ABSTRACT
Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Shadows explored the general theme of the supernatural in modernity. Buffy's musical cues resembled those of Dark Shadows in their pervasiveness, in the use of leitmotifs, and in stylistic variety. But whereas the cues in Dark Shadows were nearly always limited to repetitions of various tracks from pre-existing recordings many of the cues for Buffy seem to be recorded anew for each episode; sometimes a leitmotif is rescored and subtly varied each time it appears in an episode. The variety of musical styles in Buffy's dramatic or source scoring reveals other aspects of the characters, such as their social status or their position in the unfolding drama. The theme of betrayal and of truths withheld continues to develop throughout the episode, and the major characters continue to suffer from deception, ulterior motives–and from the revelations that could eventually provide healing and stability.
