Big Bad
Big Bad (abbreviated to BB or BBEG for big bad evil guy) is a term to describe a major recurring adversary, usually the chief villain or antagonist in a particular broadcast season, originally used by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series.[1][2] It has since been used to describe annual villains in other television series, and has also been used in scholarly work discussing Buffy the Vampire Slayer.[1][3]
On Buffy the Vampire Slayer[edit]
The term "Big Bad" was originally used on American television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which aired 1997–2003). According to author Kevin Durand (2009), "While Buffy confronts various forms of evil during each episode, each season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had its own 'big bad' villain who dominates throughout the season. The power of the 'big bad' always threatens to end the world, but Buffy ultimately overcomes him or her in the season finale."[3] The series balanced its episodic stories with advancing that season's big bad story arc.[4]
The term was originally used in the episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", in which Buffy Summers describes the newly soulless Angel as "the big, bad thing in the dark".[5] The prior episode, "Phases", has Xander Harris "being" the werewolf and saying, "I'm the big, bad wolf." The phrase may originate in various fairy tales (particularly "Three Little Pigs" and the related song) about the "Big Bad Wolf". The phrase "big bad" by itself was first used on screen in Season 3, in the episode "Gingerbread" where Buffy says that an occult symbol is harmless, "not a big bad".
The first "big bad" villain on the program was The Master,[6] played by Mark Metcalf. According to author Jan Jagodzinski, the battle between Buffy and the evil Master is "the central issue of season one"; The Master, like all the "big bads", is a "symptom of postmodernity".[6]
On other television series[edit]
The use of Big Bads has become common in TV science fiction and fantasy series, especially with more binge-watching of serialized shows.[7][8]
In the Arrowverse, after 8 years and 20 collective seasons, the series Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow had 22 Big Bads, which TVLine ranked based on "Compelling Backstory, Fearsome Appearance, Powers/Skills, Utter Ruthlessness, Eeeevilness of Agenda, Despicable Damage Done".[9] But Den of Geek's Dave Golder questioned the continued use of the "season-long baddie" plot device.[7]
The Doctor Who revival has occasionally used Big Bads. Jef Rouner of the Houston Press wrote how Doctor Who series 6 succeed with the "proper format," beginning with a new villain to the series, the Silence.[10] He also wrote that for series 11, "The main villain is regular old human cruelty and apathy to suffering", adding this had some similarity to Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6's Big Bad, “life.”[11] But Lacy Baugher wrote on Syfy Wire that the show can have the smaller personal, emotional stories, and doesn't need the "big, sweeping arcs and grand monsters". "Each Big Bad the Doctor faced had to be the most dangerous in the universe."[12]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 MacNeil, W. P. (2003). "You Slay Me: Buffy as Jurisprude of Desire". Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 24(6), pp. 2421-2440.
- ↑ Brannon, J. S. (2007). "It's About Power: Buffy, Foucault, and the Quest for Self Archived 2011-09-30 at the Wayback Machine". Slayage, v. 24.[not in citation given]
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Durand, Kevin K. (2009). Buffy Meets the Academy: Essays on the Episodes and Scripts as Texts. McFarland. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-7864-4355-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Mittell, Jason (2015-04-10). Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. NYU Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-0-8147-7135-8. Search this book on
- ↑ Zalben, Alex (December 31, 2014). "Discover The Secret Origin Of TV's 'Big Bad'". MTV News. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Jagodzinski, Jan (2008). Television and youth culture: televised paranoia. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 145. ISBN 1-4039-7808-5. Search this book on
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Golder, Dave (March 22, 2019). "Why the Arrowverse Needs to Defeat the Big Bad Once and For All". Den of Geek. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
- ↑ Fowler, Charity (2017-02-15). "Seasonal Villiany: Radical Evil, Relativity, and Redemtive Relationships". In Effron, Malcah; Johnson, Brian. The Function of Evil across Disciplinary Contexts. Lexington Books. pp. 53–68. ISBN 978-1-4985-3342-3. Search this book on
- ↑ Mitovich, Matt Webb (2018-07-16). "Arrowverse Big Bads, Ranked!". TVLine. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
- ↑ Rouner, Jef (2014-10-13). "Doctor Who, Buffy and the Art of the Big Bad". Houston Press. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ Rouner, Jef (2018-11-23). "The Big Bad of Doctor Who Series 11 is Us". Houston Press. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ Baugher, Lacy (2018-11-26). "How Doctor Who's return to smaller stories has reinvigorated the series". SYFY WIRE. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
Further reading[edit]
- Ceriello, Linda C. (2018). "The Big Bad and the Big 'Aha!': Metamodern Monsters as Transformational Figures of Instability". In Heyes, Michael E. Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques: Monstrosity and Religion in Europe and the United States. Lexington. pp. 207–234. ISBN 9781498550772. Search this book on
External links[edit]
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Look up big bad in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- The Buffy Formula: Patterns in the Buffyverse on SpoilerSlayer.com
- TVTropes: Big Bad
- Opposing Buffy: Power, Responsibility and the Narrative Function of the Big Bad in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Master of Arts Thesis by Joseph Lipsett
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