Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Episodes

Premise:

Coincidentally, Sunnydale is located right on top of the Hellmouth - the center for evil activity. The Watcher's Council in Britain sent Rupert Giles to Sunnydale to be Buffy's Watcher, to train her and guide her in all the skills she needs to be a Slayer.

Sadly, Buffy is no longer with us. The final episodes aired in May 2003. R.I.P. Buffy Summers and the Scoobie gang.

Another central theme of the show is Buffy's death and rebirth, which has happened a number of times. At the end of the first season, Joss wasn't sure that the show would be picked up for another season, so he had Buffy battle the Master, who drowned her. When the show was picked up for a second season, Buffy was "reborn" as Xander resuscitated her (with a little mouth-to-mouth, which sped up his heart a bit, as he's always harbored a crush on Buffy). At the end of the fifth season, Buffy was sold by the WB to UPN, and since the deal wasn't done until after the season was over, Joss killed Buffy off once again. Dawn, at that point still the Key to opening a portal between dimensions that a goddess was trying to use to get back to her home dimension, was set to jump off a tower to close the dimension, but Buffy jumped in her place. The season ended with Buffy's body being recovered and buried. But, the sixth season opened on UPN with Willow using dark magic to revive Buffy, who had to claw her way out of her grave when the gang didn't believe the spell had worked. It turned out that Buffy had been ripped out of heaven, and she spent the whole sixth season trying to adjust to life on earth, which was, of course, pale in comparison to heaven.

Buffy's confidante in the sixth season during her adjustment period was Spike. Spike was the only one who could relate to Buffy's desire to be something she wasn't, as he yearned to be human again so that Buffy would return his feelings. As it was, Buffy used Spike to "feel" again, but was afraid of falling in love with him, due to her past.

Buffy's love life is another frequent theme of the show:

• Angel - a vampire cursed with a soul. With a soul, he could feel remorse for all the killing he'd done before he got his soul back. His compassion kept him from killing and made him closer to human than other vamps. He believed that Buffy was his fate, and they spent the first two seasons falling in love. When he and Buffy made love, though, his curse was lifted, because the condition of the curse was that if he had one moment of true happiness, it would be broken. Without his soul, he was overcome with evil and began killing all the people closest to Buffy. She was forced to kill him to save everyone, but Willow was able to bring him back with a soul again. From that point on, though, he and Buffy had to be apart, until finally, he moved to Los Angeles to get away from the temptation. (NB: I am not the person to detail the Angel/Buffy mythos. There are far better sources for that, so if this is a bit shaky, I apologize. I don't claim to have seen every episode, nor to understand all the ins and outs of Buffy. If you want my "expert" show, you'll have to wait for my West Wing page to go up.)
• Riley - During her freshman year of college, Buffy got involved with Riley Finn, a soldier in a secret government/military operation called The Initiative, directed by one of Buffy's professors. The group was experimenting with trapping demons and curbing their evil tendencies (they're the ones who implanted the chip in Spike's head). Buffy fell for Riley, and vice versa, but Riley felt inadequate compared with Buffy's Slayer abilities - he needed fancy equipment and extensive training to track vampires and other demons with a whole squad of military macho men, while Buffy headed out night after night alone to hunt; being the Slayer also gives Buffy superhuman strength and quicker healing, which was another sore spot for Riley. As he realized that Buffy would never "need" him, and therefore couldn't love him the way he wanted her to, he took off on a mission to South America, after battling a cyber-humanoid-demon (Adam) that Prof. Walsh had created and kept secret even from the rest of The Initiative.
• Spike - He hasn't yet blossomed into a "great love" for Buffy yet, but Spike's been carrying a torch for her, and they had several steamy scenes in Season 6. Buffy claims to have only been using him, and in fact was terrorized by him in a very disturbing scene in which he beat her and nearly raped her in an effort to force her to admit feelings for him. Realizing what he was doing, Spike left Sunnydale to seek out a powerful demon who could "make him like he was." After a series of brutal trials, Spike proved himself worthy, and the demon gave him back his soul, which was not exactly what Spike had had in mind. Season 7 should be interesting, though, now that Spike not only has the chip to prevent him from hurting anyone but also has a soul. (NB: In case you're wondering how Spike could beat Buffy up without activating the chip, it has something to do with Buffy's being reincarnated from the dead. Spike taunts her that "she came back wrong," but it hasn't been fully explained yet.)

Last tidbits: Xander broke off his wedding to Anya on their wedding day when a demon whom Anya had punished during her vengeance demon days returned to wreak havoc on her. The demon showed Xander false, but terrible, visions of his future life with Anya, and scared him enough to walk away from her. Anya, hurt and broken, returned to being a demon, and one night alone with Spike - both drunk - hooked up with him. The act not only shocked and hurt both Xander and Buffy, but brought Buffy's affair with Spike into the open, which she'd been trying to hide.

And finally, the Trio, a gang of geeks that Buffy'd gone to high school with, her self-styled "nemeses," was defeated when Buffy captured Jonathan and Andrew. Warren, the leader and the clearly most evil, tried to revenge himself on Buffy by shooting her, but the bullet went astray after passing through Buffy and killed Tara. Willow's first act of vengeance was to flay Warren alive.

Episodes: