Buffy: Slayer of the Vampyrs.

So, it's happening. Buffy is back. This was always inevitable, and the only surprise is that it's taken this long. Still, best believe I did a double take when I saw the news.

The HUGE takeaway? SMG is returning. This pleases me, though I don’t think it was fully necessary. I’ll explain why in a bit.

Chloé Zhao is tipped to direct. No word yet on the actual showrunner(s), but I think it’s safe to say that Joss Whedon will have nothing to do with this revival.

The first big relief? With SMG returning, this isn’t an actual reboot. I mean, she’s still playing Buffy, right? My biggest fear in the modern age was a full reboot—new cast, new Buffy. That would have been an unmitigated disaster and made me very salty. So the fact that this isn’t happening is very good news.

Doesn’t mean I’m not nervous, though. I still hold a ridiculous level of obsession with this show 27 years later. There’s barely a week that goes by without some Buffy media on in my house—whether it’s an episode playing in the background, a Buffy podcast, or the huge, glaring poster of Gellar staring at me from the wall. Hell, I’ve got the full Buffy and Angel VHS collections right next to the full DVD collections, all sitting beside my computer. This place is fully immersed in the Buffyverse, and I will have strong opinions.

The problem? There’s no way to know if this will be good or not. It could be. It could not be. I know, world-class insight here. I'm here all week.

I’ve always liked the idea of a historical Slayer show. Set it in the past with a Slayer we’ve never heard of. Hell, even one we have heard of—imagine a Buffyverse show with Nikki Wood as the Slayer in the ‘70s? Done right, that would be awesome. An anthology series would’ve been a really cool idea too. That's the great thing about the Buffyverse. It doesn't actually need any of the original cast to make a great show. The amount of potential untapped stories is almost endless.

I’m less hot on a timeline continuation, but it’s still drastically preferable to a hard reboot.

Who Could Return?​

Obviously, SMG is confirmed. The first problem is Spike and Angel. I guess you could finagle some plot where Spike turns human to explain the ageing, but... eh. It’s not unprecedented—Angel turns human in the comics at some point, Darla gets resurrected, and the blood of a Mohra demon can do it. So, it’s not a total ass-pull. But I still don’t like it. Probably better to leave them out.

Giles? Seems highly likely. ASH is still active as an actor, and I doubt it would take much to bring him back.

Willow? No reason they wouldn’t ask Hannigan back, and no reason she wouldn’t return.

Dawn? Michelle Trachtenberg just posted on Insta with a emoji. I’m calling that a yes.

Xander? With how Nicholas Brendon is these days, I’d be very surprised if they don’t kill him off off-screen or handwave his absence. (Yes, I know he’s dead in the comics—more on that later.) No chance he comes back.

Seems likely that this show will focus on a new cast and Slayer, with Buffy and the old crew in more of a supporting capacity. If this takes off and is a hit I wouldn't expect to see the old guard in every episode or anything.

Still, plenty of room for fun cameos. Even dead characters like Anya and Wesley aren’t completely off the table. This is the Buffyverse—being dead doesn’t always mean much.


Dealing with the comics


Will they bother? I know that the Joss penned comics are considered canon, but that doesn't mean they are going to be adhered to here. My guess is that they will ignore the comics. It becomes very fantastical and weird, and trying to set this revival after season 12 would alienate a lot of casual nostalgia viewers that have fond memories of the show but don't even know the timeline continues in the comics. I just think it is too messy, and they will ignore all of it.

Emma and Michelle reactions are all I can find from the cast so far. Add more in the comments if you find them:






OK, so what are we feeling about this crew?

and less season one and two Picard.

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Didn't David Boreanaz get hit by some #MeToo type stuff?

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He managed to weather it somehow, but he has been less than angelic in the past. Flashing his co-worker and forcing himself on her, allegedly. Settled out of court. It's actually quite surprising that he didn't get raked over the coals more, tbh.


When you compare that to something like the Louis CK case (which was also wrong of him of course but still not close to the level of allegations against DB) they definitely got different treatments. Hasn't slowed David down from getting consistent work in Hollywood. He's also still very good friends with SMG so nothing other than his age (which is probably enough) would stop him from being in the show in some capacity.

I never read the comics, which makes me one of those 'casual viewers'. So the only issue for me is how to tweak the events of the finale (every girl in the world becomes a slayer?) so that there's still conflict in the new show... otherwise, sign me up.

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Yeah, this is an excellent point. The repercussions of the finale are going to be narratively difficult to work around. The mass Slayer activation was such a monumental event in the Buffyverse that you can’t just handwave it away or toss in a throwaway line reversing it.

It’s too significant—some form of reversal or depowering of the Slayers has to be a core plot point. The repercussions are so massive that the show almost has to be about how it all went wrong. In fact, the entire premise of the new series could (and maybe should) revolve around this.

There are plenty of interesting ways to approach it. If they don’t want to go the spell-reversal route, they could explore the chaos of thousands of superpowered girls around the world—most of them untrained and unchecked—leading to a disaster that needs to be fixed.

The Slayer activation must be undone, corrupted, or turned into a major catastrophe, and whatever happens, that has to be the main premise of the show. Right?