“In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.”
Welcome to Retro Rewind, the TGJ original feature carved out to celebrate TV and Film’s game-changing past.
Today, we make our way back to 1997, the year in which the world was first introduced to the TV series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’
Named after the widely panned movie of the same name, ‘Buffy’ tells the tale of a sixteen-year old Valley girl chosen by fate to slay the forces of darkness and the evil that can be high school.
The layered character was portrayed by ‘All My Children‘s Sarah Michelle Gellar who led the series to groundbreaking territory alongside its creator Joss Whedon (‘The Avengers’) on a ratings and critical front.
How so?
One academic study of the hit show came to the following conclusion:
In the world of Buffy the problems that teenagers face become literal monsters. A mother can take over her daughter’s life (“Witch”); a strict stepfather-to-be really is a heartless machine (“Ted”); a young lesbian fears that her nature is demonic (“Goodbye Iowa” and “Family”); a girl who has sex with even the nicest-seeming guy may discover that he afterwards becomes a monster (“Innocence”).
Ready to reunite with the demon-slaying cheerleader?
Catch its unaired pilot and a little action from her rival Kendra (portrayed by Bianca Lawson) and Ashanti below…