In the ’90s and early ’00s, no show was doing it like Buffy. The tale of a teenage vampire slayer, her powerful friends and her vampire lovers captivated the world. It had everything: witty dialogue, a smart coming-of-age story, a devastatingly attractive cast and thrilling fights where the stakes were high. (Get it? Stakes?) And now… it’s coming back.
The news broke today. Hulu is potentially about to greenlight a pilot for a revival of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with original star Sarah Michelle Gellar stepping back into the shoes of the Slayer. Joss Whedon, the now disgraced writer of the original show, will not be returning. In 2021 he was accused of abusive and bullying behavior by several Buffy actresses, and his career was pretty much over from that point on.
True, Whedon wrote some great character moments and quips for the original show, but good writing shouldn’t come at the expense of women’s safety. So he won’t be missed. Instead, Hulu is gathering female creators to work on the new Buffy. Eternals director Chloe Zhao, who’s always been a Buffy fan, is set to direct the pilot with Poker Face‘s Nora and Lilla Zuckerman writing the script. As for returning actors beyond Gellar, we simply don’t know yet, nor do we know what the plot might be.
But this reboot will have to do a lot of work to convince people once it finally sees the light of day. There have been countless reboots of beloved TV shows in the past decade, and to be frank, few of them have been much good. Just ask a Gilmore Girls fan about Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life or a Veronica Mars fan about that painful death in the revival show. After years of flopped revivals that come off as cheap nostalgia-bait cash-grabs, TV fans are very jaded. And Buffy fans have already lived through some, uh, questionable decisions in the Buffy sequel comics, not to mention the dramatic downfall of the once beloved Whedon.
Some people on X/Twitter are decidedly unhappy about the reboot announcement, and have minced no words when expressing their ire.
Others were more optimistic, pointing out the talent of the women currently attached to the project.
And some are keen for this new project to highlight the stories of women who didn’t get much of a look-in in the original series. Though Buffy gave the world a great lesbian character in Willow, her girlfriend Tara was brutally killed off in one of the most famous examples of the “Bury Your Gays” trope. And the original show was also very white.
And of course there are some who are just completely unsure about all of it. I’m in this group myself. I’m heartened that Whedon won’t be involved but I just wonder if the world has moved on past Buffy.
Well, whatever happens, at least we’re going to get a lot of good vampire puns out of it. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t suck.
Published: Feb 4, 2025 07:29 am