The last Buffy… ever.

Less than a day now remains until the final episode of Buffy is screened.
And I guess I have to admit it. I real­ly admire and appre­ci­ate the show. It has been the only show over the last few years to keep me inter­est­ed in tele­vi­sion in any­thing more than a pass­ing fash­ion.
I realise that I’m actu­al­ly look­ing for­ward to the end. Strange as that may sound. There are some times when, despite the wish­es of the cre­ative peo­ple involved, it is bet­ter for a sto­ry to end. And despite my own vain desire that Buffy would con­tin­ue for­ev­er, I’m a real­ist (some­times), and would much rather a big spec­tac­u­lar end­ing to a fiz­zle.
So yes, vague­ly sad that the show will end, but under­stand­ing that is must, and sev­en years is a very good run for any tele­vi­sion show. To make the event worth it, I’m cel­e­brat­ing with a few friends over din­ner. Should be good.
Does this make me a “fan”. Hmm… I don’t think so.
Well… for one thing I’ve not start­ed a fanzine about Buffy yet… per­haps if they start a range of cut­ting-edge books writ­ten by almost unheard of authors, focused of qual­i­ty sto­ries rather than mer­chan­dise cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion…
I’m defi­ant­ly more than an occa­sion­al watch­er of the show. And prob­a­bly more than a reg­u­lar watch­er too. I find the show cap­ti­vat­ing, even in repeat. I talk with oth­ers that watch the show about the writ­ing, the char­ac­ters, the themes, the metaphors. I’ve even once actu­al­ly writ­ten a piece of fan fic­tion (which was rather crap, so no I’m not going to tell you were it is). I’ve bought non of the mer­chan­dise. I’ve nev­er attend­ed a Buffy fan event. I don’t even know if there is a club (I assume there is, but that’s as far as that thought ever got). So ‘fanat­ic’, no. But a fan at some lev­el, yes.