This seemingly simple set-up is spun into a complex web, and the series' basic premise — 16-year-old Valley Girl fights monsters — is a defiant social statement about women fighting against the forces that oppress them. Creator Joss Whedon was tired of the dim-witted blondes in horror movies who always got chased down an alley and then routinely killed, and knew what he was doing when he set out to create his Slayer. Says Whedon, "I wanted Buffy to be a cultural phenomenon, period ... that was always the plan."
It's because of this drive, this mission statement, that Buffy springs to life so fully-formed in its earliest episodes. It's true that the show wobbles a little before finding its footing, but all the right elements are already in place, especially the wonderful Sarah Michelle Gellar. She is tough yet vulnerable, wise beyond her years yet still a fragile young girl. Without Gellar capably filling Buffy's shoes, the series would be nothing, even though the scripts are clever and the symbolism strong. The show needs a commanding presence, an actress in charge of what she's doing, and that is exactly the kind of strength which Gellar exudes.
By the middle of the season, Gellar has such a strong rapport with Nicholas Brendon's goofy slacker Xander and Alyson Hannigan's lovable computer nerd Willow, and such a wonderful paternal relationship with Anthony Stewart Head's Giles, that you feel safe enough in the show's hands to let it take you where it wants to. Luckily, Whedon and his talented staff of writers take us to some very good, very creepy places.
Besides the Buffy character's inherent statement, the show utilizes the overarching metaphor that high school is hell. At Sunnydale High School in particular, that age-old idiom couldn't be truer; the town literally sits on the mouth of Hell, which is what draws all of the vampires and demons. Buffy even comes to find that the decision she and her mother made to move to Sunnydale after Buffy was expelled from her old school in L.A. wasn't consciously theirs.
So the students must deal with not merely the usual problems teenagers have, but those problems writ large. When Buffy's mom forbids her to go out one night, she tells her daughter, "It's not the end of the world." The only catch is that it is. A friendless girl who no one pays attention to becomes invisible ("Out of Mind, Out of Sight"), and a cheerleader who can't live up to her mother's past resorts to witchcraft ("The Witch"). Whedon handles these fantastic situations in ways that are believable — almost achingly so — and that perfectly capture the life-or-death minutiae of high school, all with a gleefully irreverent sense of humor.
Article comments
1 - Wesley Mead
Great article man, a worthy tribute to the formative season of a genuine TV gem.
2 - niun
I have the full Buffy set and it is boxed bliss! hours, days, weeks and years of fun and sharp wit to memorize for later use. buy it, own it, love it!!!
3 - Mike M
Fantastic review on awesome television series that has lasting impact on the industry. Keep up good work, dude!