(Just saw this week's episode on tape delay.) Over the past 2 or 3 seasons Buffy has got to have been the best speculative fiction show on TV, and probably one of the best shows period. Smart writing; great casting/acting/chemistry; lotsa action; much making with the funny, and other emotions too. The increasing budget (and therefore increasing verisimilitude in the bad nasties) certainly hasn't hurt, but that's been the smallest part of what makes it rock.

They're always doing little things to surprise you that ring true in retrospect. I admit I was expecting the Big Revelation presented at the start of this season (i.e., what was up with Buffy while she was dead), but they still managed to fake me out a little just before they dropped the bomb. I was disappointed that they weren't gonna go for the big payoff, and then they did. :-) And Giles' midnight talk with Willow this week was good stuff (not to mention her response); you just know they're going to develop that worrisome issue as the season progresses.

We don't watch a lot of tube in this house, but we do catch Angel on Mondays, then Buffy on Tuesdays. And then Enterprise on Wednesdays, which is a pretty big comedown after that lead-in, but as accredited geeks we're required to give it a fair trial. The Berman/Braga script autopilot hasn't totally kicked on for this series yet, but you can tell It's flickering to life. We've already had one Time Paradox Plot, for crying out loud. And you think they won't be able to have a Holodeck Plot in this series, but they almost did this week, didn't they? It's only a matter of time.

Actions that have consequences; intriguing plots in a self-consistent and evolving world; characters that behave, change, and grow like people actually would; humor that doesn't make you wince; dialogue that hits the mark... I guess it'll be a while before we ever get that in a new science fiction T.V. series. But until then We'll always have Buffy. And a Vulcan science officer with great boobs.