
Has any American broadcast network television show ever appropriated Soviet iconography and themes -- remember, it's not just Buffy holding a hammer and sickle, it's Buffy having just used a hammer and sickle to free oppressed workers from the chains of a tyrannical ruling class -- so blatantly? Granted, this was in 1998, when the Soviet Union was long gone, and the WB was just barely a broadcast network, but nevertheless it still strikes me as a pretty audacious thing to do.