Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the debut, on the then-struggling WB network, of a series based on a flop movie, a drama whose best-known star was the Taster’s Choice coffee guy. You don’t really need PopWatch to tell you what a milestone the debut of Buffy the Vampire Slayer turned out to be, how overwhelmingly the show exceeded expectations and beat the odds, or how tremendous an influence the series had throughout pop culture. (If you do need a reminder of Buffy’s legacy, check out this article.) In fact, we’ll step aside and let you tell us below how the show changed your life.
Happy 10th anniversary, 'Buffy!'
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Comments (1-30) of 92 Add your comment
It introduced the comedic (and comely) talents of Emma Caulfield. What more needs to be said?
Buffy changed the face of TV. After Buffy, it wasn’t enough to have young people who looked hot on TV- they had to be smart, witty, and multi-dimensional. Think about a pre-Buffy “90210″ and how those shows don’t hold up. I couldn’t quote a line from that show. Now think about how the dialogue a post-Buffy “The O.C.” crackled. That is thanks to Buffy.
Changed my life?? Hmm….I became obsessed with all things Whedon.
I was completely hooked – on Angel and Buffy. It was one of the best written shows ever, and I have to think back to a show that was better BEFORE Buffy came on.
After, yeah, there are a lot of shows that stepped up their writing game.
But before? Hmmmmmm, it is to ponder.
This isn’t a new thought, but it is often easier to write about the truly interesting things in life if you write in SF or horror. Many of the most true things written were written about worlds that don’t exist and people you’d never meet.
Happy Decade, Buffyverse!
I will never love a TV show as much as I love Buffy. This show has the whole package: great cast, drama, comedy, action, suspense, horror, a fantastic story and that’s just the beginning. I miss all the characters, especially Anya and Spike. Thank you to anyone that was ever involved in the show for it’s amazing run and continuing legacy. Joss, when do we get a movie? Or a spin-off? Throw us a bone, we are starving!
P.S. The comic book is a good start.
My job at the time prevented me from watching “Buffy” when it aired. But, I spent last month watching all seven seasons and I gotta say, I don’t think there has ever been a more creative, whip smart show on television. The silent episode, the episode where Buffy’s om dies, the musical– Joss Whedon and his amazing writers were always trying innovative things with success. And, oh yeah, the cast was astounding. There are many fine, fine moments of acting on “Buffy” as well as constant hilarity and fun.
obviously Buffy is one of the best shows ever to grace tv screens, but more importatntly I met my best friend because of it. after missing “What’s My Line pt. 1″ I desperately searched for someone who had taped it. she had. and then everything was five-by-five.
Never before or since have I felt so wholly satisfied by a television show. It showed me how good TV can be, and it has yet to be equalled.
I remember watching the first season finale with my first real boyfriend sitting next to me on the couch and I was so nervous because he was there and I couldn’t help crying through pretty much the whole thing and he thought that was sweet and I got my first kiss that night!
Do yourself a favor, and buy the entire series on DVD. You will not be sorry. It is the most important TV show of my generation (followed closely by My So Called Life)!!!
As newlyweds we watched nothing together but this brought us together once a week and from there turned into X-files, Angel, LOST, Alias, Veronica Mars, Smallville,…It opened my wife’s mind to something beyond Oprah and soaps.
Man, I feel old.
“Buffy” helped me to feel at home in Los Angeles when I first moved there. I had made friends with people on the show’s official Posting Board, and met some of them before moving to the area. We used to get together for weekly dinners, just to hang out and talk about what was going on in our lives, and we’d have all-day-long Saturday movie marathons every so often. Not to mention the yearly Posting Board Party – geeky, I know, but Joss, Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan and many others from the show would come to just hang out with the fans, so that was pretty cool.
And as a matter of fact, my husband was the original administrator for the Posting Board, and he and I met through mutual friends from the Board. So if it wasn’t for Buffy, we wouldn’t have met, married and had a precious little girl together!
Talk about your lifechanging experiences.
Oh, and BTW – “Hush” was my favorite episode – so eerie, and yet hilarious (the overhead projector, especially).
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER was such an important aspect of my teenage years. As cheesy as it sounds, I really came of age with this genre-defining series. It was exciting, dark, hilarious, and very touching. I still remember the first time I saw “The Body”, the episode in which Buffy’s mom dies. I am not ashamed to admit I cried as if somebody from my own family had just passed. All of the characters, especially Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Anya were so complex and real–it was amazing that I had so much invested in them. I would make sure I did not have any major things going on Tuesday nights. With this show, Joss Whedon changed my life. Thank you Mr. Whedon. I wish you and your talented cast and crew the best!
P.D. Where’s Emma Caufield these days? I miss her.
I never had cable television, so I was never able to watch Buffy when it ran. One day my friend showed me “Once More with Feeling” on the internet. At the time the first 5 seasons were out on DVD. I watched the first 3 within a weeks time. I think I slept a total of 20 hours that week. The next week I was so hooked and in BuffyWorld that I couldn’t go outside at night for fear of vamps coming to get me. I have since come out of my delusional Sunnydale world, well sort of. I would still love to hear Spike call me his “pet.”
the best show ever. i started watching it when i was in fourth grade, and stayed with it all the way until the very end of season seven. in college i still watch it- early morning on FX and on the dvds. buffy is one of tv’s greatest shows- and it lives on today
10 years ago I saw a billboard for Buffy and thought, “That show is gonna suck.” Then I ended up catching the episodes as the reran over the summer and was hooked. It is now my favorite show of all time – I even bought the first season DVD set before I had a DVD player. I’ve never known a show to have it all (comedy, drama, mystery, suspense, pop culture knowledge) and use it so well.
favorite season- season 7
why? anya and andrew.
as a 5th grader watching the show on tv buffy not only totaly chanegd my taste in television, but my taste in art and life. best show ever.
Wow…i’m so old now. when buffy first aired, i was exicted. i actually liked the movie! (cheesy, i know). But it just so happened, I had broken up with my boyfriend, Angel, and then this show. so, from the end of high school through my college years until the end, it was a fixture for me. oh and my fave college experience…talking to my first roommate and saying, “well, i watch buffy” just to get “I watch Buffy too!” LOL>>> no one was allowed to bother us on Tuesdays when the show came on!!!
Last month, I was stuck home and horribly ill. i turned on the tv at 7 in the morning and on one channel they were playing “the Body” and on another channel, “Shells” (when Fred turns into Illyria) was on. I’ll blame being sick for my emotional response, but switching from channel to channel and scene to scene was like a mash-up into one of the most intense tv hours ever created. joss, come back and pull tv back from this “American Idol Precipice of Crap” that it is becoming…
Wow, 10 years. I remember so distinctly driving down the main street in my neighborhood and seeing the big Buffy billboard with Sarah Michelle and Nicholas Brendan and the heading that went something like “She has only one rule on Prom Night…No Necking.” I was in 8th grade and was not particularly impressed with the movie, so God only knows why I tuned into the premiere. But by the time Angel meets Buffy in that alleyway and says “I don’t bite,” I was hooked. My high school journalism teacher was Joss’s sister in law, it was all Buffy all the time with her and I. It was one of those shows that swept me up and took me away…loved it and it stood with me even after it ended. To this day, it irks me beyone belief that Buffy and Angel didn’t end up together…I get Joss’s reasoning, but still…best TV couple of all time.
Well, it didn´t change my life, but it´s probably the show I miss the most. Even though its end was overdue, I could´ve/would´ve still welcomed, most whole-heartedly, an 8th season.
Early in season 1, five kids are possessed by hyenas and they eat the principal. I was hooked at that moment.
The first show I labeled the “Best Show Ever!” a title that has since been inherited by it’s direct decendant, Veronica Mars. Anyone who loved Buffy and isn’t watching VM is missing out! VM is the love child of a three way between Buffy, My So-Called Life, and Raymond Chandler. Let it be the next show that will change your life.
Buffy will forever be one of the most influential and greatest tv programs of all-time. I was one of the few who was a fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar from her All My Children days(embarrassing, I know.) I also loved the movie,but the show was just a big surprise. It had everything you could want. It’s one of those shows that every once in awhile you wonder how the characters turned out and where they are now(embarrasing, I know).
While saving Sunnydale, I truly believe Buffy saved televsion. The show proved that there was a sizable audience for shows with long story arcs, sharp dialog, strong female (lead) characters, challenging metaphors, etc. Not only that, it showed that an audience could be amazingly loyal to material that made them think and feel while being entertained.
A bit of a side note, but what will it take to get Emma Caulfield back on TV? Every time a Buffy topic comes up on PopWatch and I read through the comments, it becomes more and more clear that there is an awful lot of Anya love (myself very much included) out here in the TV watching world.
First show to get me into hour-long dramas. Now I watch more than is probably good for my health.
I loved the article that was linked. It’s true about how much of tv has been affected by Whedon & co. I watch almost half the shows in the article (24, Heroes, Smallville & the O.C.) Hopefully Joss will be back with something new to tv soon.
LONG LIVE THE SCOOBIES!!!!!!
Buffy introduced me to the kind of TV writing I didn’t think possible. The Scoobs felt as close and real to me as my actual friends (which is a little sad), and it was amazing to watch a show where the main characters grew. And changed. And developed. They weren’t the same people from week to week like they are on most dramas, but the events they endured changed them, and changed me. I’ll never forget the first time I saw “Into the Woods”, when Xander, who used to be so insecure and almost cowardly, stood up to Buffy and told her what she didn’t want to hear. He was a new person. Because people change, just like in life.
i still do the buffyspeak. i.e. movies give me ‘the happy’. no one understands me, of course.