“Name a television show that changed you.” That sort of question gets asked all the time in social media, mainly by folks who want to generate some discussion. I generally ignore those questions. I thought I’d ignored that one too, when it came up a few days ago. But apparently I didn’t, because I’ve been thinking about it at odd moments when my brain isn’t occupied with other bullshit.

And hey, after a few days of episodic thought, I came up with two shows that…wait. You know, the whole notion of a television show actually changing somebody seems ridiculous. On the other hand the notion of a book changing somebody seems (to me, at any rate) perfectly reasonable. But I don’t know…I mean, they’re both narrative forms and only an idiot would deny the power of a narrative. So, okay, there’s no reason a television show/series can’t have a powerful effect on somebody. Whatever point I was going to make at the beginning of this paragraph is clearly bullshit. So never mind. Let me try that again.

After a few days of episodic thought, I came up with two shows that have had a profound effect on me. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars. The former is about a high school girl who becomes the Chosen One whose purpose in the world is to kill vampires and demons and general ‘forces of darkness,’ which (as Buffy says) is a job of work for a high school kid. The latter is about a high school girl who becomes a private detective, solving crimes and helping innocent (and semi-innocent) people.

Yeah, I know, the premise of each of those shows is absurd. Also yeah, I know, some of you may be saying to yourself, “A guy who watches girl hero television shows? What’s with that?” My response to that is a) hey, they’re really good shows and b) grow the fuck up.

Here’s the thing. Yeah, Buffy and Veronica are high school girls (at the beginning of each series) who are tough and snarky, who defend ordinary folks against bad folks, and who have to deal with gender and high school issues while also dealing with much larger problems. But what makes them singularly influential (to me, at least) is that they’ve both been through a world of shit and they’ve adapted to that by no longer caring very much what other folks think about them. They’re aware of peer pressure, and it still carries much of the gravitational pull that influences most of their peers. But they’ve each found the strength to shrug off that gravity and deal with the world they live in on their own terms.

But that comes with a cost. They each suffer the isolation and alienation that comes with being different. They each learn to assemble a cohort that serves as a sort of family or support group. And then they’ve each learned that in some/many ways, they’re also isolated and alienated from that cohort. And as painful as that is, they continue to cope and occasionally to actually thrive.

Another thing about those shows: they each include a father figure who is realistically complex. Buffy has Giles, her Watcher; Veronica has…well, her dad. They try to help; they try to protect; they try to NOT interfere too much, and they routinely fuck up. Realistically fuck up. Because they’re conflicted; society suggests they should behave in a specific male parent way that generally interferes with the agency of their children BUT they also want to encourage their children to be their true selves. Anthony Head and Enrico Colantoni manage to bungle their parental responsibilities without completely destroying the trust of their kids. Their relationships are often painful, but always sort of beautiful.

So yeah, those two television shows were massively influential to me. The fact that Buffy and Veronica struggle against vampires or criminal sociopaths is sort of irrelevant. What matters is they mostly hold onto their personal integrity in a world that seems almost designed to destroy it. What matters is Buffy and Veronica build a mostly workable relationship with their own selves. If that makes sense.

Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars offered lessons in how to hold onto your true self when the world around you tried relentlessly to disrupt that. They gave good television.

THE USUAL EDITORIAL COMMENT: Yeah, the patriarchy. Got to incinerate it. Stake it to the ground, douse it with an accelerant, light it up. Burn it to ashes, bury the ashes, piss on the the burial site, then salt the earth above it so that nothing will ever grow there again. Then have a glass of wine. I recommend a Gewürztraminer.