On one level, the return of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with Sarah Michelle Gellar — the news of which Variety broke today — is the most 2020s thing that could happen. Updating a beloved TV series from the last four decades with at least some of the original cast (often known as a legacy sequel, revival or “requel”) has become a central pillar of our current popular culture. From “And Just Like That” on Max to “That ’90s Show” on Netflix to “Star Trek: Picard,” “Frasier” and whatever new version of “Dexter” is streaming on Paramount+, we’re habitually invited now to live in updated versions of our TV pasts.
A new “Buffy,” however, feels more totemic. There are all the TV history reasons, of course: Dismissed when it premiered on the nascent network The WB in 1997 as a mid-season replacement, “Buffy” rapidly roundhouse kicked itself into the vanguard of both television form and content. By transforming the horror movie final girl into the kick-ass hero who literally slays her demons, and structuring its story over season-long arcs that culminate in a climactic final showdown, “Buffy” presaged the next 25 years of genre-bending entertainment. “Supernatural,” “True Blood,” “Alias,” “Once Upon a Time,” “The Vampire Diaries,” “Veronica Mars,” “Teen Wolf,” “The Magicians,” “Jessica Jones,” “Orphan Black,” “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” “Wynonna Earp,” “Riverdale,” “Wednesday,” “Game of Thrones” — none of these shows, and many more besides, would be what they are without “Buffy.”
Beyond its place in the TV pantheon, “Buffy” shaped how many of its fans see themselves and the world, from the show’s complicated sense of moral justice to its matchless teenage vernacular. It was funny and scary and sad, often in the same scene, usually involving some kind of slithery monster — but it meant something because, like the best TV, its characters were so vividly rendered that they felt like our closest friends. Their joy, their terror and their pain was ours as well.
I think that’s why the idea of “Buffy” returning to our screens fills me with equal amounts of elation and dread. I’ve missed this show and its characters with an intensity that I didn’t quite realize until word of the revival trickled into Variety’s Slack rooms. Judging from how many of my colleagues joined me in dissolving into all-caps meltdowns, I think it’s safe to presume I’m far from alone. The creatives involved — showrunners Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman from “Poker Face” and Oscar winning director Chloé Zhao of “Nomadland” — have superlative creative chops. The premise — focusing on a new Slayer guided by Gellar’s Buffy Summers — is tried and true. And if ever we needed a saga of a woman dispatching the pernicious, encroaching forces of evil, it would be now!
But the dread, good God, the dread. Let’s start with the nerdiest concerns. When “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” concluded its seven-season run in 2003, it upended its underlying mythology — into each generation, a Slayer is born, until she dies and a new potential Slayer replaces her — by transforming all potential Slayers into actual ones. Will this still be the state of the world when the new show begins? If so, how can we follow one new Slayer if there are a whole bunch of them staking vamps as well? If not, how can the revival satisfactorily retcon one of the best series finale twists of the last 25 years? For that matter, will the revival incorporate the “Buffy” comics that continued the story over five more “seasons,” in which Buffy destroys the seed of all magic on Earth and things get even crazier from there?
Those sequel comics, by the way, were largely overseen, and often written, by Joss Whedon, who first created Buffy when he wrote the 1992 feature film of the same title, starring Kristy Swanson. Whedon’s voice and storytelling acumen is inescapably central to the enduring success of “Buffy” as a TV show, but his absence from the revival is a necessity. His career imploded following allegations of misconduct on the set of “Buffy” and its spin-off series “Angel” by actor Charisma Carpenter (as well as on the set of “Justice League” by actor Ray Fisher). Whedon eventually responded to Carpenter’s allegations by saying he had been “not mannerly” with Carpenter but “most of my experiences with Charisma were delightful and charming”; by that point, many “Buffy” actors had voiced their support for Carpenter. Gellar’s statement was especially damning: “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon.”
But without Whedon, can “Buffy” still feel like “Buffy”? Well, yes, obviously. Plenty of other writers were instrumental to the success of the show. The character and the wider world she inhabits have been so robustly established that skilled storytellers should be able to conjure its spirit without bringing forth some kind of terrible, reboot-y demon thing, too. (At the very least, they should be able to do a better job of it than my own feeble attempt just now.)
Really, though, the question shouldn’t be if “Buffy” can return without Whedon; it’s whether it can return without all the other people who made it so singular. Will this revival include Buffy’s BFF, the powerful witch Willow (Alyson Hannigan), or Buffy’s delightfully studious former Watcher, Giles (Anthony Stewart Head)? Will Buffy’s sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), or her other BFF, Xander (Nicholas Brendon), be in it? Will Buffy’s vampire ex-boyfriends Angel (David Boreanaz) and Spike (James Masters) show up, especially given the tricky fact that vampires are ageless, but human actors are not? Will any former “Buffy” writers — like Marti Nixon, Drew Goddard, Jane Espenson or Steven S. DeKnight — pen an episode or two? Will Nerf Herder write the theme music?
None of these questions are insurmountable, nor would the absence of some, or even all, of these people from the revival keep fans from wanting to see it. But it’s helpful to remember that, whatever this new “Buffy” winds up being, it won’t — it can’t — be the old show. This generation is getting its new “Buffy.” I really, really hope she slays.