Created by Avengers writer and director Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was at its heart an inversion of horror film tropes, where monsters tend to follow beautiful women down dark alleys with gruesome results. In Buffy, Whedon asked: What if the beautiful woman turned around and kicked the monster's ass?
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It's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaThe idea behind Buffy was always simple and a little cute: high school is hell, literally. For Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a blonde cheerleader turned once-in-a-generation savior of the world, the monsters of adolescence and young adulthood—bullying, insecurity, rejection—took literal form, and her fight against them was, metaphorically, the same one the rest of us had to fight. There's a reason she was only able to defeat the most tenacious threats with the help of her less super-powered friends: Because when it feels like the world is ending—as it often does in high school—the support of the people we love is often what saves us from the Hellmouth.
Equal parts action, romance, horror and comedy—and peppered liberally with Whedon's now-famous snark—Buffy was a story about growing up that gave weight and form to just how monstrously hard it can be—and how if we're very, very lucky we have the sort of people around us who can help us get make it out alive.
Number of Seasons: 7 (144 episodes)
Time Requirements:: If you can watch two to three episodes a night—or two episodes, and a few extra on weekends—you can knock this out in less than two months.
Where to Get Your Fix: Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime
Best Character to Follow: Although I'm an awfully big fan of Anya (Emma Caulfield), the ancient vengeance demon turned high schooler with a pathological fear of bunnies, the best character arc by far belongs to Willow (Alyson Hannigan). An awkward computer nerd who slowly blossomed into one of most multi-faceted (and dangerous) characters on the show, Willow didn't have to cast off her "geekdom" in some sort makeover montage to become more powerful, more interesting or more loved; like most of us, she simply had to let herself grow up.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip:
A Lot of Season 1: Even most ardent Buffy fans will admit it: The first season wasn't the strongest. A few of the lowlights include "I Robot, You Jane," where—according to Wikipedia—"Willow accidentally releases the demon Moloch onto the internet"; "The Pack," where the students are possessed by animal spirits and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) almost rapes Buffy; and "Teacher's Pet," where Xander is seduced by a substitute teacher that is actually a preying mantis. Steer clear of those potholes, watch the first few episodes, "Angel," and then head straight for Season 2.
Season 4: Episode 18, "Where the Wild Things Are" Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of Buffy and Riley (Biley? Ruffy?), you may find it difficult to enjoy this episode, where the two of them are endlessly compelled to have sex in a frat house by the angry spirits of abused children.
Season 5: Episode 10, "Into the Woods" Feeling increasingly powerless and left out of Buffy's action-packed life, Riley (Marc Blucas)—the most "normal" of all Buffy's boyfriends—decides to walk on the wild side by paying vampires to suck his blood. In the end, Buffy chases a helicopter to try and save their relationship, but as usual when you have to chase a helicopter to save a relationship, it doesn't end well.
Season 6: Episode 10, "Wrecked" I get it, I get it. You wanted to do a drug addiction story with Willow, with magic as a metaphor, but possibly having her go to a "magic" dealer and take so much "magic" (read: CGI lightning) that she gets into a car accident was a little on the nose, hmm?
Season 7: While some may argue that Season 6 marked the decline of the show, I tend to think the seventh season was where it all fell apart. Where Season 6 represented the messiness, confusion and pain of trying to negotiate the adult world without the structure of school or parents, Season 7 is where Buffy really starts to feel like adulthood. And unfortunately, adulthood is often stupid and boring. While the events of high school and college have a way of feeling epic and tinged with lightning, Season 7—like being grown up—is often very anti-climactic, and has a way of dragging on and on in ways that are sometimes less satisfying than you might have imagined.
Seasons/Episodes You Can't Skip:
Seasons 2 and 3: As rough as the show's first year can be, the second and third season are where it really got good and they lay the foundation for the characters, relationships, and themes that the show will spend the rest of its run redefining. You can't get to the calculus of Seasons 4 and 5 without the algebra of these episodes, so hit the books!
Season 4: Episode 10, "Hush" An Emmy-nominated, totally silent episode designed to prove that the show was more than snappy dialogue, "Hush" is about communication, and how words can get in the way of the truth as often as they express it. (Not something writers like to hear, but there it is.) Do the characters advance more emotionally and interpersonally in this episode than they do in many of the previous ones combined, despite saying nothing? They do!
Season 4: Episode 22, "Restless" The finale to Season 4, "Restless" was Buffy run through a filter of dream logic, a surrealistic series of character studies that tours the dreams of Willow, Xander, Giles, and Buffy while they nap after a difficult battle. Equal parts analysis and prophesy, the episode was packed with opaque but tantalizing teases of Season 5 (and beyond). Ardent Buffy fans would be advised to give it a close reading. Just don't try to make sense of the Cheese Man, OK?
Season 5: Episode 16, "The Body" The most devastating, difficult episode of Buffy, this has no music, and a three-minute scene that feels as wrenching and disorienting as its subject: losing a loved one when you least expect it. Save this one for a day when you can withstand a sucker punch, but by all means watch it.
Season 5: Episode 22, "The Gift" Originally billed as a series finale before UPN picked the show up again, this episode really does mark an endpoint, not to the show itself but to the more adolescent struggles that defined it. While Season 6 explores rockier adult territory, this is the end of Young Buffy as we knew her, and the moment when she truly graduates from child to grownup.
Season 6: Episode 7, "Once More With Feeling" Although Whedon had experimented before with dream sequences, silence and various other conceits, the famous musical episode was the most ambitious of all his experiments, and it succeeded wildly. Cursed by a musically-inclined demon, the people of Sunnydale are suddenly compelled to burst into songs that express deep inner truths (the concept behind most musicals, after all)—and then burst into flames. Not only are the performances and songs surprisingly charming and effective, but they really do contain revelations with major implications for the series. I'm … actually going to go listen to the soundtrack now.
Why You Should Binge:
"High school is hell" is the sort of truism that tends to resonate more strongly with the nerd contingent of the world, and one that lies at the heart of Buffy's appeal. Although the fashions and slang may have changed, the adolescent (hell, even adult) feelings of loneliness, loss and insecurity and remain universal; audiences loved Buffy not because of how many vampires she punched in the face but how she made them feel like they weren't alone in their struggles (or their mistakes) and that no matter how nerdy or awkward or secretly painful their lives might be, they could still belong. They could still find community, friendship, confidence, and purpose. And most importantly, they could still be loved. Is there anything more powerful to tell someone?
Best Scene—From 'The Body':
On a show that often treats death (and undeath) casually, no one saw this coming: a devastatingly realistic scene that captures all the agony, shock and prosaic horror of losing a loved one. (Spoilers.)
The Takeaway:
High school might be hell, but at least you've got your friends—even it all falls apart a bit after college.
If You Liked Buffy You'll Love:
For more Whedon-y spunk and snark transplanted to a space western, try Firefly; for another diminutive but indomitable heroine, try the teen sleuth Veronica Mars. If you just want some self-aware monster fighting, stream yourself some Supernatural.
