WELCOME TO THE HELLMOUTH
SEASON 1 EPISODE 1
The pilot of any television show is always a big one. It sets the tone for the entire series and establishes the very basics of the characters. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which this blogger humbly claims to be the best show ever made) has a strong pilot. It isn't perfect, but it's enough to hook the viewer as well as leave plenty of room for character growth and plot development. So let's take an episode by episode, fairly in-depth look at the series.
From the very beginning, we're treated to a dark, grainy interior of a high school that perfectly sets the tone that can only be described as "incredibly 90s". A teenage girl and boy break into the school to vandalize and make out and whatever kids do nowadays. Typical horror movie stuff right? Wrong; surprise, the girl is actually a vampire! It's right here that you might realize this isn't a typical by-the-books show, it's something pretty special.
After the cold open and one rocking theme song later, we meet the title character of Buffy Summers, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. At first she seems maybe a bit off, but within a couple episodes manages to fit into the role nicely, and quickly becomes one of the better actors on the show. But here it's clear she's hasn't quite decided how she's going to play the part yet. We also meet her mother, Joyce, played by Kristine Sutherland. More to say on her quite a bit later.
Also pay attention to all of the 90s alternative rock and grungey music. While it dates the show considerably, it's pretty funny. Sadly, it won't stay around for long. Buffy, having just moved to Sunnydale, California from LA, is heading to her first day of school, and it's revealed that she was expelled from her last school.
Now we meet the supporting cast. First up is Xander Harris, played by Nicholas Brendon. I will be the first to admit that I'm completely biased towards him because I relate to his personality the most of any of the characters. So when he does jerkish things, I will be taking his side. Also notice that he rides in on a skateboard, which he will never ever ride again. Then we get a cute exchange between Xander and Willow Rosenberg, played by Alyson Hannigan. Willow is another one of my favorites and is arguably the character that changes the most, just something to keep in mind.
Here we find out that Willow is a genius and Xander is definitely lacking in the book-smarts department. Then we're introduced to Jesse...something, played by Eric Balfour. He's depicted as pretty much a dumber version of Xander with no real quirks of his own. Guess which one of the three is quickly killed off? Spoilers, it's not Xander or Willow.
So Buffy meets with the princiPAL, Mr. Flutie, revealing that Buffy has dealt with vamps before, and she bumps into Xander in the hallway, who is immediately smitten. This sets up a series-long flirtation between the two that I really wish the writers would have followed up on.
Buffy then meets Ms. Popular, Cordelia Chase, played by Charisma Carpenter, in class. She starts off as pretty vapid and annoying, almost a caricature of what Buffy used to be. However, she eventually grows into a character of her own, but for now, she is the source of much of the high school conflict, constantly making fun of Buffy's soon-to-be friends. Needing a book, Buffy stumbles into the creepy library, running into the shady librarian Rupert Giles, played by Anthony Stewart Head. He's played as much more mysterious and strange in the pilot, but soon becomes a more standard librarian-type character, and is also one of my favorite characters/actors on the show.
So after some embarrassingly bad valley girl speak, (which is thankfully dropped really quickly) the guy killed in the cold open is found, and the plot finally gets going.
Buffy and Willow meet because Buffy is smart and is aligning herself with the kids that can help her pass her classes. The two instantly hit it off, despite Willow's extremely low self-esteem. The rest show up as well, and Xander returns a stake that he found last time he bumped into her. Cordy shows up, gets slobbered on by Jesse, and tells everyone about the dead guy, and Buffy does some recon, and goes to confront shady librarian Giles about her findings of two tiny holes in dead guy's neck.
Here is where Giles, sometimes known in the early seasons as Mr. Exposition, explains about vampire slayers, which Xander overhears. Uh oh!
"Into every generation she is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer."
Buffy rejects this completely and hightails it. This becomes a running theme of Buffy just wanting to be a normal girl and turning down her responsibilities, and it's handled much more interestingly than most superhero movies.
But what is a good superhero without a supervillain? Meanwhile, a church buried under the town is housing some creepy extras with torches that never really appear again. But it's here we meet Luke, or Buffalo Bob (shame on you if you got that), doing a creepy ritual.
Buffy and Willow meet at The Bronze and Willow hints that she has feelings for Xander. And so begins the early season love...triangle? Quadrilateral? Hm. I don't know, there's something there. So Buffy rubs off on Willow, and she sets out to find a man. Buffy meets up with Giles and talks about Angel's warning about "The Harvest". Hmm, the title for the second episode, wonder how long this story will last.
Buffy makes Giles look like an idiot by pointing out a vampire based off of his goofy outfit. Many of the show's best moments come by Buffy completely disregarding what Giles says and finding a shortcut around his uppity ways. So she chases after vampy once she realizes that Willow left with him, running into Cordelia along the way and solidifying her place as freak in the high school hierarchy. Jesse takes off with opening vampy girl, Darla (played by Julie Benz) and both head to a mausoleum.
Back in the mausoleum, Jesse and Willow are being toyed with by the vamps, followed by probably the silliest part of the episode: Darla's on-screen change into vamp makeup. "You're not going anywhere, until we've FED!" It's a bad line reading, and one of the only so-bad-it's-good moments in the series. After some dated pop-culture references (I mean I had to look up what DeBarge was) she stakes the guy vamp, turning him into little pixels of dust. 90s CGI is always super funny to watch, but the effects eventually do become better, though they always seem to try things JUST out of their budget.
Girl fight! Then Buffy versus Buffalo Bob fight. He gets the upper hand and the first episode ends on a rather cheesy cliffhanger of him lunging at her with a giant TO BE CONTINUED across the middle of the screen.
Ahh so how to rate this...Well to be clear, I'm going to use a 5 star scale, the same I'd use for movies. But in this case, I'm sort of grading on a curve; for example, a 1 Star episode of Buffy is still better than most episodes of most shows.
It's not a fantastic episode, and has it's fair share of cheese (something that will stick around until the end of Season 1) but it sets up the characters well, and has some funny lines. Overall, it's a pretty decent pilot.
**1/2
1 comment:
That's pretty much what I thought of this episode. You do a good job reviewing Buffy. I thought this episode was a good setup for how, throughout the series, Buffy will continue to subvert cliches, though, for this episode, I think Cordelia is a cliche. This was actually continued from a Buffy movie where Buffy didn't burn down her old gym, but Joss Whedon wanted her to and I guess since he got to write this show he just kind of stuck that in. Anyway, I agree that it's a good episode and a decent start to an amazing series.
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