The episode begins with Buffy, now played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, having nightmares about vampires, cemeteries, and flashes from what I believe are future episodes of the season. She awakes with a start in her room, surrounded by boxes. Along with her mother, Buffy has moved from Los Angeles to Sunnydale, a quiet (and at this point, little) town far away from the troubles of the recent past. As we soon learn, Buffy’s mother relocated so they could start a new life, after some incident that resulted in the destruction of her old school’s gym. Since that didn’t happen in the movie, as far as I recall, we can only assume that something similar happened, and the consequences were enough to swear Buffy off Slaying completely.
Buffy begins her first day of school attempting to fit in. A run-in with the apparently hapless Xander leaves him flustered and her confused…and with him holding a stake that she was carrying around in her bag. Her next encounter is with popularity magnet Cordelia Chase, a buxom brunette at the top of the social evolutionary ladder. Buffy begins fitting in with Cordy pretty quickly, but she is more than a little bothered when Cordy lays into another student, the mousy but adorably intelligent Willow.
It’s not long before Buffy is looking for some textbooks in the library. She is met instantly by Mr. Giles, the new librarian, who recognizes her within the space of about five words. He breaks out a grin and a huge book entitled “Vampyr”…which had appeared in Buffy’s little nightmare that morning. Realizing that Giles must be her new Watcher, she rebuffs his attempts to talk her into resuming her duties. She’s had enough of that, having seen most of her life consumed in those duties in LA. She makes it clear that she has no intention of getting back into the game, even though Giles explains that Sunnydale is a huge whopping festival of evil that never closes. She leaves with every intention of not getting involved. Unfortunately, unknown to both Giles and Buffy, Xander has heard the entire conversation, and he’s even more confused than before.
Buffy finds Willow, and asks her to help with getting up to speed in her classes. Willow agrees, and then Xander and his Cordy-obsessed friend Jessie show up as well. Xander asks about the stake, but Buffy puts off his questions. Cordy comes along and eventually, after some requisite sniping at the less socially inclined, informs them that a body has been found in the women’s locker room. Sure enough, when Buffy checks on the cause, it’s something very familiar.
With her first day at school now an official disaster, Buffy decides to take up Cordy’s earlier invitation to check out the Bronze, the local hang-out. On the way, she waylays a handsome stranger in extremely fey clothing following her. He warns her that she needs to be careful, because they are standing on the mouth of hell, and the Harvest is coming very soon. He doesn’t elaborate, even so far as leaving his name a mystery, but he does give her a cross necklace in a box to wear.
At the Bronze, Buffy meets up with Willow, who was waiting for Xander in the hopes of actually talking to someone of the male gender. Buffy explains that life has taught her to seize the day, and Willow seems to like the idea. They are about to talk about it more when Buffy sees Giles hanging about the club, looking like he would like to be anywhere else. Buffy goes to find out what he’s doing there, leaving Willow to wait for Xander.
Buffy confronts Giles about sending the stranger to bother her, but he claims ignorance. He has come to the club in the hopes of convincing her that she needs to take her duties seriously, since there are signs that something big is coming. He challenges her ability to detect vampires simply using her innate abilities, and she counters by using simple observations of clothing and mannerisms to detect who might be a vampire. Unfortunately, her first choice is the guy Willow has decided to “seize the day” with. In the meantime, Xander and Jessie have arrived, and Cordy has rebuffed Jessie latest advances, sending him into the arms of a young blonde vampire…the same one who dispatched the victim at the school.
Buffy goes on the hunt around the club for Willow and the vampire, and winds up almost staking Cordy to the bathroom door. Her social life now on its way out the door, she runs into Xander outside of the club, and he confronts her about the whole Slayer deal. She’s not at all pleased about this latest twist, but she knows that she has to do something to help Willow. A brief conversation with Xander sets them off on her trail.
By this point, Willow’s “date” has led her to a crypt in the middle of a large cemetery, and soon enough, Jessie shows up behind the blonde vampire, Darla. It seems that the two vampires are gathering offerings for someone named the Master, in preparation for the Harvest. Jessie has already been bitten, and it doesn’t look like Willow is far behind. Buffy arrives just in time, and when the vampires attack, Buffy quickly takes out Willow’s “date”. Darla soon realizes that Buffy is hardly an ordinary opponent, but backup soon arrives when Luke, a much bigger vampire, comes to collect the food.
Luke is the leader of several vampires scheming to release an even older and more powerful vampire named the Master from imprisonment somewhere under Sunnydale. Buffy is getting in the way of providing the Master with the nourishment he needs to get stronger again. Luke and Buffy fight while Xander helps Jessie and Willow out of the crypt, in the hopes of running for help. But as Luke beats Buffy all over the walls, and finally into an open tomb, a whole lot of other vampires confront the other three. As Luke descends upon Buffy, prophetic words of doom from the coming Harvest on his lips, things don’t look like they could get much worse…
Analysis
After taking the concept of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” into the realm of feature films, and quite frankly making a terrible film, Joss Whedon somehow managed to convince the emerging WB Network to put their money and resources behind a series based on the character. Granted, it was just a mid-season replacement, a small 12 episode commitment, but it was a heck of a lot more than the film warranted. But perhaps it was the earlier failures within the writing and direction of the film that led to the much more realized concept that debuted with this episode.
Having been given a 12 episode commitment and the time to develop those episodes into the best product possible, Mutant Enemy was able to use the film as a “pilot” and jump more or less directly into a short but meaningful plot arc. That kind of freedom also allowed them to take the usual elements of a pilot and roll them into a two-part series premiere, rather than a single hour or a long and laborious two-hour nightmare. The result is still just a bit slow, and the characterizations that later made the ensemble work are only sketched out in their most basic forms. But the elements are in place, both the stirring series mythology and the comic underpinnings that so far define ME product.
In particular, the character of Buffy comes across as far more likeable than in the film. I’m sure that part of the difference is the acting ability of Sarah Michelle Gellar, who gives Buffy a certain level of underlying personality that is completely absent from the character in the film. That Buffy felt like a cardboard cutout in comparison.
We also get a much better supporting cast. I think that there are definitely shades of Pike in Xander, especially in terms of the “hip to be square” motif, but there is none of the cliched quick and easy payoff of Xander’s attraction to Buffy. Part of that, of course, is the running time that each medium has to work with, but it’s also a writing issue that was dealt with.
Anthony Head’s portrayal of Giles has a certain quality to it that was missing completely from the Watcher character in the film. From the very beginning, you can see that the refined and stuffy British demeanor is mostly a smokescreen. There is a mystery about Giles, and while many of his secrets are later revealed, that sense of substantial gravitas never disappears. He is truly the foundation of the series, even more than Buffy.
Cordelia is also an evolution of the idea of social pressures that burden Buffy, even while she has to deal with much more deadly threats. By creating a character that can take those pressures and give them a single voice, someone who can be developed over time as well, it adds to the overall strength of storytelling. It’s better than having safely anonymous students sneer and chuckle, making them impersonal adversaries.
Willow seems to be a completely new creation for the series, not really developing from something that existed in some form in the film. Willow is played very sheltered here, but you can see that this is as much of an illusion as Giles’ demeanor. There are certainly issues of self-esteem at play with Willow, and looking back at how she was introduced, we can see how far she evolves over the course of the next six years or so. But at the same time, we are reminded of how vulnerable she was in those early days, and it is interesting to consider if her questions about her self-confidence linger into the future.
We only get the most minor glimpses of Angel and Joyce Summers in this episode, which makes a certain amount of sense. Buffy’s mother doesn’t take on much of a life of her own for quite some time, standing instead as a general platform for expressing the concept that Buffy’s slaying must be kept hidden from the “real world” of adults. Angel’s role, of course, was planned out for the length of the season.
I never found the Master to be that compelling a villain, but in comparison to the villains in the film, he is a serious threat. This is the first season, however, and ME is still trying to find the balance of horror and camp that will come almost naturally in the later years. The Master doesn’t play into this episode very much, though, so there is not much to complain about. And Darla is very sexy here, just as Luke comes across as very brutal and direct. Those two characters provide a nice contrast.
As a series concept, the Hellmouth is a good beginning, but it also has the drawback of giving the writers too much of an “out” when it comes to explaining the dynamics of their universe. When the series began with only a 12 episode commitment, and no expectation or need to explain things further, using the Hellmouth as a general “deux ex machina” wasn’t too much of a negative influence. Only later, when the series was growing and the “Angel” series came about, could the weakness of the concept become clear. But just as with the Master, the Hellmouth concept is vague enough for this episode to work as a source of unending evil.
Observations
- You can see the whole town from on top of the gym? What, even the airport, the university, Dracula’s castle…?
- Ah, Buffy’s original hair style and color…I miss it!
- “You know, the library…where the books live…”
- “Well, you’re certainly a fount of nothing…”
- Xander constantly looks like he just woke up and lost his favorite comb.
- You know what else I miss? The original Buffy “look”. The short skirt, those leather calf boots, the push-up bra…yum!
- “But the fun part about the Black Plague…”
- So…Cordy would kill to live in LA, hmm? Talk about planning!
- Speaking of which, the events on “Angel” make a lot more sense when you recall that Buffy started out in LA, and obviously she ran into plenty of trouble there. So LA is established right from the start as a hotbed of demonic activity.
- Giles seems so “refined” in his initial scenes, in terms of his mannerisms.
- Just how much of the material from the film relates to the series history? From what we are given here, we know that Buffy has had contact with a Watcher before. So what exactly happened in that situation?
- “Don’t you have an elsewhere to be?”
- They just left the dead guy under a rug on the locker room floor?
- I wonder what “The Legend of the Seventh Virgin” is about…
- BUFFY: “What, you sent away for the Time-Life series?”
GILES: “Um…yes…”
BUFFY: “Did you get the phone or the calendar?”
GILES: “Er…the calendar…”
- You know, Brian Thompson must have one hell of an interesting resume…
- “Hi…I’m an enormous slut!”
- Angel comes across as such a poser in this episode…but he definitely sets the tone with that velvety jacket, doesn’t he!
- That is one very ugly purple ring, Buffy…
- “I can usually make some vowel sounds! Then I have to go away…”
- “Oh, right, this is my idea of fun…watching clown head jump around all night…”
- “But you didn’t…hone…”
- Besides Buffy’s look, I have to say, Darla’s little schoolgirl routine ain’t half bad either.
- “You look like DeBarge!”
- Just from what Luke says here, it sounds like demons originally ruled the Earth, and then the spreading humanity managed to drive them out into the hell dimensions. In light of the information we have about the First Slayer in later seasons, I wonder if she plays into this history in some fashion…
Overall, while this is definitely an improvement from the poor pacing and bad delivery of the feature film, there are still some elements that need to be developed before the series comes into its own. We see a fairly solid beginning here, though.
I give it a 6/10.
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