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Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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For the original film of the same name, see Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film). For the main character of the series, see Buffy Summers.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
File:Buffy logo 0001.jpg
Created byJoss Whedon
StarringSarah Michelle Gellar
Alyson Hannigan
Nicholas Brendon
Anthony Stewart Head
James Marsters
Emma Caulfield
Amber Benson
Michelle Trachtenberg
Charisma Carpenter
David Boreanaz
Seth Green
Marc Blucas
Country of originUnited States
No. of episodes144
Production
Running time42 minutes
Original release
NetworkThe WB (1997–2001)
UPN (2001–2003)
ReleaseMarch 10, 1997 –
May 20, 2003

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an American television series based upon the 1992 film of the same name. The original concept, screenplay, and TV series were created by writer/director Joss Whedon under his personal production tag, Mutant Enemy Productions. The show's title is often abbreviated simply to Buffy or BtVS.

The series follows the day-to-day life of the Slayer, Buffy Summers, a teenage girl chosen by fate to battle against vampires, demons, and other supernatural foes. She is often aided by her Watcher and her loyal circle of misfit friends.

The first five seasons of the series aired on The WB; after a network change, the final two seasons aired on UPN. The series now airs daily in worldwide syndication. The series finale aired in May 2003.

Origins

The very first mission statement of the show, the whole original idea ...is the joy of female power; having it, using it, sharing it.

— Joss Whedon, at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, August 2002

Writer Joss Whedon developed Buffy as an intentional inversion of the pervasive horror film formula, in which young girls are typically depicted as helpless, hysterical victims of violence. Whedon's vision featured a young woman who was not only an exceptional fighter but also a powerful leader without sacrificing her femininity. By reversing the cliché of the helpless female victim, Buffy presented an alternative paradigm embraced by many as an emblem of female power - in Whedon's narrative, Buffy's male friend Xander is more likely to need rescuing [1], while Buffy is more than capable of looking after herself and those around her. However, her personal life is as painful and confusing as any teenage girl's. This combination of empowerment and empathy has earned Buffy a passionate following among fans, giving the show a cult status.

Whedon's other "mission statement" was to employ supernatural elements as metaphors for personal anxieties, particularly those associated with adolescence and young adulthood. Throughout its run, the show developed a substantial contemporary mythology and addressed a large number of common emotional and cultural themes.

On the basis of a 30-minute presentation sometimes called the unaired Buffy pilot, the WB Network bought the show. The WB advertised the show with a History of the Slayer promotional video clip. Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired on March 10, 1997 on the WB network; after five seasons it transferred to the United Paramount Network (UPN) for its final two seasons. The last episode aired on May 20 2003. Buffy is credited with playing a key role in the growth of the Warner Bros. television network in its early years. The show maintained relatively low ratings (typically lower than 90th place per week) but attracted a great deal of attention and performed well in key youth demographics.

Format and themes

Template:Spoiler The series tells the story of Buffy and her friends as they battle demons and other supernatural evils while negotiating their own complicated social and romantic lives. Buffy is told in a dual arc serialized format, with each episode both telling a single story and contributing to a larger overall storyline, which on Buffy is broken down into distinct season-long narratives marked by the rise and defeat of a powerful antagonist (commonly referred to as the "Big Bad"). Individual episodes usually contain one or more villains, monsters, or supernatural phenomena which are defeated, or merely survived, by the episode's end. Though many elements and relationships are explored and many ongoing subplots are included, the show's primary focus throughout is on Buffy and her role as an archetypal hero.

The show is noteworthy in part for its blending of genres, including horror, martial arts, romance, melodrama, farce, screwball comedy, and even (in one memorable episode) musical comedy. Unlike the marginally successful movie, of which Whedon himself is somewhat critical, the TV series achieved popular and critical success, appreciated equally by mainstream TV critics and its target audience of young viewers. Fans of the show attribute its success to clever and unusual writing, a strong sense of ongoing story, and a sense of deeper meaning and metaphor.[2] Whedon has said "I designed Buffy to be an icon" and "the shows are intentionally designed to create cults"

The show received an Emmy Award nomination for the 2000 episode "Hush", which featured an extended sequence with no character dialog. The 2001 episode "The Body" revolved around the death of Buffy's mother, and was filmed with no musical score, only diegetic music; it was included in over 100 major critics' "Ten Best" lists that year. The fall 2001 musical episode "Once More, with Feeling", also received many plaudits, but was omitted from Emmy nomination ballots by accident. [3] All three episodes were written and directed by Joss Whedon, and are frequently cited as fan favorites.

Monsters and dark forces

"I find myself suddenly needing to know the plural of 'apocalypse'."

— character Riley Finn, in episode "A New Man"
File:Buffy Spike2.jpg
James Marsters as the vampire Spike

The most prominent monsters in the Buffy bestiary are vampires, who are presented in the show in a variety of ways, selectively following traditional myths, lore, and literary conventions. Buffy and her companions also fight a wide variety of demons, as well as ghosts, gods, zombies, and evil humans, and are frequently called upon to save the world from complete destruction. The mythology of the show is often inspired by classical supernatural tales and other cultural, fictional, and religious sources. The supernatural elements of the show often have a clear metaphorical or symbolic aspect.

Buffy and her friends battle dark forces using a combination of physical combat, magic, and detective-style investigation, guided by the extensive research of ancient and mystical reference books. Hand-to-hand combat is chiefly undertaken by Buffy, Angel and later, Spike. Willow eventually becomes an adept witch, while Giles contributes his extensive knowledge of demonology and supernatural lore.

As the authors of Dusted: The Unauthorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer point out, the series was, at times, pastiche, borrowing heavily from previous horror novels, movies, and short stories and from authors as diverse as H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King and from such common literary stock as folklore and myths. Some of the borrowings that fuel Buffy plots, characters, and themes are:

Setting

The show is set in the fictional California town of Sunnydale (roughly analogous to Santa Barbara), whose suburban Sunnydale High School rests on the site of a "Hellmouth", a gateway between our world and the realm of demons. The Hellmouth serves as a nexus for a wide variety of evil creatures and supernatural phenomena, and lies directly beneath the school library (later, in a reconstructed school, beneath the Principal's office).

In addition to being an open-ended plot device, Joss Whedon has cited the Hellmouth as one of his primary metaphors in creating the series, suggesting that a large number of contemporary teenagers feel that their own high school is a sinister, threatening place.

The high school used in the first three seasons is actually Torrance High School, in Torrance, California. The school exterior is frequently used in other television shows and movies, most notably Beverly Hills 90210, Bring It On, The O.C. and the spoof, Not Another Teen Movie.

In addition to the high school and its library, action frequently takes place in many of the town's cemeteries, local nightclub The Bronze, and Buffy and her mother's home, where many of the characters also live at various points in the series.

Metaphorical nature

Many Buffy stories are metaphors for the emotional challenges of adolescence or young adulthood. In "Out of Mind, Out of Sight," invisibility is used as a metaphor for being ignored. In "The Pack," Xander and other teens become possessed by hyenas, which allegorizes the pack mentality that often results from negative peer pressure. Vampirism and magic are frequently used as metaphors for sexual intercourse. The tragic love affair between the vampire Angel and Buffy was fraught with metaphorical elements, the most noteworthy of which occurred when their having sex resulted in the vampire losing his soul and becoming a murderous villain. As Sarah Michelle Gellar puts it:

"That's the ultimate metaphor. You sleep with a guy and he turns bad on you."
— Bye-Bye Buffy on 2003-05-20 at CBS News

Influences and influence

Inspirations for Buffy

Whedon has often noted the impact of comic books on his work. He is writing for the Astonishing X-Men series and has credited Kitty Pryde, whom he handles in that series, as a significant influence on the character of Buffy and some of his other female characters. [citation needed] In addition, comics such as Superman and Spider-Man explore similar themes, particularly those relating to the tension between the duties of a superhero and the more mundane concerns of their "ordinary" alter ego.

Other influences include My So-Called Life, whose sympathetic portrayal of teen anxieties served as an acknowledged template for Buffy (Executive Producer Marti Noxon stated: "I'm basically trying to write My So-Called Life with vampires" [4]), and the "monster of the week" storylines of The X-Files. Whedon has also cited cult film Night of the Comet as a "big influence" on Buffy. [5]

Works influenced by Buffy

Buffy has exerted a marked influence on TV and film, with shows such as Smallville, Roswell, and Ghost Whisperer, as well as movies such as The Faculty and Bring It On owing something in their themes, devices, and verbal style to the show. Other shows reflective of Buffy's influence are, notably Cartoon Network's The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Sky's Hex and UPN's Veronica Mars [6].

In addition, many Buffy alumni have gone on to write for or create other shows, some of which bear a notable resemblance to the style and concepts of Buffy. Such Whedonesque endeavors include Tru Calling (Douglas Petrie, Jane Espenson), Wonderfalls (Tim Minear), Point Pleasant (Marti Noxon), Jake 2.0 (David Greenwalt), The Inside (Tim Minear) and Smallville (Steven S. DeKnight)

Moreover, Autumn 2003 saw a number of new shows going into production in the US that featured strong girls/young women forced to come to terms with some supernatural power or destiny while trying to maintain a normal life.[7] These "post-Buffy" shows include the aforementioned Tru Calling and Wonderfalls as well as Dead Like Me and Joan of Arcadia. In the words of Bryan Fuller, the creator of Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls:

[Buffy] really turned a corner for series storytelling. It showed that young women could be in situations that were both fantastic and relatable, and instead of shunting women off to the side, it put them at the center.

In addition, Buffy has inspired a new historical novel series titled The Gardella Vampire Chronicles, by Colleen Gleason. The first in the series, about a "chosen" female vampire hunter with echoes of Buffy, is set in Jane Austen's England and will be released in January 2007. Titled The Rest Falls Away, it and its sequel, Rises the Night are being published by Penguin/Putnam.

Legacy

Academic studies

BTVS is notable for attracting the interest of scholars of popular culture. [8] Academic settings increasingly include the show as a topic of literary study and analysis. It has inspired several books and essays, including Reading the Vampire Slayer, edited by Roz Kaveney, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy, edited by James B. South. There is also an online refereed journal, Slayage, dedicated to critical studies of the show, which has an expansive list of essays and articles from professors, critics, and students. The creators of Slayage coined the now commonly accepted term Buffy Studies.

The overall analysis of Buffy frequently focuses on its relevance to contemporary feminism [9] The show is sometimes used a textual example of third wave feminism, a field which encourages the development of scholarship and courses exploring Girl Power in popular culture. Others have referred to Buffy as post feminist [10], while some take issue with Buffy being identified as a feminist work [11].

Other topics associated with Buffy are issues of sexuality (particularly lesbianism) and its representation [12], [13], and issues of race, class, and otherness metaphorically represented through supernatural creatures [14].

Spinoffs

Buffy has inspired a wide range of official and unofficial works, including television shows, books, comics and games. A timeline listing when these stories take place in relation to each other can be traced in Buffyverse chronology. The franchise has also inspired a number of action figures and other merchandise.

Angel

Main article: Angel (TV series)

Buffy's perpetually tragic, doomed love for the vampire-with-a-soul, Angel, played by David Boreanaz, was a recurrent theme in the first three seasons of the show. Angelus, as he was originally known, had his human soul restored by a gypsy curse, plaguing him with guilt over the one hundred and forty-five years of murder and mayhem he had inflicted on a slew of innocent victims. The Angel character was so popular that a series featuring him, Angel, was spun off from Buffy. In addition to Boreanaz, Angel inherited Buffy regulars Charisma Carpenter and Alexis Denisof, followed later by Mercedes McNab and James Marsters. Angel continued to appear occasionally on Buffy and several Buffy characters made guest appearances on Angel. The spin off ran for five seasons on The WB, and was ultimately more successful in the ratings than its parent series.

Expanded Universe, fan films, and adult parody

Main articles: Buffyverse canon, Buffyverse chronology, Buffyverse novels, Buffyverse comics, and Buffyverse (Fan made productions)

The Buffyverse canon comprises the TV series Buffy and Angel along with several comics written by members of Mutant Enemy. The Buffyverse novels, Buffy video games and the vast majority of Buffyverse comics, though licensed by 20th Century Fox, are generally considered non-canon, as are Buffyverse fan made productions.

Outside of the TV series, the Buffyverse has been officially expanded and elaborated on by various authors and artists in the so-called "Buffyverse Expanded Universe", despite the fact that 20th Century Fox does consider these derivative works canon. The creators of these works are generally free to tell their own stories set in the Buffyverse, and may or may not keep to established continuity. Similarly writers for the TV series are under no obligation to use continuity which has been established by the Expanded Universe, and may contradict such continuity. The works sometimes flesh out background information on characters. For example Go Ask Malice provides essential information about the character, Faith Lehane.

The Buffyverse comics were first published by Dark Horse who has retained the right to produce Buffy comics. IDW now hold the license to produce Angel comics. Joss Whedon wrote an eight-issue miniseries for Dark Horse Comics entitled Fray, about a futuristic vampire slayer. Its final issue came out in August 2003. Dark Horse Comics has just announced that Whedon will be producing another comic series with 20 issues beginning in October 2006 that will pick up where the television show left off and be an 8th season of sorts [15]. Pocket Books hold the license to produce Buffy novels, but their license to produce Angel novels expired in 2004.

The Buffyverse has also inspired several unofficial fan-made productions. For example, in recent years Buffyverse fan films have been created for distribution on the internet. In 2001 "Fluffy the English Vampire Slayer" was released and became "one of the first widely watched Whedonverse fan films"[1]. The computer-animated series Consanguinity following the fictional vampires 'Damien' and 'James', was released from 2004 onwards. Currently Cherub, a parody of Angel is already in its second season. Furthermore the upcoming Forgotten Memories will provide a direct continuation of Buffy (with all roles recast), the story will takes place 23 months after "Chosen".

Others

Buffy has inspired several magazines and companion books, as well as countless websites, online discussion forums, and works of fan fiction. Eden Studios have published a Buffy role-playing game. There have also been two soundtrack albums (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale - Music from the TV Series), as well as a CD (and, in Europe, DVD single) of the "Once More, with Feeling" musical episode.

Undeveloped spinoffs

Main article: Undeveloped Buffyverse productions

Parodies and references

There have been a number of spoofs of the show, including a Saturday Night Live sketch, which relocated the Slayer to the Seinfeld universe, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as an Elaine Benes styled version of Buffy. MADtv featured a "Buffy the Umpire Slayer" sketch, in which Buffy slew umpires in high school baseball games. Other parodies include Muffin the Vampire Baker on the Sluggy Freelance webcomic, Fluffy the English Vampire Slayer an amateur fan film from 2001, and Once More With Hobbits, which rewrites the lyrics of Buffy's musical episode Once More, with Feeling.

The series, which employed pop-culture references as a frequent humorous device, has itself become a frequent pop-culture reference in other works. For example, a Friends episode included a pornographic movie entitled Buffay the Vampire Layer starring Ursula Buffay, who uses her twin sister Phoebe's name for the credits. The TV show Supernatural made reference to Buffy when two amateur ghost hunters ask themselves "What Would Buffy Do?"

Webcomic The Wotch [18] frequently references Buffy; the main characters are fans of the show and reference it, Angel, and Firefly often.

In 2005, a Trans-Neptunian object 2004 XR190 was unofficially named "Buffy", after the main character of the series.

In the House of Mouse episode "Gone Goofy", when Donald Duck is watching TV, there is a parody of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called "Goofy the Vampire Slayer".

References to the show also appear in video games, including a decorative statue in the MMORPG Anarchy Online called the "Marble Statue of the Goddess Buffy Summers". Buffy was also referenced in the 2004 video game The X-Files: Resist or Serve.[19] In the game Max Payne a secret room contains a staked corpse with "Buffy" smeared on the wall in blood. There are also several unofficial MUDs and MUSHes based on the series.

Sarah Michelle Gellar lent her voice to an episode of Robot Chicken, co-created by Seth Green (who played Oz on "Buffy"), for a parody version of what the 8th season of "Buffy" might have been like.

Buffy has also been the topic of filk songs, such as Angel's Lament by the Brobdingnagian Bards.

Characters

File:Buffy Cast1.jpg
The core cast of Buffy in season one, 1997. From left to right: Xander, Buffy, Willow, Giles.
Main articles: List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters, Main Characters, and Minor characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Main characters

Buffy is "The Slayer", one in a long line of young girls chosen by fate to battle evil forces. This calling also mystically endows her with dramatically increased physical strength, endurance, agility, intuition, accelerated healing, and a limited degree of clairvoyance, usually in the form of prophetic dreams.

Giles (rarely referred to by his first name) is a Watcher, a member of an academic council whose job has been to train the Slayers. Giles researches the supernatural creatures that Buffy must face, offering insights into their origins and advice on how to kill them.

Willow was originally a nerdy girl who contrasted Buffy's beautiful cheerleader personality but also reflected the social isolation Buffy suffered as a Slayer. As the seasons progressed, Willow became a more aggressive, active, and even sensual character, becoming a powerful Wiccan and a lesbian.

Possessing no special skills, Xander often functioned as comic relief, but also provided a grounded, "everyman" perspective in the supernatural Buffyverse. In another departure from the usual conventions of television, Xander was notable for being an insecure and subordinate male in a world dominated by powerful females.

Buffy and Willow are the only characters to appear in every episode of all seven seasons. Xander appeared in all except Season 7, Episode 7 ("Conversations with Dead People").

Supporting characters

The tall, dark and handsome vampire Angel was Buffy's love interest and the central relationship in the show in seasons 1 through 3. Once an especially vicious and destructive vampire called Angelus, he fed off a romany gypsy girl and was cursed with his human soul--which he can lose if he experiences a moment of perfect happiness. Angel is a study on multiple personalities and often teeters on the edge of morality and stability. Angel's status as Buffy's first love and soulmate was doomed to be the most tragic relationship for Buffy. He left Buffy so he could give her a chance at a normal life and went to LA to make amends for his sins and search for redemption in his own 5 season spin-off, Angel (TV series).

Spike is a vampire character whose role varies dramatically through the course of the series, ranging from major villain who is love's bitch, to the sarcastic comic relief, to Buffy's romantic interest in a relationship that grows from miserable lust to a friendship, and lastly to a self-sacrificing hero. However, it was not until he went on AtS that he learned about being truly selfless, as his greatest flaw was doing things for a reward (frequently for Buffy's approval). Spike is known for his Billy Idol platinum hair, his catch-phrase "bloody hell", his black leather duster, and was a fan favorite.

Anya is a former 1,120 year old vengeance demon (Anyanka) who specialized in avenging scorned women. After being forcibly stripped of her demonic powers by Giles, the character is forced to re-learn how to be an ordinary human, a journey which is portrayed as both comical (her fear of rabbits, her love of money) and poignant. Her story is largely focused on her romantic relationship with Xander, and like many characters on the show, she is portrayed as morally ambivalent.

Tara is introduced first as a fellow member of a Wicca group during Willow's first year of college, their friendship eventually turning into an ongoing love affair. Her character and her relationship to Willow attracted significant attention as one of few featured same-sex relationships on television. She was allowed to grow emotionally as a character once she stepped out of Willow's shadow, but sadly, her character was shot through a window unexpectedly by Warren Meers, soon after her reconciliation with Willow--catalyzing Willow to nearly destroy the world.

Dawn was introduced in Season 5 as Buffy's fourteen-year-old younger sister, sent to Buffy in human form as a disguise for a dangerous magical artifact called the Key. Although Dawn's genesis was magical and made from Buffy rather than being her actual sister, she functioned as a complete and normal human girl, which significantly changed the character dynamics for the remainder of the series. Dawn allowed the narrative to stay connected to its teenaged roots as the other characters grew older, e.g. allowing the return in season 7 to the primary setting of Sunnydale High School.

Cordelia was the archetypal popular, shallow, mean-spirited cheerleader, included in part as a contrast to Buffy's former-cheerleader character. She is tactless, but her directness is also funny and, at times, a necessary corrective. She had brief relationships with Xander and Wesley while on BtVS. After season 3 she left Buffy and appeared as a founding regular on the spin-off Angel.

Oz was introduced as Willow's first boyfriend, and later became a werewolf and an active member of Buffy's inner circle. Portrayed as taciturn and unflappable, the contrast between his outward coolness and his violent animal episodes was an example of the show's efforts to subvert usual character expectations, as well as a frequent tool to display double-personalities beside Angel. As an unusual side-note, the actor Seth Green went on to co-design and supervise the creation of the acclaimed line of Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures.

Buffy's mother is an anchor of normality in the Scoobies' lives, even after she learns of Buffy's role in the supernatural world ("Becoming, Part Two"). In "Lovers Walk", she lends a sympathetic ear to Spike's heartbreak, a gesture that he will never forget. In season 5, she dies of an aneurysm after a tumor is removed from her brain ("The Body"). In the first episode of season 4, "The Freshman", Buffy jokes "Can't wait till mom gets the bill for these books, I hope it's a funny aneurysm." The character of Joyce reappears in later seasons, but without the character truly returning from the dead.

Faith is the slayer who was brought forth when Kendra was killed by the vampire Drusilla. To begin with, she fought on the side of good with Buffy and the rest of the Scooby gang, but she was soon drawn to the dark side after murdering the Deputy Mayor, and joined forces with the Mayor. Faith was put in to a coma by Buffy; eight months later she woke and swapped bodies with Buffy. After being defeated she fled to Los Angeles, going after Angel. Angel was able to rehabilitate her, then she confessed to her crimes and went to jail. Three years later she broke out of prison to capture Angelus, aided by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. She reluctantly went to Sunnydale once more to help Buffy defeat the First Evil. Throughout the series, Faith displayed a much darker, dangerously fun-seeking approach to slaying (and murder). She is the dark side of a Slayer's personality.

Riley is Buffy's first serious boyfriend after Angel. He is an operative in a military organisation called "The Initiative" that uses science and military technology to hunt down HST's or "hostile sub-terrestrials" (demons). Riley is Angel's opposite, an Iowa-born-and-raised man whose strength lies in his Captain America-style military secret identity. Buffy's superior physical strength was the cause of some insecurity, which, along with Buffy's seeming inability to let him in, eventually caused him to leave in the middle of Season 5.

Recurring Characters

Villains
  • The Master (Mark Metcalf): Possibly the oldest living vampire, and Buffy's first big bad. The Master was trapped in a church which collapsed in an earthquake and he got stuck in the Hellmouth when he tried to open it. He bit Buffy and she drowned, only to be revived by Xander. His bones were later sledgehammered by Buffy.
  • Drusilla (Juliet Landau): The seer who was raped and made insane by Angelus, the one-time paramour and sire of Spike who's clairvoyant abilities and hypnotism are her strengths. She frequently speaks in riddles of what the pixies in her head tell her, and is often too "sack of hammers" to be useful. She is still at large.
  • Angelus (David Boreanaz): The true villain of season 2, and Buffy's most painful and emotional struggle with any big bad, as he was formerly her souled-lover, Angel. Angelus killed the gypsy and computer teacher, Jenny Calendar and placed her to be found in Giles' bed. He, with Drusilla, planned to send the world into Acathla's hell, until Buffy, with the aid of a jealous Spike and Willow's magic, had to send the reensouled Angel to Hell with a sword through his torso before he could even remember the deeds of Angelus' torment of Sunnydale.
  • Mayor Richard Wilkins III (Harry Groener): The Mayor and creator of the city of Sunnydale (built on the Hellmouth for the demons to feed on), who sold his soul 100 years previous in order to ascend to being a pure demon.
  • Professor Maggie Walsh (Lindsay Crouse): One of Buffy's college professors and leader of The Initiative. She tried to kill Buffy and deceive Riley. She was stabbed by her own creation, Adam.
  • Adam (George Hertzberg): A part-cyborg, part-demon, part-human creation of The Initiative under Maggie Walsh who was interested in how things worked.
  • Glory (Clare Kramer): An evil hellgod seeking to return to the evil dimension she had been exiled from by fellow hellgods. She had to brain-suck humans in order to keep her cognative processes together, leaving the humans insane. She was after the Key to return to her home dimension, which by getting there would bleed all the dimensions together. She was stuck inside Ben, her meat-puppet body that reduced her powers.
  • Warren Mears (Adam Busch): The leader of "the Trio", the main villains in the 6th season. He first appears to be a fairly normal nerd, but becomes a violent, power-driven timebomb. He was a misunderstood reject who lashed out to become something feared and thus to gain respect, even by doing evil deeds such as kill his girlfriend Katrina, whom he had tried to rape and Tara. He managed to shoot Buffy and kill Tara in Buffy's own backyard, causing the most damage to the Scoobies since Angelus. He is killed by evil-Willow in the episode "Villains".
  • Caleb (Nathan Fillion): An arrogant, misogynistic preacher who served as a vessel and evil-doer for The First Evil.
Allies
Others
  • Jonathan Levinson (Danny Strong): A hapless high school nobody, introduced in the first episode and frequently included in brief comic appearances in seasons 1-3; featured heavily in the noteworthy episodes Earshot and Superstar and as a major character in season 6.
  • Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab): A vapid high school companion to Cordelia Chase, who became a humorously inept vampire in later seasons, and went on to be a regular character on Angel. Harmony was the only character other than Angel to appear in both the first episode of Buffy and the final episode of Angel.
  • Andrew Wells (Tom Lenk): A nerd who becomes a foe of Buffy, mainly through peer pressure and bad judgement. He does try to redeem himself throughout season 7. There were several humorous hints that he was gay or at least questioning his sexuality.
  • Amy Madison (Elizabeth Anne Allen): A student and witch who encounters the gang. Later Amy turns herself into a rat to save herself from be burned at the stake and was stuck in this form for seasons after until season 6. She ultimately resents the Scoobs for how they treat and handle Willow after she goes "bad", yet cannot seem to have the same sympathy for her.
  • Graham Miller (Bailey Chase) and Forrest Gates (Leonard Roberts): Riley's peers in the initiative.

Controversy

The series came under fire from concerned parents groups after the episode "Surprise" in which Buffy and Angel consummate their relationship, causing him to lose his soul. The concern was that the scene implied no usage of protection. Sarah Michelle Gellar laughed the complaints away, stating on The Late Show with David Letterman that Angel, being a 300+ year old dead vampire, "shoots blanks." Later in the series, in the episode "Where the Wild Things Are", Buffy's new human lover Riley was shown grabbing a condom before they went to bed.

The series also drew scattered complaints from fans about the purely sexual relationship Buffy entered into with Spike in Season Six. In the commentary from the Season Six DVD, Whedon stated that he had intended for Season Six to represent the ugly, scary side of growing up, and to further illustrate that, he decided that Buffy, who usually fell for good men who were interested in true love, would instead fall into a very ill-advised relationship based purely on lust. Nonetheless, the general consensus from critics and fans alike was that the series had lost its true focus and that it featured too many scenes of Buffy and Spike copulating in increasingly unrealistic places.

Series information

Episodes

Main article: List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes

DVD releases

The Chosen Collection (Seasons 1 - 7)
File:Buffyausdvdcollection.jpg
The Extremely Limited Edition (UK) Complete DVD Collection (Seasons 1 - 7)
DVD Release Date
US UK Australia
The Complete First Season 15 Jan 2002 27 Nov 2000 20 Nov 2000
The Complete Second Season 11 Jun 2002 21 May 2001 15 Jun 2001
The Complete Third Season 7 Jan 2003 29 Oct 2001 22 Nov 2001
The Complete Fourth Season 10 Jun 2003 13 May 2002 20 May 2002
The Complete Fifth Season 9 Dec 2003 28 Oct 2002 29 Nov 2002
The Complete Sixth Season 25 May 2004 12 May 2003 20 Apr 2003
The Complete Seventh Season 16 Nov 2004 5 Apr 2004 15 May 2004
The Chosen Collection (Seasons 1–7) 15 Nov 2005 --
The Complete DVD Collection (Seasons 1–7) -- 31 Oct 2005 23 Nov 2005

Awards and nominations

Main article: Buffy the Vampire Slayer awards and nominations

References

Articles

Books

  • The Book of Fours, Nancy Holder (ISBN 0743412400)
  • Chosen, (season seven novelization) Nancy Holder (ISBN 0689866259)
  • Cursed, Mel Odom (ISBN 068986437x)
  • Doomsday Deck, Diana G. Gallagher, (ISBN 0743400410)
  • Dusted: The Unauthorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lawrence Miles, Lars Pearson, and Christa Dickson (ISBN 0972595902)
  • Halloween Rain, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder (ISBN 0671017136)
  • Heat, Nancy Holder (ISBN 068986017x)
  • Immortal, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder (ISBN 0671041754)
  • Monster Island, Christopher Golden and Thomas E. Sniegoski (ISBN 0689856652)
  • Mortal Fear, Scott and Denise Ciencin, (ISBN 0743427718)
  • Night of the Living Rerun, Arthur Byron Cover, (ISBN 0671017152)
  • Night Terrors, Alice Henderson, (ISBN 1416909273)
  • Oz Into The Wind, Christopher Golden (ISBN 0743400380)
  • Pretty Maids All in a Row, Christopher Golden (ISBN 0743418921)
  • Queen of the Slayers, Nancy Holder (ISBN 1416902414)
  • The Quotable Slayer, Steven Brezenoff and Micol Ostow (compilers) (ISBN 0743410173)
  • Return to Chaos, Craig Shaw Gardner (ISBN 0671021362)
  • Seven Crows, John Vornholt (ISBN 0689860145)
  • Slayer Slang: A Buffy The Vampire Slayer Lexicon, Michael Adams (ISBN 0195160339)
  • Spark and Burn, Diana G. Gallagher (ISBN 141690056x)
  • Visitors, Laura Anne Gilman and Josepha Sherman, (ISBN 0671026283)
  • What Would Buffy Do: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide, Jana Riess (ISBN 0787969222)
  • Why Buffy Matters, Rhonda Wilcox (ISBN 1845110293)

Academic

"Buffyology" refers to the academic study of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and related cinematographic prodcutions and publications, including the motion picture of the same title; the Buffy spin-off, Angel; and the paperback novels and comic books associated with the TV series.

Academic contributors

Among the academic contributors to the study are Yale University's David Graeber, professor of anthropology ("Rebel Without A God"); University of Maryland's Asim Ali, Department of American Studies ("Community, Language, and Postmodernism at the Mouth of Hell"; GraceAnne A. DeCandido, M. L. S. ("Rupert Giles and Search Tools for Wisdom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer"); Stanford University's Brian Thomas, a doctoral candidate in ecology ("Vampire Ecology in the Jossverse"); Steven C. Schlozman, M. D. (""Vampires and Those Who Slay Them"); Beth Braun, of the Journal of Popular Film and Television ("The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Ambiguity of Evil in Supernatural Representations"); and Deborah Netburn of the New York Observer ("Media Studies Does Buffy—And Buffy, as Always, Prevails").

Areas of study

Buffyology includes academic studies of Buffy in relation to:

  • anthropology
  • chronology (narrative and historical timelines)
  • demonlogy (the study of demons)
  • ecology
  • existentialism
  • feminism
  • film studies
  • history (both ancient and medieval)
  • homosexuality
  • linguistics
  • magic (the arts of enchantment)
  • musicology
  • narratology (storytelling)
  • nomenclature (naming conventions and significance)
  • philosophy (including ethics and metaphysics)
  • psychology
  • religion
  • sociology
  • theology
  • vampirology (the study of vampires)

A number of Web sites offer essays detailing the results of these various studies [20].

  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, James B. South (ed), Open Court Publishing 2003 (ISBN 0812695313) (philosophy)
  • Sex And The Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer For The Buffy Fan, Lorna Jowett, Wesleyan University Press 2005 (ISBN 0819567582) (Gender Studies)
  • Fighting The Forces: What's At Stake In Buffy The Vampire Slayer?, Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery (eds), Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2002 (ISBN 0742516814) (Cultural studies)
  • Reading the Vampire Slayer : The Unofficial Critical Companion to Buffy and Angel, Roz Kaveney (ed), Tauris Parke Paperbacks 2002 (ISBN 1860647626) (Cultural studies)
  • Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Discuss Their Favorite Television Show, Glenn Yeffeth (ed), Benbella Books 2003 (ISBN 1932100083) (Cultural studies)
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anne Billson, University of California Press 2005 (ISBN 1844570894) (Cultural Studies)

Footnotes

  1. ^ Wired.com - Fan Films Reclaim the Whedonverse
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