With a touch of cheese, tragedy and proto-Avenger style action scenes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an unrecognised 90’s treasure that deserves to be revived from the grave. A challenging as much as it is a thrilling watch, I spent much of my teenage years cramming episodes with my dad. After coming to uni no one would understand my frequent references to an old favourite which for me stands as a pillar of young adult television. How has this program been so overlooked by people my age? 

As if the main star, a young and fiery Sarah Michelle Gellar, isn’t a compelling enough reason to commit your time to this show, the cast and crew involved feature other recognisable names, amongst them How I Met Your Mother’s Alyson Hannigan, as well as beloved Brit Anthony Head. Not to mention the show’s creator being Joss Whedon, later known for writing The Cabin in the Woods (2011) and Avengers Assemble (2012), followed by Age of Ultron (2015). 

Buffy Summers, alongside a “Scooby gang” of school friends, tackles a new enemy each episode emerging from the “Hellmouth”, ironically based in “Sunnydale” high school. Amongst these are recurrent vampire villains Spike and Drusilla (James Marsters and Juliet Landau), and always an overarching and more threatening antagonist culminating in explosive season finales. To mix things up, there are occasional moments of hilarity in episodes such as ‘Once More With Feeling’, a classic example of a random musical episode, mingled with moments of absolute terror in episodes such as ‘Hush’. 

It has got all the best aspects that people love in the recent vampire-themed saga Twilight; the love triangles, the romance with a dark and mysterious vampire (David Boreanaz), and the disorienting experience of being a teenager in high school, but most importantly it has everything that Twilight doesn’t have: a feisty, non-passive female protagonist, a storyline not merely focused on romance but about saving the world, and the testing yet unbreakable love between family. 

Whilst the characters continuously battle monsters, demons, vampires galore, Buffy simultaneously tackles equally intimidating real-life problems faced by young people that transcends its decade in its continued relevance and perfectly intertwines with the enemies faced each episode. The show is also ground-breaking in its status as a television remake of a film (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1992), and its densely embedded intertextuality and references more commonly seen in today’s television. One of the most enduring storylines involves a relationship between main characters Willow and Tara, in a rarely seen positive portrayal of young lesbian romance. 

At a total of seven seasons, it’s a beefy commitment. But I see no better time spent in our current lockdown than watching this classic mix of light-heartedness, genuine emotion, breathless, thrilling action and inspiring female characterisation. For me, even 20 years on, it’s television perfection.

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