Buffy The Vampire Slayer at 25

Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the series, premiered in the USA twenty-five years ago tonight.

It started for me with the BBC Two premiere, December 30th 1998, having been alerted that this show was better than expected by genre magazines. So it’s been with me half my life.

I talk about it quite a lot. Like so on RPGnet.

The TV logo caught up with the merchandising after season two.

It surprised a lot of people by being funny, dramatic, exciting, surprising and moving - often in the same scene.

I love this show.

Ian from SlayerFest 98 has a retrospective on the retrospective at GQ, talking about what it means to him and how it belongs to the world and not just its creator.

Going to tune into the Buffering The Vampire Slayer watch party tomorrow. Sadly not actually at Torrance High!

“So that’s everything, huh? No weapons, no friends... No hope. Take all that away, and what’s left?”

“Me.”

I rewatch the series on the regular and specific episodes when they line up with dates or events - I have three options for Halloween but there are also birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and any time I get a cold. And when I need a laugh, or a good cry, or comfort, or strength.

Rewatches at the A. V. Club, Tor dot com, and Morgue for the high school years.

Some other elements haven’t aged well (the Roma magic thing for one) but I think in the main it holds up.

Having been running on E4 and 4Music nightly for about two years, the whole show and Angel are all on Disney+ now.

And stuff keeps coming out. There was a spinoff novel starting a series in January and another on the way, and the alternate-universe comics from Boom! Studios has an anniversary special and launched a spinoff post-apocalypse miniseries yesterday.

And in the gaming realm there are official miniatures for Buffy, Angel, Willow and Spike with the Unmatched minis duelling game, Jasco have a board game and expansion on shelves now, and the published Buffy and Angel RPG books are still available in PDFs (demo) - and a Bundle Of Holding is currently running for the anniversary.

Not much word on the planned reboot in a while. But one never knows.

A comics page I did, oh, a while ago. 15 years is a while. right?

This story saved my world a lot.

And of course I got very into Buffy RPGs...