AD- Buffy Box Set sent to me in return for this blog post. All opinions my own.
"In every generation there is a chosen one... she alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer."
Ahh, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, this programme brings back many happy memories for me because I remember watching this when it first came out over 20 years ago!
I loved watching it every night and seeing what baddies Buffy, Giles, Xander, Angel, Spike (sometimes!) and Willow would be fighting next.
Series Overview
If you're unfamiliar with Buffy The Vampire Slayer, let me break it down for you. Buffy attends high school and it slowly becomes known to her that she is the chosen one. The one who has the power to fight all demons and kill vampires. Giles, the school librarian is privy to all this and helps her to defend Sunnydale High from the deomonic world. Her school friends, Willow and Xander help her to defeat the evil demons and vampires; in fact Willow is a witch and so with her spells and incarnations, she sends back her fair share of demons to hell too! Angel is Buffy's love interest and also happens to be a vampire with/out a soul depending on where you are in the series! It's with Angel that Buffy has her first taste of love, albeit with a vampire who happens to be over 200 years old!
Buffy aired from 1997 - 2003, compromising a total of 7 seasons and showing the parallel lives of the actors and the characters growing up on screen. It shows how difficult it is trying to balance being a 'normal' teenager attending high school whilst defending the whole of Sunnydale against the very worst that hell can bring!
Writer Joss Whedon wanted to completely turn around the idea of the popular little blonde girl who gets killed in every horror movie. He wanted to create a character who instead would end up being the hero and actually saving the world for once! The first season sees Buffy move to Sunnydale with her Mum, Joyce after she inadvertently burnt down her old school's gymnasium. She's already experienced what her destiny is at her old school and with another watcher, but just like any teenager she just wants a normal life. Writer John Whedon said of Season 1, " We've found we had a show that people liked, I really thought people were going to laugh at the Buffy/Angel thing and say 'Well, he's a vampire. That's so hokey'. But they couldn't get enough of it.
It definitely made me realise the soap opera aspect of it, a continuing story of the romance and the people and their emotions was really what was fascinating. The monsters were all very well and good but in the first season we were like 'Let's take our favourite horror movies and turn them into high school stories.'
My Favourite Scenes From 7 Seasons Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer
This is going to be so difficult, mainly because I haven't watched it since it ended in 2003, over 16 years ago! *Ahem*, yes so it's been a while but I will endeavor to do so!
Welcome to Hellmouth - Season 1 Episode 1
OK so it only seems apt that I start at the beginning, in this first episode of was actually only 12 episodes long instead of the 22 it went up to when it got commissioned.
This first episode shows Buffy and her Mum arriving in Sunnydale for a fresh start. Buffy starts at the local high school - Sunnydale High and meeting her new Watcher, Giles, the quiet librarian.
At first she resists her role as the Slayer but when her friends get into trouble, she knows it's up to her to save them.
Cordelia: "It's in the bad side of town."
Buffy: "Where's that?"
Cordelia: "It's about half a block from the good side of town. We don't have a whole lot of town here."
Innocence - Season 2 Episode 13
Season Two begins funnily enough with Buffy coming back to Sunnydale High after her temporary death at the hands of the Master, at the end of the first season. A bit weird yes, but as a Slayer it's kind of comes with the territory!
It's in this season that Buffy and Angel take their relationship to another level, unbeknownst to the major characters, Angel's moment of happiness took away his soul and he once again became Angelus - a vicious killer.
This is perhaps the most potent example of the show's metaphoric exploration of adolescent fears, as an allegory for the girl who sleeps with a man and discovers that he is completely different afterwards.
It also shows how Buffy wants to just be a normal teenager and do what all her friends are doing, having boyfriends and exploring her sexuality.
Of course, with this being Sunnydale and Buffy being the Slayer, she's bound to find love with a vampire, and it's destined from the start to be one complicated relationship!
I always loved Buffy and Angel's relationship, I found it to be one which was either good or bad depending on whether or not Angel had his soul. But their love remained intact whichever side of Hell Angel found himself on.
Despite Buffy focussing on demons and being the Slayer, it also is about teenagers trying to navigate the adult world with relationships, love, school, friends and family.
Cordelia - "So does looking at guns make you wanna have sex?"
Xander - "I'm 17, looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex."
I Was Made To Love You - Season 5 Episode 15
Season 5 sees Buffy return to Giles to ask him to once again be her Watcher, after an unsettling encounter with the Dracula. Buffy is about to face mortal problems far more threatening than the un-dead this season - we're going to get to see what makes Buffy, Buffy, as her family life is turned on its head with the appearance of her sister Dawn and the sudden death of her mother.
In this particular episode, there's a robot girl wandering around Sunnydale looking for her boyfriend Warren who becomes violent when impeded. Especially when he tells her that he's in love with someone else!
Spike asks Warren to create a robot Buffy for him. When Buffy returns home, she finds her Mom dead on the living room couch.
By the time Season 5 rolls around, Buffy and her gang are getting used to the Hellmouth and having to spend their days fighting demons, vampires and everything in between.
What surprises me most about all of this is that most of the other students don't even realise that Buffy, Cordelia, Xander, Willow & Giles are defending their fellow Sunnydale High students from the very worst that the Hellmouth can produce.
Giles - "And you're certain she was a robot?"
Buffy - "Absolutely"
Tara - "Well, she practically had 'Genuine Molded Plastic' stamped on her ass"
"Older And Far Away" Season 6 Episode 14
At the end of Season 5, Buffy died and in this season, she is brought back to life by Willow, whose own addiction to magic which is only heightened after her girlfriend is killed. it's only Xander's love which brings her back and prevents her from going even further into darkness.
Initially her friends are delighted to have Buffy back, believing they saved her from hell when in fact she had been in heaven. Struggling to fit back into normal life she gets a job and begins a violent, no-means-yes sexual affair with Spike which torments her as much as it brings her fleeting comfort.
In this episode, Dawn is beginning to feel that nobody wants to spend time with her (I know that feeling girl!) and therefore when she's talking to the school counselor - unaware that she is, in fact, a vengeance demon she makes a wish that everyone would stay with her.
Later on, during Buffy's birthday party, when it comes time for everyone to leave, they can't so they then spend the rest of the episode trying to figure out why. Eventually Anya calls for the vengeance demon and tricks her into undoing her curse.
This episode highlights the fact that whilst it's cool being the Slayer's sister, the reality is quite different. Dawn tries her best to make herself feel included and wants Buffy to have a great birthday - even going so far as to steal the perfect jacket from a store. Something which Dawn has taken to doing recently because she can't take the isolation or the feeling of being left out anymore.
So, when she talks to the school counselor, she makes her feelings known. But of course, this being Sunnydale nothing is quite what it seems so it's no real surprise that it's actually a vengeance demon!
Dawn - "Does anybody wanna come to the mall with me for birthday presents?"
Willow - "Oh I would, honey. But I've got my group. You know, the whole Spellcasters Anonymous thing....We're still looking for a better name."
So there you have it. A whirlwind whistle stop tour through some of my favourite episodes from 7 series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer! One of, if not, the best 90s/early 2000's teenage dramas to ever grace our screens.
I loved everything about it, from the torrid love affair between Buffy and Angel, to Spike wanting to create his own Buffybot, such was his obsession with her. Willow's sweet love for Xander and later her own obsession with magic.
I loved Cordelia's put downs of Buffy, she may be part of the crew but that doesn't mean she's about to let the cute blonde hog the limelight!
And guiding them all whilst still looking after the school library was Giles, he really was my favourite character. So sweet and always trying to keep Buffy out of danger and protected at all times.
If you haven't watched it already then I can highly recommend it. It's way better than that other, more publicised TV show, Twilight! What do they know about slaying vampires, falling in love with one, trying to protect the ones you love all whilst trying to get good grades and graduate high school?!
No, sorry, Buffy The Vampire Slayer was way better and always will be. Buffy and Angel forever!
Tell me, are you team Spike or team Angel!?
Love, Sarah xoxoxo
