‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Is Still Changing TV 20 Years After Its Premiere

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series hit screens on a barely launched network called The WB in 1997. But at the time, no one knew the impact it would wind up having on pop culture. Or the lives of an entire generation of viewers. And now, more than 20 years later, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is poised to change the TV landscape all over again...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered on the WB in 1997.

It’s a supernatural drama that’s centered on a teenage “slayer,” chosen by fate to fight vampires, demons, and other things that go bump in the night. It’s also about the perils of everyday high-school existence. 

 

It was created by Joss Whedon.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] You know, the guy who directed The Avengers. Wrote The Cabin in the Woods. Created Firefly, Dollhouse, and Angel. In other words, the guy who shaped the film and television world for an entire generation of ‘90s kids.

 

And it was based on a 1992 film that Whedon wrote.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer film was a fun “pop-culture comedy” starring Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry. It was good, but mostly forgettable. And if you ask any fan, the best thing about it is Paul Reubens’ death scene.

 

Whedon’s idea for Buffy was rooted in a desire to go against the Hollywood formula.

Whedon originally wanted to tell a story about an insignificant someone who winds up being of great importance. And that lame horror trope of the little blonde girl who gets killed in a dark alley? F--- that. Buffy wasn’t about to be that girl.

 

Little did he know that this idea would shape the entire face of modern television.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Ask any showrunner to name their top TV influences, and Buffy will make it onto 90 percent of their lists. Because the people who are creating television today grew up on the Buffy of yesterday. And regardless of whether or not you’ll actually admit to having watched the show as a kid, there’s no denying your familiarity with it.

 

Buffy essentially rewrote the teen soap opera.

Because The WB was just a fledgling network back in 1997, a show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer could afford to take risks in its storytelling and style. After all, it wasn’t like The WB was trying to appeal to the nursing-home audience of CBS or NBC.

 

And it made the entertainment industry notice that teens were a desirable audience.

Buffy debuted with the highest Monday night ratings in The WB’s history. And so the network realized that teens were a mostly untapped market, both in terms of viewership and advertising. Because if there’s one thing teens have, it’s disposable income.

 

It tackled important teen issues without the overt emotional drama of previous shows.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] It’s not like we didn’t have teen series before Buffy. Once upon a time, Fox had been the TV teen queen with Beverly Hills 90210, while MTV had My So-Called Life. But the storylines explored on both series were so… melodramatic. Buffy wasn’t like that. There was a lightheartedness in its reality. Or as much reality as a show about vampires could have.

 

It used monsters as metaphors for important shit.

Remember when Buffy lost her virginity to Angel in the second season, and then he lost his soul and spent the entire next season mentally tormenting her and the Scooby Gang? Every girl has dealt with soullessness and heartbreak in real life. Not every girl has dealt with the soulless undead. 

 

The characters were multi-faceted.

And they weren’t just stereotypes pulled from high-school cliques. Willow was a nerd, but she was also brave AF, and when she discovered herself through witchcraft in college, she became a total badass. Same could be said for Cordelia, who began as a nod to the homecoming queen trope, but became someone of real importance to both the group and the spinoff.

 

With Buffy, Joss Whedon created a signature voice that would be emulated repeatedly.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Let’s be real here: Before Buffy hit our TV screens, there was no such banter like the type it made famous. The creation of “Buffyspeak,” or, as Kyle Kallgren describes it, “a jumbling of nouniness and adjectiviage into languagey-bits that sound like your brain forgot words before spontaneously re-remembering them,” is still very much a thing today.

 

The series was actually serialized.

It’s weird to think that up until the late ‘90s, the idea of a television storyline continuing past a single episode was pretty out of the ordinary. Most stories began and ended in a 30-60 minute time period. Buffy dealt in multi-episode storylines and season-long arcs.

 

And it made use of “The Big Bad.”

Look at popular series from the ‘80s (of which a good majority were somehow police dramas), and the show’s villain changed week to week. Buffy moved away from this “monster of the week” formula to include a seasonal foe, who would pop up throughout to pose a heavier threat than just, say, a pack of supernatural hyenas.

 

Which is in part thanks to the world of comics.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] You can thank Marvel for how Whedon chose to write his slayer stories. Actually, the idea of having smaller storylines fit into a larger, seasonal arc is something that’s done quite often in the comic industry.

 

The show paved the way for real feminism in film and TV.

You can see it shows with a distinctive female lead, like Whedon’s followup series, Dollhouse, or BBC’s Orphan Black. But you can also see it in the way supporting female characters are portrayed today, not just as a device for their male leads’ character development, but as complete individuals on their own.

 

Sure, Buffy wasn’t the first heroine on TV

There were plenty of female ass-kickers before her. But Buffy didn’t have to strip down to her skivvies to get the job done, which is something we actually hadn’t seen in a superheroine. She was the hot chick, but she was also the cool chick, and every teenage girl in the late ‘90s desperately wanted to hang out with her.

 

But she was definitely the best.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] Because we were all kind of sick of seeing the hot blonde get torn to pieces in the first 30 minutes of any horror property ever, and Whedon knew this. Buffy Summers went into dark alleyways, and instead of yelling at our screens in frustration, we yelled in solidarity. Because we knew who the victor would be, and it was about f---ing time.

 

And she’s inspired countless other female characters in film and TV.

Women like The Flash’s Iris or Peggy Olsen from Mad Men (a series touched by Buffy producer Marti Noxon) certainly have a little slayer in them. But Buffy’s defiance of and non-conformity to gender roles can be seen across genres, from Rogue One to Game of Thrones.

 

It was aware of social misogyny.

The series wasn’t shy about issues regarding consent or toxic masculinity. The sixth especially delved into some dark territory. Remember when Spike nearly raped Buffy in her bathroom? Or when Warren spent an entire season going after women because he thought he was owed?

 

The series gave underrepresented groups real representation.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] When Willow got to college and explored her sexuality, embarking on a lesbian relationship with Tara, the show could have treated it like a plot device to boost ratings, as many others had. But it didn’t. The Willow and Tara relationship was one of the most well-written, thoughtful portrayals that had ever been on TV.

 

It’s responsible for putting out some of the greatest episodes in television history.

And we’re not just saying the greatest episodes of a teen supernatural drama. Buffy has given us some of the greatest TV episodes ever produced. Fan favorite “Hush” is of course the first to come to mind, but there’s also “The Wish,” “Once More With Feeling,” and “The Body.”

 

Special effects aside, the show holds up to this day.

We’re not going to pretend its CGI effects aren’t a little cheesy — because, well, just look at the Mayor here. But the thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that it is 100-percent bingeworthy to this day, because of its characters, storytelling and that sweet, sweet practical vampire makeup.

 

Buffy has an entire universe of stuff related to it.

[dx_custom_adunit desktop_id="RTK_K67O" mobile_id="RTK_5yk0"] It’s called the Buffyverse, and it’s a very real thing. Aside from the 1999 Angel spinoff series (which is just as good, honestly), Buffy’s given us books, comics, video games and so very much fanfic. 

 

Now it’s getting the reboot treatment.

Now, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is poised to change the TV landscape all over again. Because it's getting the reboot treatment. While Whedon won’t be on board to write and direct the new series, he is coming on as executive producer. As for its writing, Midnight, Texas creator Monica Owusu-Breen has been given that honor.

 

Still in its early stages of development, we have hopes for the Buffy reboot.

We don’t know when the Buffy reboot will actually see the light of day. But word is that it’ll stay true to the universe already created (so no re-writing of Buffy history). And the plan this time around will be to have a POC play the lead role. But we’ve all kind of been waiting for this since the second season’s introduction of Kendra Young.