Can Buffy's Brilliance Last?  When future critics ask whether
turn-of-the-century American TV produced any works of genius,
the verdict on the entire medium--all 128 channels of it--is
likely to depend on their assessment of a cult teen hit
currently airing on UPN, with syndicated reruns on FX.  At first
glance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer seems indistinguishable from
the WB's rancid Dawson's Creek or the American Pie movies: An
all-white cast of impossibly nubile women and muscular men (they
call themselves "the Scooby gang") pretend to be teenagers while
modeling the latest in Southern California teen slang and
sportswear. But there's a difference: The other shows paste a
veneer of realism over a fantasy of adolescence; Buffy adopts a
facade of fantasy to cover a portrayal of the teen years as they
really are. The show is a worthy successor to school stories
like Nicholas Nickleby, Stalky & Co., and The Catcher in the
Rye.  When I was 12, I stumbled across George Orwell's "Such,
Such Were the Joys," a scathing