I may not be a fan of New Jersey, but I do like the TV column in the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Today: That Time Warp, about temporal distortion on “That ’70s Show” and other programs:

With TV time, a year can represent a year, or it can mean a day (see “24”). Characters can age at varying rates, from not at all (Bart and Lisa Simpson) to ultra-fast (Andrew Keaton aged three years in about four months on “Family Ties”).

Even “Buffy” has engaged in temporal distortion, I think. Buffy turned 17 in “Surprise,” in January 1998. Four years later, there was another birthday episode, “Older And Far Away,” in which the gang threw Buffy a birthday party at her house. The odd thing (aside from the fact that the episode took place in February, not January) is that even though it was obviously Buffy’s 21st birthday, nobody suggested taking her out for a 21st-birthday bar crawl.

On top of that, I’m pretty sure the Scoobies have been drinking at the Bronze since before they theoretically turned 21. But maybe the folks at the Bronze don’t check IDs.

Of course, a few months before Buffy’s supposed 21st birthday, she’d just returned from Heaven, which probably had its own temporal distortion. After all, “time didn’t mean anything” when she was there. That could screw with things.

Or maybe the age of your body is what’s important. Buffy died in May 2001, and her body was resurrected more than four months later. Presumably, when her body undecomposed, it returned to its pre-death state, which means that her body’s aging would now be more than four months behind schedule. So Buffy’s body would have turned 21 sometime in May or June.

Still, winter 2002 was the 21st anniversary of her birth, and maybe that’s the relevant point.

I am so glad I’m not Buffy’s lawyer.