‘Buffy’ explores more than just what’s at stake

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” UPN, Tuesdays, 7 p.m. Starring Sarah Michelle Geller.

The premise is this: in each generation, one young woman is chosen as the Slayer, the person who’ll work with sharpened stakes and super-strength to save the world — again and again.

And the idea works.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” combines ultra-realistic, heartfelt drama with kitschy old-horror-movie cliches made fresh with the latest in computer-generated effects. Vampires dispatched by Buffy disappear into a rain of dust. Never before has any television show so successfully married heart and horror, action and affection, friendship and fear.

At the deep soul of it, “Buffy” is about a young woman who is constantly striving to do good in a world that’s incredibly evil. Her unsought mission has dire consequences for her personal life — she is isolated, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Vampire slaying — not to mention demon and monster killing of all sorts — is such a huge responsibility that Buffy is unable to do the things that other young women her age do. She can’t even go to the prom or finish her college classes because saving the world requires her full attention. None of her romantic relationships ever really work — she’s had three now, two vampires and a mere mortal super-soldier created by a secret governmental project, which, as usual in television, runs amok.

So, while her friends are attending college, she’s trying to figure out a way to pay the bills and make sure her younger sister has a roof over her head. She has to work at a burger joint because she’s untrained for anything other than hunting vampires.

And, to top it all off, she’s been brought back from the dead herself and she’s not too happy about it. As this series believes in hell, so it also does in heaven. Buffy had been in heaven and hadn’t wanted to come back to this planet of strife, hardship and discord.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” sounds silly and not worth an adult’s attention, but, at its core, it is affecting, highly moral and thought-provoking.

Buffy is the only character on television who constantly wears a cross around her neck, not as an ornament but as a symbol of her faith in the goodness it represents.

This series, which started out on the WB network and has now made its way to UPN, constantly features the best writing on television. No writer other than “Buffy” creator Josh Whedon would attempt the sort of silent, emotionally-wrenching solo performance he elicited from Sarah Michelle Geller in the segment in which her mother dies of a brain tumor.

He’s the only writer who’s pulled off an all-musical segment that actually made sense — everyone was under some sort of spell — and that actually included music you’d like to hear.

Viewers who’ve followed “Buffy” from the start recognize the mythology — for want of a better word — that has been developed in the six years it’s been on the air.

Buffy went from sort of an airhead cheerleader-wannabe to a young woman of substance. She has survived an alternate slayer, the sudden appearance of a sister who’s not really a person but a being of pure good, a love affair with a vampire who has a soul — and one who only has soul.

She has met Dracula and wondered why her father never comes to see her. She has bonded with the serious Giles, an English librarian and intellectual who is her watcher — a sort of surrogate father. She has made friends with Willow, a fragile waif-like girl who now needs a 12-step program to help wean herself from witchcraft.

Characterization is well done, with clever word-play and complex personalities.

Parents and teens might want to watch the show together and, afterward, talk about some of the issues that are brought up: How do you know what’s right when life’s not always clear-cut? Why do good people do things they know they shouldn’t?

But be warned: the love scenes are probably the most intense on television today. As the announcer says before the show starts, the action is intense and designed for adults and older teens.

Adults will find themselves as caught up with this excellent program as younger folks are. TV Guide said it was one of the best shows ever. It was right. If you’re a “Buffy” novice, start with some of the reruns so you’ll get to know what’s happening. It’s way too complex to just jump right in without knowing the story line. You can also catch up on the Internet where “Buffy” is a real favorite and shows are deconstructed in the same serious way English majors interpret “Beowulf.”