I've read that "Buffy" was a big success in the UK, playing in late afternoons and drawing complaints of too much sex for that time of day; "H Backward E X" was obviously Britain's attempt at an answer, offering a deal more sex--but a deal less violence, and no Buffy. Tedious at first, it gains in interest and appeal as it goes, partly by revealing at last something of what's going on--at least to a point that the viewer can follow the story--and acquiring a more attractive heroine; but it still leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction, if not distaste, and of having hoodwinked one past many narrative inconsistencies by some clever acting and staging. (Note: This review is based on the first ten episodes; perhaps the last nine correct all the faults and explains away all contradictions.)
The first episode begins by introducing a back story from 200 years previous (which is never clarified, and is later dropped) and then moves to the present and to its heroine--not a Buffy, surprisingly, but a Carrie (her name is Cassie): a shy, unpopular girl who discovers wild talents in herself. Nobody remarks that she's more beautiful than anyone else at school, in fact could only be a model, although this is evident from her manner, which is modelly and affected. (She's described as shy and lacking in confidence, but neither these characteristics nor any others are very discernible.) By contrast there's a Willow--a comic-pathetic lesbian--as well as a Cordelia and a Xander (and, eventually, a Faith); but no Buffy, and no Giles--in other words, no active forces for goodness or wisdom. In fact, for a school story the show is much underpopulated; it gives the impression of the college's having about six students and only one teacher. (On the other hand, although the setting is described as a small village, there are enough young people about to burst the occupancy limits of the local clubs.)
Almost immediately the heroine finds a jar in a rathole; this opens her up to a chain of nightmares, visions, hauntings, and more corporeal visits from a fallen angel, the show's archvillain, who however expresses his diabolic nature primarily by posing on hilltops and balconies like the Picture of Dorian Gray. He won't disclose what his object is or what part the heroine is to play in his acquiring it; and what mainly robs the first episodes of interest is this lack of a stake, of any consequence of any action she might take that would matter to her or anybody else. Later in the season things liven up: evil angel kills sidekick (by accident), gets heroine pregnant (by design)....
Then along comes season 2; and the show bestirs itself--dispenses with the first heroine (none too soon) and brings in a second (the Faith), and demons--well, one. Heroine #2 is an improvement, at least by comparison: she does things; she Slays. Unlike Buffy, however, she doesn't dust evil spirits, she dispatches their human victims, and tries (but fails) to do the same to an infant. She does have her sympathetic side: she's a coke-sniffing, absinthe-drinking, boy-seducing decadent--but not decadent youth; she's out of her teens by some 300 or 2000 years, depending on who's telling it. How she can have lived so long, what she is, and why it's her task to be the villain's nemesis is not explained (here one sees again the need for a Giles). By this point, though, the villain's plan has been made manifest: he wants a son, both just to have one and so his 200 fellow angels can join him below. He's been working on it for 2000 years, but so far the heroine has stopped him by killing the expectant mothers.
Now, this is stupid: in 2000 years evil angel could have impregnated enough women to repopulate the planet, more than his nemesis could have kept up with, and he could have kept close any he really wanted to protect. And the questions keep coming. For centuries nemesis has been killing mothers-to-be to prevent the evil angels' breaking through; now that they have, she's out to kill the baby and _this_ will stop them; have the rules changed? One of her victims on this go-round, she kills to no point, since he doesn't have the baby (her other victim is killed by accident--again). Nearly every piece of exposition is fractured, and clashes with something else. But despite all this, the show, having got rolling, takes on a flair and momentum that make it entertaining, and the actors intone the faux lore with the right portentousness.
Best of all--the egg that holds the batter together--is the Willow, after she becomes a ghostly sidekick in the "Topper" tradition: a Shakespearean fool, providing a feed of sardonic counterpoint to a lone, and sometimes unwilling, hearer. In this instance she's also a consumer ghost--always eating, or showing off clothes stolen from corpses. One wonders why nobody notices the foodstuffs floating in midair or her companion talking to nobody (until this becomes a plot point); perhaps that's why the most fun is to be had at night when she does as she pleases in the vacant commons room. For a few episodes she enjoys a fling with another restless spirit, a rather Auntie-Mame-ish one, and their scenes together add some welcome zest, with a dash of erotic delight; indeed, for me, were the high point of the show. It's a shame the companion is spirited away between seasons, without explanation: one more anomaly, if anybody's counting.
And for another: where's the hex?
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