At the time of S4/5 of Buffy I tended to believe that the uselessness of adults was another part of the reification of adolescent fears and preoccupations in the high school part of the series, and that it would change as the characters got older. But much the same attitudes appear in the final eps of AtS5 where over half the regulars are over one hundred.
Yeah, I think the don't-trust-anyone-over-30 and don't-trust-corporations ended up shading into general-purpose paranoia in both series by the end.
Although that does make me wonder why BtVS never really exploited this to the full in The First storyline, in S7 - possibly because the Jasmine arc was already working the paranoia card in AtS, but the idea of the whole town turning against its defenders under the influence of The First seems like such a gimme. And we only got that little taste of it with the cops who went after Faith...
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Yeah, I think the don't-trust-anyone-over-30 and don't-trust-corporations ended up shading into general-purpose paranoia in both series by the end.
Although that does make me wonder why BtVS never really exploited this to the full in The First storyline, in S7 - possibly because the Jasmine arc was already working the paranoia card in AtS, but the idea of the whole town turning against its defenders under the influence of The First seems like such a gimme. And we only got that little taste of it with the cops who went after Faith...