Now that a new generation knows how great Joss Whedon is from The Avengers, it's time to introduce them to Buffy the Vampire Slayer

You do not want Buffy looking at you this way.

The challenge today is how to spread the word to those who still don't know how great this show is.

The trouble with showing them the two-episode Pilot first is that it's not as artful as the show gets later on, and it's shot in 16mm (grainy) on a shoestring budget. They do amazing things to work around the budget limitations (such as using placement of different colored lighting and key lights to create the sensation of depth to overcome the "flatness" of 16mm film stock), but production values soar later on. And people care about production values, even though few even know what the term means.

The trouble with showing them anything else is that the show is so serialized that showing people anything later necessarily involves spoilers--and having to explain a lot of things that would otherwise fly over their head. You'll have to make a judgment call about what would suit your friend best.

For the art film crowd, "The Body" is the obvious choice. That's also good for someone who isn't a big fantasy/scifi fan, since there's so little of the supernatural in the episode. For an Avengers fan, maybe "Hush," which is a tour de force of screenwriting after all. For a Twilight fan, maybe "Buffy vs. Dracula" would be both appropriate and something of an antidote. For a Glee fan, the Buffy musical episode "Once More with Feeling" is the obvious choice.

I like lots of current shows, especially Orphan Black and--though it may be losing a bit of its mojo--Dr. Who, and even my favorite guilty pleasure, Vampire Diaries. But Buffy had Whedon and Gellar. Whedon has never had a vessel as perfect for him as Sarah Michelle Gellar (though Avengers' Black Widow/Scarlett Johansson is a solid second, deserving of her own backstory film), and Gellar sure hasn't had another writer/director like Whedon--she's done nothin' but clunkers since. The two together in Buffy was and remains a uniquely fruitful collaboration.

show is. A new generation of fans may come in from the success of Whedon's The Avengers. But what episode to show them first?

Why don't I watch Glee any more?

It got preachy. Now it seems to spend most of its time trying to convince the kind of people who'd never watch it that everyone should be judged by the content of their character, not their color/gender orientation/medical condition/weight/home life etc. etc. etc.

The problem is that the kind of people who do watch Glee already agree. So they're preaching to the choir, with anti-stereotypes that have become as stereotypical as the stereotypes they're combatting. The Crippled Guy; The Sensitive Gay Guy; The Girl With Downs Syndrome; The Fat Girl; The Asian Couple; the Black Guy and so forth.

They don't come across as individuals, but rather as representatives of some category of humanity that the writers think have gotten a raw deal.

It's like the 13th Century Everyman plays, with each character named for a trait--Everyman, Lust, Anger, etc. Hiss the villain, cheer the hero. Bo-ring.

Not to mention how much the show's music represents the tastes of 40-something male homosexuals rather than contemporary high school students. Retro much?

Ellen DeGeneres first came out when she had a sitcom, which she proceeded to destroy by using every episode as a soapbox. But she learned her lesson, and her daytime show is hugely popular. She doesn't hide who she is in the slightest; she just doesn't make it the show's prime focus. The Glee team should go to Ellen for advice.

Glee should focus on the music actual high school students today actually like. Its casting should be based on interesting people rather than didactic propaganda objectives.

Maybe they could get Joss Whedon to give them a plot arc for the next season...he was able to take a hackneyed genre--the superhero action movie--and turn it into something actually interesting (i.e. The Avengers). Together, Ellen and Joss could really turn this show around.

Oh, and drop the NY suplot. Either spin it off or forget it. Personally I'm sooo over Lea Michelle's character. Glee isn't Smash. And now Smash simply isn't. Might be a hint.

Lastly, one thing that could really shake things up would be to do a ballad week and bring in (for just one or two episodes) 13 year old singer Jackie Evancho, who has a voice so beautiful--regardless of age--that many grown people weep when she sings.