Buffy the Vampire Slayer

↳ Note: This article is about the TV series. For other uses, see Buffy.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer logo

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an American television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon, which aired from 1997–2003. It featured the exploits of the Slayer, Buffy Summers and her group of friends, the Scooby Gang, as they protected Sunnydale from vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness.

Premise

Format

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is in serialized format, with each episode involving a self-contained story while contributing to a larger storyline, broken down into season-long narratives marked by the rise and defeat of a powerful antagonist, commonly referred to as the Big Bad. While the show is mainly a drama with frequent comic relief, most episodes are a blend of different genres, including horror, martial arts, romance, melodrama, farce, science fiction, comedy, and even, in one episode, musical comedy.

The series' narrative revolves around Buffy and her friends, the Scooby Gang, who struggle to balance the fight against supernatural evils with their complex social lives in the fictional city of Sunnydale. The show mixes complex, season-long storylines with a villain-of-the-week format; a typical episode contains one or more villains, or supernatural phenomena, that are thwarted or defeated by the end of the episode. Though elements and relationships are explored and ongoing subplots are included, the show focuses primarily on Buffy and her role as an archetypal heroine of the Slayer.

As the title suggests, the most prominent monsters in the Buffy bestiary are vampires, which are based on traditional myths, lore, and literary conventions. Although, as the series continues, Buffy and her companions face an increasing variety of demons and supernatural creatures, as well as unscrupulous humans. They frequently save the world from annihilation by a combination of physical combat, magic, and detective-style investigation, and are guided by an extensive collection of ancient and mystical reference books.

Storyline

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 2
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 3
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 4
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7

Production

Origin

Writer Joss Whedon says that "Rhonda the Immortal Waitress" was really the first incarnation of the Buffy concept, "the idea of some woman who seems to be completely insignificant who turns out to be extraordinary." This early, unproduced idea evolved into Buffy, which Whedon developed to invert the Hollywood formula of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie." Whedon wanted "to subvert that idea and create someone who was a hero." He explained, "The very first mission statement of the show was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it."

The idea was first visited through Whedon's script for the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The director, Fran Rubel Kuzui, saw it as a "pop culture comedy about what people think about vampires." Whedon disagreed: "I had written this scary film about an empowered woman, and they turned it into a broad comedy. It was crushing." The script was praised within the industry, but the movie was not.

Several years later, Gail Berman (later a Fox executive, but at that time President and CEO of the production company Sandollar Television, who owned the TV rights to the movie) approached Whedon to develop his Buffy concept into a television series. Whedon explained that "They said, 'Do you want to do a show?' And I thought, 'High school as a horror movie.' And so the metaphor became the central concept behind Buffy, and that's how I sold it." The supernatural elements in the series stood as metaphors for personal anxieties associated with adolescence and young adulthood.

Early in its development, the series was going to be simply titled Slayer. Whedon went on to write and partly fund a 25-minute non-broadcast pilot, that was shown to networks and eventually sold to The WB network. The latter promoted the premiere with a series of History of the Slayer clips, and the first episode, "Welcome to the Hellmouth", aired on March 10, 1997.

Cast

Main cast

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers (Seasons 1-7) 144 episodes.
• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris (Seasons 1-7) 143 episodes.
• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg (Seasons 1-7) 144 episodes.
• Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase (Seasons 1-3) 54 episodes.
• David Boreanaz as Angel (Seasons 2-3. Recurring seasons 1, 4, 5, and 7) 56 episodes.
• Seth Green as Oz (Seasons 3-4.06. Recurring season 2, 4.19 and 4.22) 39 episodes.
• Marc Blucas as Riley Finn (Seasons 4.11-5.10. Recurring season 4.01-4.10 and 6.15) 31 episodes.
• Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins (Seasons 5-7. Recurring seasons 3-4) 81 episodes.
• Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers (Seasons 5.02-7. Recurring season 5.01) 66 episodes.
• Amber Benson as Tara Maclay (Season 6.19 only. Recurring seasons 4.10-6.20) 47 episodes.
• James Marsters as Spike (Seasons 4.07-7.22 Recurring seasons 2, 3, 4.03 and 4.06) 96 episodes.
• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles (Seasons 1-5. Recurring seasons 6-7) 121 episodes

Recurring cast

• Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers (Seasons 1-7) 58 episodes.
• Mark Metcalf as Master (Seasons 1-3 and 7) 8 episodes.
• Julie Benz as Darla (Seasons 1-2 and 5) 5 episodes.
• Dean Butler as Hank Summers (Seasons 1-2 and 5-6) 4 episodes.
• Mercedes McNab as Harmony Kendall (Seasons 1-5) 16 episodes.
• Elizabeth Anne Allen as Amy Madison (Seasons 1-4 and 6-7) 8 episodes.
• Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder (Seasons 1-4) 19 episodes.
• Robia LaMorte as Jenny Calendar (Seasons 1-3) 14 episodes.
• Jason Hall as Devon MacLeish (Seasons 2-4) 8 episodes.
• Julia Lee as Anne Steele (Seasons 2-3) 2 episodes.
• Danny Strong as Jonathan Levinson (Seasons 2-4, 6, and 7) 28 episodes.
• Juliet Landau as Drusilla (Seasons 2, 5 and 7) 17 episodes.
• Eliza Dushku as Faith Lehane (Seasons 3-4 and 7) 20 episodes.
• Harry Groener as Mayor Wilkins (Seasons 3-4 and 7) 14 episodes.
• Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Season 3) 9 episodes.
• Lindsay Crouse as Professor Maggie Walsh (Season 4) 9 episodes.
• Leonard Roberts as Forrest Gates (Season 4) 12 episodes.
• Bailey Chase as Graham Miller (Seasons 4-5) 13 episodes.
• George Hertzberg as Adam (Seasons 4 and 7) 9 episodes.
• Charlie Weber as Ben Wilkinson (Season 5) 14 episodes.
• Clare Kramer as Glory (Seasons 5 and 7) 13 episodes.
• Adam Busch as Warren Mears (Seasons 5-7) 16 episodes.
• Tom Lenk as Andrew Wells Seasons 6-7) 26 episodes.
• James Charles Leary as Clem (Seasons 6-7) 8 episodes.
• Iyari Limon as Kennedy (Season 7) 13 episodes.
• D. B. Woodside as Robin Wood (Season 7) 14 episodes.
• Sarah Hagan as Amanda (Season 7) 10 episodes.
• Indigo as Rona (Season 7) 8 episodes.
• Nathan Fillion as Caleb (Season 7) 5 episodes.

Crew

Executive producers

Joss Whedon was credited as executive producer throughout the run of the series, and for the first five seasons (1997–2001) he was also the showrunner, supervising the writing and all aspects of production. Marti Noxon took on the role for seasons six and seven (2001–2003), but Whedon continued to be involved with writing and directing Buffy the Vampire Slayer alongside projects such as Angel, Fray, and Firefly. Fran Rubel Kuzui and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, were credited as executive producers but were not involved in the show. Their credit, rights, and royalties over the franchise relate to their funding, producing, and directing of the original movie version of Buffy.

Writing

Script-writing was done by Mutant Enemy, a production company created by Whedon in 1997. The writers with the most writing credits are Joss Whedon, Steven S. DeKnight, Jane Espenson, David Fury, Drew Goddard, Drew Greenberg, David Greenwalt, Rebecca Rand Kirshner, Marti Noxon, and Doug Petrie. Other authors with writing credits include Dean Batali, Carl Ellsworth, Tracey Forbes, Ashley Gable, Howard Gordon, Diego Gutierrez, Elin Hampton, Rob Des Hotel, Matt Kiene, Ty King, Thomas A. Swyden, Joe Reinkemeyer, Dana Reston, and Dan Vebber.

Jane Espenson has explained how scripts came together. First, the writers talked about the emotional issues facing Buffy Summers and how she would confront them through her battle against evil supernatural forces. Then the episode's story was "broken" into acts and scenes, and act breaks designed as key moments to intrigue viewers so that they would stay with the episode following the commercial break. The writers collectively filled in scenes surrounding these act breaks for a more fleshed-out story. A whiteboard marked their progress by mapping brief descriptions of each scene. Once "breaking" was done, the credited author wrote an outline for the episode, which was checked by Whedon or Noxon. The writer then wrote a full script, which went through a series of drafts, and finally a quick rewrite from the show runner. The final article was used as the shooting script.

Broadcast

Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired on March 10, 1997 as a mid season replacement for the show Savannah on The WB network, and played a key role in the growth of the Warner Bros. television network in its early years. After five seasons, it transferred to the United Paramount Network (UPN) for its final two seasons.

In 2001, the show went into syndication in the United States on local stations and on cable channel FX; the local airings ended in 2005, and the FX airings lasted until 2008 but returned to the network in 2013. Beginning in January 2010, it began to air in syndication in the United States on Logo. Reruns also briefly aired on MTV. On November 7, 2010, it began airing on Chiller with a 24-hour marathon; the series airs weekdays. Chiller also aired a 14-hour Thanksgiving Day marathon on November 25, 2010. In 2011, it began airing on Oxygen and TeenNick. On June 22, 2015, it began airing on ABC Family.

In August 2014, Pivot announced that, for the first time, episodes of Buffy would be broadcast in high-definition and in a widescreen 16:9 format authorized by the studio, but not by any of the series' principals. The transfer was poorly received by some fans, owing to a number of technical and format changes that were viewed as detrimental to the show's presentation. Series creator Joss Whedon and other members of the original team also expressed their displeasure.

Title sequence

Main article: Buffy the Vampire Slayer title sequence

Each episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a title sequence, presenting each show's cast members, consisting of clips from the show itself. The "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme" was played by pop punk band Nerf Herder.

Music

Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured original score. The composers spent around seven days scoring between fourteen and thirty minutes of music for each episode. Christophe Beck revealed that the Buffy composers used computers and synthesizers and were limited to recording one or two "real" samples. Despite this, their goal was to produce "dramatic" orchestration that would stand up to film scores.

Alongside the score, most episodes featured indie rock music, usually at the characters' venue of choice, the Bronze. Buffy music supervisor John King explained that "we like to use unsigned bands" that "you would believe would play in this place." For example, the fictional group Dingoes Ate My Baby were portrayed on screen by front group Four Star Mary. Pop songs by famous artists were rarely featured prominently, but several episodes spotlighted the sounds of more famous artists such as Sarah McLachlan, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Blink-182, Third Eye Blind, Aimee Mann (who also had a line of dialogue), The Dandy Warhols,[58] Cibo Matto, Coldplay, Lisa Loeb, K's Choice and Michelle Branch.

The popularity of music used in Buffy led to the release of two soundtrack albums, The Album and Radio Sunnydale, while the original score was released in The Score and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Soundtrack Collection. The musical episode had its own album, in CD and LP formats.

International titles

• Bulgarian: Бъфи — убийцата на вампири (Buffy — The Killer of Vampires)
• Chinese: 吸血鬼猎人巴菲 (Vampire Hunter Buffy)
• Croatian: Buffy — Ubojica Vampira (Buffy — Vampire Killer)
• Czech: Buffy, Přemožitelka Upírů (Buffy, Vampire Slayer)
• Danish: Buffy — Vampyrernes Skræk (Buffy — Vampire Scare)
• Estonian: Vampiiritapja Buffy (Vampirekiller Buffy)
• Finnish: Buffy, Vampyyrintappaja (Buffy, Vampirekiller)
• French: Buffy Contre les Vampires (Buffy Against the Vampires)
• German: Buffy — Im Bann der Dämonen (Buffy — Under the Demons' Spell)
• Greek: Μπάφι η βαμπιροφόνισσα (Buffy the Vampiremurderess)
• Hungarian: Buffy, a Vámpírok Réme (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer)
• Italian: Buffy l'Ammazzavampiri (Buffy the Killvampire)
• Japanese: バフィー 〜恋する十字架〜 (Buffy ~The Loving Cross~)
• Korean: 뱀파이어 해결사 (Vampire Solver)
• Lithuanian: Vampyru Zudike (Vampire Killer)
• Norwegian: Buffy — Vampyrenes Skrekk (Buffy — Vampires' Horror)
• Polish: Buffy: Postrach Wampirów (Buffy: Terror of Vampires)
• Portuguese (Brazil): Buffy, a Caça-Vampiros (Buffy, the Hunt-Vampires)
• Portuguese (Portugal): Buffy — Caçadora de Vampiros (Buffy — Vampire Hunter)
• Russian: Баффи — истребительница вампиров (Buffy — Vampires Fighter)
• Serbian: Bafi, Ubica Vampira (Buffy, Vampire Killer)
• Slovenian: Buffy — Izganjalka Vampirjev (Buffy — Vampire Exorcist)
• Spanish (Latin America): Buffy, la Cazavampiros (Buffy, the Vampirehunter)
• Spanish (Spain): Buffy, Cazavampiros (Buffy, Vampirehunter)
• Swedish (cable TV): Buffy och Vampyrerna (Buffy and the Vampires)
• Swedish: Buffy Vampyrdödaren (Buffy Vampirekiller)
• Turkish: Vampir Avcisi Buffy (Vampire Hunter Buffy)

Continuity

Based on the TV show, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series has expanded into licensed comics, novels, and video games. These stories either adapt aired episodes, fill spaces between stories, or offer a continuity to the series, often involving the original cast and crew. Although the canonicity of these creations aren't always confirmed, notably the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight and its following seasons have been produced as the direct continuation of the series in comic form.

Trivia

• According to review aggregation company Rotten Tomatoes, the series has scored an approval of 80% of critics and 90% of audience.
• There have been several lines throughout the series have referred to Tuesday: "There's a demon trying to destroy the world and it's just another Tuesday night in Sunnydale." in "Revelations", and "Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday." in "Once More with Feeling". These are references to the fact that Buffy was originally aired on a Tuesday.
• Only seven episodes of the show do not feature any vampires. They are "Witch", "The Pack", "I Robot, You Jane", "The Puppet Show", "Inca Mummy Girl", "Living Conditions", and "Fear, Itself". All but "Inca Mummy Girl", "Living Conditions", and "Fear, Itself" are in the first season, which was when the show was still working with a monster of the week structure.
• Buffy and Willow were the only characters who appeared in every episode. Because it would have been difficult to incorporate a storyline for him, Xander is missing only from "Conversations with Dead People".
• During the course of the series, Tara and Anya were the only main characters that permanently died ("Seeing Red" and "Chosen").
• In total, eighteen actors and actresses played the same character in both Buffy and Angel: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), David Boreanaz (Angel), Alyson Hannigan (Willow), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia), Seth Green (Oz), James Marsters (Spike), Alexis Denisof (Wesley), Julie Benz (Darla), Juliet Landau (Drusilla), Mark Metcalf (Master), Eliza Dushku (Faith), Tom Lenk (Andrew), Mercedes McNab (Harmony), Alastair Duncan (Collins), Jeff Ricketts (Weatherby), Kevin Owers (Smith), Julia Lee (Anne Steele), and Zitto Kazann (Kalderash man).
• All series regulars, except for the five original cast members (Gellar, Brendon, Hannigan, Carpenter, and Stewart-Head), have been guest stars before being promoted to the main cast.
• Seth Green and Chi Muoi Lo are the only actors to appear in both the original film and the television series. While Green's scenes were not included in the film, his image was nevertheless featured on the original video cover.
• Coincidentally, both Charisma Carpenter and Larry Bagby shared the same initials with their characters.
• By the series end, James Marsters is the only actor to be in a scene with every single major character from both Buffy and Angel: Buffy, Xander, Willow, Cordelia, Angel, Giles, Oz, Anya, Dawn, Riley, and Tara on Buffy, Angel, Cordelia, Doyle, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, Lorne, Connor, and Harmony on Angel.
• A lot of the Scooby Gang's dialogue was based on how Joss Whedon really talks. As a result, this irreverent style of speech is often called "Buffy Speak".
• When discussing the series to Empire on the show's 20th anniversary, Joss Whedon stated that he wanted Buffy "to be remembered as a consistently intelligent, funny, emotionally-involving show that subtly changed the entire world… or a small portion of pop culture. You know, enlightenment is the slowest process this side of evolution. It's very hard to have come up in the 1970s, to be raised by a feminist and then through the Reagan era and then, God help us, two Bush eras. Feminism, which hopefully will become an obsolete term by the time I'm dead, is a really important thing. Changing the way people think about women and the way they think about themselves is what I want to do with my life. There are other stories I want to tell, but that's the most important thing to me. If Buffy made the slightest notch in any of pop culture in that direction, well that's pretty damn good."

See also

• List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer awards and nominations
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer filming locations
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs
• Buffy studies