Best Do-Over Ever

The season that started it all (Spoilers)

I can’t believe I’ve seriously published 200 of these reviews. My original plan was to review Let Me In, which for a while was my favorite movie back when I was 12. Except, to do the review justice, I would have to reread the book it was based on, Låt den rätte komma in, and watch the Swedish film adaptation, maybe even the recent tv adaptation. I’m probably going to do all of that someday, but I just don’t have the time at the moment. So, then the question became what could I do instead? I quickly came up with an answer.

Following in the footsteps of my previous milestone by reviewing Buffy the Vampire Slayer season one. A show that’s been watched, looked at, dissected, and reexamined so many times already, and by people who are way smarter than me. Do I expect to add anything meaningful to the discourse? No, but I’d be honored if you could keep reading and see my own personal take on the franchise.

Season One Plot

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a fifteen year old girl who has recently moved with her mother Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) to the town of Sunnydale. The events of the movie happened, albeit in broad strokes. If you want or need help bridging the gap, there’s a comic book called Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Origin, which takes Joss Whedon’s original movie script and puts it more in line with the series.

Upon arriving in her new town, Buffy wants nothing more to start over and mean girl Cordelia Chase(Charisma Carpenter) even offers her an in with her clique. However, the forces of darkness are on the rise. The biggest threat of all is the Master (Mark Metcalf), an ancient vampire who seeks to open the Hellmouth and allow the return of the Old Ones to return. Perhaps needless to say, that would be very bad for all the humans of the world.

Buffy doesn’t find herself facing the forces of darkness alone, however. She’s assisted by her new Watcher, Rupert Giles (Anthony Head), along with two new high school friends named Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), currently the school nerd, and Xander Harris (Nicholas Brenson), who currently has a crush on Buffy. There’s also a mysterious protector named Angel (David Boreanaz), who Buffy quickly develops feelings for.

Character Characterization

After five seasons of what might be the greatest spin-off of all time, the fact that Angel is a vampire cursed with a soul and on a quest for redemption is pretty well known. The writers on Buffy, however, didn’t figure that out until episode seven, appropriately titled “Angel,” which makes some of his behavior in the first couple of episodes kind of odd.  Like how he’s unusually chipper in the pilot and can be seen standing in indirect sunlight in the second episode.

Another character with notable different characterization is the vampire Darla (Julue Benz), one of the franchise’s best villains. In the two part pilot, “Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “The Harvest,” Darla comes off as kind of an idiot and not that important in the Master’s hierarchy.  In episode seven, Darla is suddenly very manipulative and the Master’s clear favorite.

To a lesser extent than the other two, there’s also the moment in episode three, “The Witch,” where Giles performs a spell and afterwards says that it was his first time. In the second season, we find out that he has a long, dark history with magic, clearly a plot twist the writer’s didn’t come up with until later. Of course, you could explain that by believing that Giles was deliberately lying.

And this isn’t a discrepancy, so much as it is interesting, but there’s also Xander’s latent attraction towards men. According to the internet, Whedon was planning on making either Xander or Willow gay (who wouldn’t be decided later), so there are a bunch of hints dropped, like Xander jealousy noting that Angel is a “very attractive man” in “Teacher’s Pet.” Of course, everyone in this universe seems to be bi, even if the word doesn’t seem to exist.

The Mythology

I got into this a little during my review of the movie, but the vampires in the series have a few differences with the ones in the series. For starters, they now crumble to dust when they die, which saves a lot of cleanup. They have “vamp faces” instead of merely sprouting fangs. Their origin story and reproduction is also more fleshed out in the series. 

In the second episode it’s explained that anyone who’s fed vampire blood and then killed becomes possessed by a demon. As Giles tells Xander after his friend Jesse (Eric Balfour) gets turned, he’s not looking at the person he knew anymore, but the thing that killed him. Not that it stops the show’s characters or the writers from treating the vampires like there still the same person.

Despite the title, Buffy fights all sorts of supernatural menaces, with them often serving as metaphors for real life issues. Like in “I Robot…You, Jane,” which is basically about the dangers of dating online and computer hackers. It’s very ‘90s internet paranoia, but more nuanced than other examples. The day is partially saved by Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte), a “technopagan” and obvious future love interest for Giles, showing that technology isn’t all bad.

Where are all these supernatural menaces coming from? Well, you see, the Hellmouth is a convergence of mystical energy that serves as a sort of beacon. In other words, it’s a plot device that allows the writers to do whatever it is they want in an episode. For instance, the only explanation we get in “Nightmares” about why the dream world is invading the real world is that “things like that are easier when you’re living on a Hellmouth.”

Best Episodes

Episode five, “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date,” is when things start to get dark and deep. Buffy spends the whole episode trying to go on a normal date, only to have to shoo away the guy she likes because she knows that he’ll just get killed living in her world. That’s followed by a great scene where Giles opens up to her about the weight of his responsibilities. It turns out being a Watcher wasn’t his first choice either.

In terms of the more one-off episodes, “The Puppet Show” is really great because it has such an excellent bait-and-switch. We’re led to believe that the villain of the episode is Sid, this creepy, living ventriloquist dummy, only for Sid to be one of the good guys. “Nightmares,”  which is A Nightmare on Elm-type episode, is also really good.

Then there’s the season one finale, “Prophecy Girl.” The apocalypse is nigh, but Buffy receives a prophecy that facing the Master will result in her death. Gellar’s anguished performance when Buffy finds out is so great. I won’t spoil what happens, but all the subplots running through the whole season come together so nicely.

In Conclusion

There are two types of great shows. Shows that are great right out of the gate and shows that have to take some time to work out the growing pains. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the latter, because while season one is really good, the show definitely doesn’t reach its full potential until later. In fact, I can still distinctly remember not getting really hooked until about midway through season two, when things really start going to hell for the characters. My advice to anyone who hasn’t already seen the show is to give it some time, because it’s worth it.