark haired bitchy girl be killed by Nobody Guy in his first attack, that kind of thing.

We can throw in some teen angst too, with one of those Gossip Girl pretty boys as a love interest if the demos need it. Kids love that kind of unnecessary love plot, I hear.

In the final battle – and that needs to be in a high school gym, obviously – Buffy not only destroys Nobody Guy, but she manages to close the Hellmouth once and for all, so all of the future stuff that we saw in the show never happens. And we see this, like, homeless vampire pining over her in the final fight, but she dusts him without even knowing that it was Angel. That’s kinda poignant, right?

And then it’s like a completely new timeline from here on out. Just in case that wasn’t obvious. No doomed love or anything like that. And maybe next time round we can bring in Spike and Dru – only making Spike, like, a Bon Jovi wannabe instead of all English and stuff.

But the movie ends with Buffy and Merrick going on the road, fighting demons all the way to the next Hellmouth. Say, in New York. Or Cleveland.

Awesome.

I’m in. Seriously, who needs Whedon?

Today only in Amazon’s goldbox,the complete series of Angel is just $57 for all five seasons!

Consider this a PSA.

Andy Hallett – best known as Angel‘s Lorne – has died aged 33 from heart failure.

I don’t know what surprises me more – that someone so talented was younger than me, or that someone so young should succumb to heart failure.

Either way, RIP, Lorne.

…so…it’s, er, not very good is it?

Look, I’m a fan of Whedon’s stuff. I love Buffy. I love Angel. I love Firefly and Serenity (even though on my first attempt to watch the pilot I bailed after ten minutes) and Dr Horrible.

But Dollhouse…

I saw Whedon talking about the show at NYCC. He seemed to know that the show was going to be controversial, that it was going to get people talking. He seemed to know that he was going to be facing an uphill battle.

And you know what, the show is controversial. The Dollhouse itself is basically renting out sex slaves and wiping their memories – and let’s face it for a creator who talks a lot about women’s rights and the mistreatment of women (even though he’s also managed to piss off some feminists), it’s a tough stance to make.

But that’s not the problem with the show. The problem is that it doesn’t engage. It’s difficult to root for a character that’s virtually non-existent. Dushku’s Echo is clearly beginning to remember some of her past, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that she as a character doesn’t have much going for her. Sure, she looks good in a tank top but so what?

Of the rest of the cast, only two are actually close to being likeable – Harry Lennix’s conflicted handler and Tahmoh Penikett’s FBI agent. The problem with these two is that Lennix’s Boyd Langton is so obviously conflicted that you wonder why he signed up in the first place (although I suspect he’s a Doll himself), and that Penikett’s Paul Ballard is on the periphery of the show. I understand that’s going to change but right now, it’s distracting.

The show’s ratings didn’t start well then dropped off for the second episode; Whedon has said that Dollhouse is probably the last TV show he’ll work on and that in the future he’ll concentrate on online work (and I suspect movies).

Honestly, that may be for the best – because Dr Horrible is a hell of a lot more enjoyable than Dollhouse.

I’m going to keep watching, though. Partly because I’m a glutton for punishment and partly because I want to see Alpha Doll in action…

You know, Alpha. He’s like a leaf on the wind, you know.

Today only, Amazon is offering the complete Angel seasons 1-5 for $50.99.

I’m almost tempted to get it just so I can watch it in the US (having a region 2 version causes computer hook-up issues to watch it on the TV over here)…

In other news, still stupidly busy. Back to regular service next week, I hope!

Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse has shut down production for a few weeks. According to Zap2It, the hiatus is to help Whedon get ahead on scripts:

…because Joss directed two of the three episodes already shot, he has not had sufficient time to be in the writers room and tailor the upcoming scripts to his liking. A rep from 20th Century Fox — the studio behind Dollhouse — said Joss came to them asking for a couple weeks to regroup and they were happy to give it to him…

And…

Said the rep, “We have every confidence that will allow Joss to make the show the best it can possibly be. It’s very rare that you have a head writer who is also directing two episodes in a row. But we are happy that Joss is directing, because this is his vision.”

Sounds good right?

However, according to TV Week, there may be more to it.

However, some executives at the Fox network are worried that Mr. Whedon may not have his “Dollhouse” in order.

A person familiar with the thinking of some Fox executives told TelevisionWeek that there have been concerns raised inside the network about the fundamental underpinnings of the show.

Specifically, because the heroine of the show, played by Eliza Dushku, has no free will or ability to do much beyond what she’s told to do, viewers might find it hard to root for her. In addition, some executives have expressed concerns that early episodes of the series have been confusing and hard to follow.

The report goes on to say that Fox has denied that there are worries over the show.

But then, Fox are the same network that screwed over Firefly years ago by showing the episodes out of order, starting with the weakest of the series and ending with the pilot that explained who everyone was.

And this is the same Fox that gave the promising-if-not-amazing Drive three episodes before announcing cancellation.

And this is the same Fox that continues to churn out enjoyable-but-unchallenging fluff like 24 and Prison Break. I like both shows, but neither of them suffers from an over-abundance of complexity.

So…I’m cautiously worried.

Then again, I’m surprised that Fox showed something like Fringe, which appears to be heading towards Lost-like complexity, given the ARG over at Massive Dynamic (I’ll be damned if its not related to the Hanso Foundation), so what do I know?

The translation of television to comic doesn’t always work too well. Whether it’s a combination of character likenesses, licensing approvals or whatever else, the comics rarely feel like the TV shows.

Alex Garner’s really rather awesome cover to Angel: After The Fall #13…

Via Whedonesque and Alex Garner’s DeviantArt page

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been overly impressed with some of the art and a couple of the plot twists in the current Angel book – it just feels like maybe a step too far, with LA overrun by demons of all sizes, Lorne running one part of LA, Angel being human, Spike and Illyria running another part of LA and Connor teaming with Gwen and Nina in yet another part of LA…the approach feels a little too kitchen-sink-ish to me at times.

That said, there are elements that I enjoy – I’m a fan of the idea that Gunn being changed to a vampire hasn’t quite changed him fully thanks to the whole LA-in-Hell situation. It’s along the same lines of Spike never quite shaking the romantic nature of his human side, since the vampire who turned him – Drusilla – was a little bit crazy. I like the idea that it doesn’t always ‘take’ very well. Sure, Gunn and Spike are still murderous after being turned, but they’re still themselves to a large extent – whereas Angel went straight from Liam to class-A bastard.

I’m also enjoying the return of Fred’s personality within Illyria as she grieves for Wesley being one of them. I was always a fan of Amy Acker’s character(s) on the show, and this cover is just really, really good.

Joss Whedon has confirmed that another familiar face will be joing the cast of Dollhouse – Amy Acker.
Acker previoulsy played Fred and, later, Illyria on Angel. She’s also starred in Supernatural and Alias since Angel ended, where she didn’t look like this:
One more reason to watch…

Click to embiggen.

You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?

ALIENS OMNIBUS VOL 2 - Not picking it up this week, but no doubt I’ll get it at some point. I enjoyed the Predator one, I’m working through Aliens vs Predator, and I like the format generally.

STAR WARS DARK TIMES #7 – Following the dark turn #5 took (y’know, eating things that can ask not to be eaten – not cool, unless its Jar Jar), this has become the unexpected best read of the Star Wars books.

BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #3 – Enjoyed the first two issues. More Batman and less Winick has given the book a shot in the arm, even if its not been a smooth transition. This time out, Batgirl! Be interesting to see how Dixon handles the Batman-Batgirl relationship given the damage to her character post OYL.

BIRDS OF PREY #113 – Is Sean McKeever here yet?

CATWOMAN #74 – Maybe, maybe not. I dropped this a year ago but if its tying in to the really-rather-fun Salvation Run, I may give it another shot.

COUNTDOWN ARENA #3 (OF 4) – Against all odds, I’m really enjoying this.

COUNTDOWN RAY PALMER SUPERWOMAN BATWOMAN #1 – Last of the

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 19 – I like it, most seem not to. And yet it still sells upwards of 70k.

DETECTIVE COMICS #839 – Maybe the Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul will read better in one sitting. Maybe.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #16 – Tangent! Always liked the Tangent U, so its good to see it back in some form or other. I’d take their GL and Flash crossing over to the DCU; they’re good characters.

SUPERMAN #671 – Insect Queen! Bet its not Lana this time round…

PROOF #3 – It’s like the X-Files. If Mulder was a bigfoot.

INCREDIBLE HERCULES#112 – The mighty one takes over – and takes on SHIELD with a barrelful of merlot. If that’s not a bucketload of awesome I don’t know what is. Maybe if Amadaeus Cho was a talking monkey.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #6 – I’ll believe it when I see it. No offense.

NEW X-MEN #45 – After a couple of good installments, last week’s Messiah Complex tie-in treaded water. Hope this one steps up a bit.

WORLD WAR HULK WARBOUND #1 (OF 5) – Possibly. I like most of the Warbound so this is tempting – but I may wait to get them on ebay or something.

ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #2 – Angel’s stuck in Wolfram & Hart’s offcies after making a bargain with the devil, LA’s gone to hell, Illyria’s absent, Wes is still dead and Gunn’s a vampire. And Spike? Spike’s hanging with a bunch of demon hos. I know who got the better end of that deal.

The title got your attention, eh?

Whedon and cohort Tim Minear have signed to new show Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku.

Bad news is that it’s on Fox and there’s a seven episode commitment. But its better than nothing.

Sounds like the show will be an actioner with a sci-fi bent, with Dushku playing Echo (Joss, that’s Marvel on the phone…), an agent sent on missions where she’s imprinted with personalities and abilities which are wiped – along with her memory – when she returns to base. Naturally enough, Echo starts to become aware.

This sounds good – very good – and my only worry is that it’s on Fox.

Because that worked out so well for Firefly, Drive and New Amsterdam. But it’s better than nothing!

Read TV Week’s article here and EOnline’s interview with both here. And I totally stole the image at the top from EOnline. Just so you know.

Dynamite Entertainment have acquired the Terminator 2 license according to reports yesterday – off-topic, that makes me wonder if Dark Horse still have the Terminator license, and if anyone at all would want to license Terminator 3…

Anyway, incoming writer Simon Furman was appropriately enthusiastic and hinted at a crossover later this year with another of licensed property, not-very-cryptically saying:

“We’re speaking excitedly about the potential cross-over option that should
happen in later 2007, but there is much more to the story than meets the eye.”

So it’s Transformers, then? Hardly a surprise, given Furman’s pedigree on that book and the fact that there’s a movie out this year…

But that started me thinking about licensed properties that could crossover…

Buffy – Angel – This is a no-brainer, as long as IDW and Dark Horse could pull it together. It won’t involve as much manouevreing as the TV shows requred in their later seasons, and it would sell like gangbusters, especially if you got that Whedon fella involved.

Conan – Red Sonja – Again, a no-brainer. Sonja is a literary off-spring of Conan anyway, and they have quite the history and the same shared world, so can’t we all just get along?

Painkiller Jane – Darkman – It’d be the woman with no pain against the man with no face. Think of the bandages!

Army of Darkness – Red Sonja – Ash has a tendency to end up travelling dimensions and worlds, so why not dump in Hyboria for a spell? Those pesky Deadites would make an obvious ally for Kulan Gath, and wouldn’t we all love to see Sonja’s reaction to Ash hitting on her?

Highlander-Red Sonja - Throw Connor into the middle of the Hyborian Age with the Kurgan in tow and watch Sonja try to decipher his accent. Much swordplay ensues!

Buffy-Army of Darkness - I could see Ash falling under the spell of the Buffster, totally not getting that Willow’s gay, irritating Giles with his knowledge of an obscure ancient text and bonding with Xander. Awesome.

Spike-Army of Darkness – Spike vs Ash. Do I have to explain how great the sarcasm-fest that followed would be?

Buffy-Red Sonja – Well the First was a desert-based Slayer, right? Why not have her be an ally (or perhaps an enemy) of Sonja, and then throw Buffy in the mix? Two strong women fighting in loincloth bikini armor…I think this sells itself, right?

Highlander-Lone Ranger – By my reckoning, Connor – and Duncan for that matter – was around in the 1880s…so why not have him and the Lone Ranger cross paths on the trail of another Immortal? How would the Ranger deal with someone you can’t shoot or hang?

Spike/Angel – Lone Ranger – Angel, newly ensouled, hits the American west with an oblivious Spike in tow – who then runs afoul of a certain masked vigilante…

I tell you, the possibilities here are endless…

How did I miss this in my earlier recap of Wizard World LA?!?

According to a report from the IDW panel, Joss Whedon will be co-writing an Angel mini set after the series finale, making it canon. This announcement comes, of course, less than a week after the release of Buffy Season 8 #1 by Dark Horse, which seems to have broken the 100K barrier, making it the biggest non-Marvel, non-DC, non-25 cents issue in…well, a long time.

IDW has had some success with the Angel property – its first series, The Curse, had a post-season 5 Angel searching for a cure to his curse so he could make sweet, sweet love to Nina (his new hot werewolf girlfriend from the show), while the next series, Old Friends reunited him with Spike, Illyria and Gunn – complete with eyepatch – suggesting that they all survived the series-ending big fight.

Since then, however, most of the series or one-shots have been set firmly before the end of the series, so how much of these developments will be maintained for the new Whedon-penned series remains to be seen. Many of these have centred not around Angel but Spike, including the upcoming Spike: Smile Time which sees the return of the puppet-monsters from the show.

I’m sure more details will be released soon…

The saga continues – now it looks like Rob Thomas is shooting a Veronica Mars featurette that has Veronica as a fully-fledged FBI agent, not as a cadet – and it’s one of three possible options if the series gets picked up (presumably one of the others is to move on to the next year of college; I wonder what the third is?)

An interesting direction for the series if it gets renewed on this basis. At this stage, only Kristen Bell is in the promo – but of all the rest of the cast, I think only Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars) is the only other cast member that I think definitely needs to be bac (although Tina Majorino;s Mac would be a good candidate for the FBI’s tech squad).

Logan (Jason Dohring) has been at a loose end for much of this season, Weevil (Francis Capra – grandson of Frank!) and Wallace (Percy Daggs III) have been largely absent, and new guys Piz (Chris Lowell) and Parker (Julie Gonzalo) haven’t made much of an impression – and Lowell has signed on for the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off anyway.

Of course, having Dick Casablancas (Ryan Hansen) somehow blunder into the FBI and harrass the female agents could be the workings of comedy genius…

The only other time I recall seeing someone put together a promo for the networks for the show is for Angel - where Joss Whedon created a short film to convince the network that the show was viable:

Of course, I’m sure this happens all the time – I know that Buffy also had a mini-pilot where Willow and Prinicipal Flutie were played by Riff Regan and the great Stephen Tobolowsky respectively; it’s on You Tube in a couple of parts and runs for about 30 minutes.

I guess the point is that the internet today offers much more insight into how these things work – and if Veronica Mars doesn’t get picked up for a fourth season, I guess at least this promo will appear somewhere (be it on DVD or You Tube) to show us how things might have been.

Keep your fingers crossed folks, it ain’t over yet.

Ten years ago yesterday (Sunday), a little show premiered on a fledgling network.

Nobody expected much from a show loosely based on a five-year old movie which had been pretty unsuccesful, but it defied the odds and became a cult favorite, lasting seven seasons (well, six and a half), spawning one spin-off, and countless comics, novels and merchandising.

Yes, yesterday Buffy the Vampire Slayer turned 10!!

And if that doesn’t make you feel old, nothing will…luckily something that didn’t make the pull list post below also hits this week – Buffy Season 8 #1, by some guy called Joss Whedon, wherein Buffy has decoys, the Scoobies have been labelled as terrorists and Xander seems to be becoming Nick Fury – not bad for a high school loser with adequate carpentry skills. But then, he always was the heart of the Buffy family.

It’s hard to believe that Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Darla and Angel came onto the screens 10 years ago- or that Spike, Dru, Anya, Riley (well I kinda liked the big doof), Tara, Dawn and so many others followed not long after. The chances of a movie or TV-movie spin-offs may be well and truly dead and buried, but Buffy at least will live on in the pop-culture mentality for some time to come…