My twenty-something daughter who is headed for graduate school lives at home currently, and recently talked us into watching a Joss Whedon series we’d refused to take seriously years ago: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” a series oddly popular with people in her age group. “I’m just a big old geek,” she says, and I have no idea what this means, but I’m quite fond of her. Anyway, we loved Whedon’s series “Firefly,” but most of what he does kind of gives me the creeps, and in theory this was in the “creeps” category. Nevertheless, we’ve been drawn into “Buffy.”  Many of the episodes are kind of silly, but they all have a mystical, existential twist that is intriguing and occasionally meaningful, and when I least expect it, I find myself considering the series worth watching. Not exactly an extravagant compliment, eh?

Anyway, we reached the point in the series this…