Welcome to Above the Law
Life is hard for our Buffy, her friends and enemies. Their responsibility is heavy and their choices are tough. Sometimes they make the right decision, sometimes there isn't a 'right' decision to be made. This site exists to give voice to opinion, to allow us to discuss whether our heroes should have done what they did and to learn that there is always more than one perspective on any issue.
I find Buffy the Vampire Slayer fascinating, I hope you do too. And if there's one thing the show's taught us it's that bad decisions don't stay buried.
A note on submissions
Most of the articles on this site were written by me, there's no reason for this other that I have a lot of opinions. If you want to pen an article, if you've spotted dodgy morality, ethics or a potential legal offence in the show that's not already covered, send it to me
voxsententia@yahoo.com . You could just pose a question and then I'd try to answer it, or you could go the whole nine yards and write it all yourself (in which case you get to have your name at the top!). If you want examples of the sort of thing, every article is a good one (apart from the ones I haven't finished yet). If you have any doubts at all, or even if you just need a few pointers, email me and ask me (after all opinions are what I'm good at).
A note on nationality
When you cross from America to the UK by plane you lose 4 hours. When a tv show crosses to us it loses several months. There are a couple of great US sites out there which fulfil a similar roles for BtVS fans (most of which can be found on my links page). But its an unfortunate fact that the episodes we see, and the things we want to talk about are old news to them, and what they talk about is sometimes incomprehensible to us.
There are articles here concerning episodes as yet unseen by UK audiences (and also by myself) but they are flagged to avoid spoiling those who prefer not to be forewarned (speaking as someone who through his own fault learned all about Graduation before even seeing the first episode of season, I have a healthy respect for their decision).
There won't be any special provision made for the differences between satellite and terrestrial television, however. So those of you who are limited to BBC2 should take extra-special care.
I should point out that all of the wonderful people I've met through Buffy on the internet and through this site in particular, none of them have been from the UK . I'm still techno-naïve enough to find it incredible to have friends stretching from Canada to Australia. It's even better to have opinions from across the world on our common interest but the simple fact is that if I haven't seen it, I can't join in properly. And I shouldn't be asking you fortunate fans to write me potted synopses. Ideally I'd like thoughts, comments, articles, musings and questions from the proverbial four corners of the world, and the future developments of issues that have already arisen are also encouraged. In a perfect world we'd all get to see BtVS at the same time, but until we can live that dream J I have to limit myself.
For everyone who wants to know where we Brits are up to (and you'd be surprised how far back we can be) there are several Buffy UK sites that mention where we're up to, at present (December 1999) we've finished BtVS season 3 with plans to start season 4 and Angel in January. Don't worry about sending me something you're not sure that I've seen or not (I'll peek through one eye until I've worked it out).
A note on law
Many of you may have heard of Fox's behaviour to Buffy websites, when I discovered it I looked into the legal problem (I'm a law student after all). Anyone out there has any concerns about the possibility of it happening to them can email me. I'm not a lawyer yet, and I'm not US (though I do have access to a large US law library) so nothing I say can be counted on in a court, but I can give you the benefit of my own investigation, and hopefully provide some help in that regard.
Any of you who don't know what I'm talking about should really find out. Follow the link below, and take a little time to read up on it. There are some things every Buffy fan should know.