Buffy the Vampire Slayer S01 E01 – Or the cemetary is not a park.

Lorraine: I’ve never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Well, I’ll annex: I once saw the first part of the pilot, “Welcome to the Hellmouth.” I got up to the line where Cordelia asks Buffy what her “childhood trauma” is, had a sudden revelation, and the rest is our own slice of Internet history.

I think it makes sense now that we’ve opened up the website to include more material, to revisit the series that gave us our (original) name.

I’ve asked my good friend Kirsti from Melbourne on my Mind to join me! Apart from being with SS.com since the beginning, her recent notes while re-watching Dawson’s Creek were awesome. I knew she’d be an amazing choice for a journey into the Buffy-verse.

Say hi, K.

K: HI, TRAUMATEERS!! I’m super excited that Lor asked me to do this with her, because I loves me some Buffy. Pretty much the only way I got through my Honours thesis was “Okay, Me. Write another 500 words, and then you can go and watch an episode of Buffy.” It worked surprisingly well, considering I basically had a month in which to write my thesis. (Oh HAI, first of many random segues. Nice of you to join us!)

Basically? Any excuse to watch Buffy is fine with me!!

Lor: On that note:

 

Welcome to the Hellmouth

We open the episode with two “teens” sneaking into a high school. The boy claims that you can see all of Sunnydale from the top of the gym. Hmmm. Incredibly tall gym or incredibly pathetic town?

K: Pathetic town. They show it in subsequent episodes. Apparently Sunnydale is like Canberra, and you’re not allowed to build higher than the tree line. Also, Canberra is filled with blood suckers. Except that in Canberra, they work for the tax office. #terriblepunsaboutadulthood

Lor: I laughed.

One of the “teens” turns out to be a vampire and it’s total misdirection because it’s the girl who’s all “I’m not sure about this” and not the boy who’s all, “trust me. This’ll be great.”

I’d feel bad about this guy being eaten, but I just think that anyone dumb enough to break into a school for a make-out session deserves to be mauled by vampire. Goodbye boy. We never knew ye.

K: Seriously. Who thinks “Yes, I picked up a hot girl! Now where should we go to make out? Oh, I know. The high school I graduated from last year! It smells like feet and old food and chalk, but pfffff. The view from the gym roof is totally going to get her in the mood.”  PEOPLE WHO DESERVE TO BE MAULED BY VAMPIRES, THAT’S WHO.

Lor: We find Buffy in the middle of THE longest nightmare sequence of all time. I’m not sure what was even in the nightmare because I was really distracted by how LONG it was.

K: Having watched every episode of Buffy approximately ten times, I can tell you that her nightmare is basically a montage of everything that’s going to happen in season 1. Because apparently being the Slayer means that you can see the future in your dreams. How she was surprised by 90% of what happened to her is completely beyond me.

There’s also a whole bunch of conversation with her mum about trying not to burn down any school buildings or get expelled. If you haven’t seen the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer MOVIE, this probably won’t make a whole lot of sense to you. And you should go watch that movie. It’s terrible and fantastic, all at the same time. I mean, the cast includes Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry, Hilary Swank, David Arquette, and mother-freaking Pee Wee Herman. As a vampire.

Lor: I don’t even have a response for that.

We’re back at Sunnydale High and I’m distracted again, this time by how LITTLE everyone is. HOLY WILLOW. She’s like a fetus!

K: I think that’s Alyson Hannigan’s natural hair colour. Watch as she magically becomes more and more ginger as the seasons pass!

Lor: Also fetus sized? Buffy’s skirt. Girl, I just met you but that skirt deserves a #hosuspension.

We’re introduced to Willow, Xander and Jesse. We all (now) know that Jesse dies later, which I had no idea happened. I thought he was a major player. I should’ve known seeing as how the alive characters are BUFFY, WILLOW, XANDER and CORDELIA. Poor “Jesse” with his normal name never stood a chance.

K: Gotta say, one of my favourite moments from “Welcome to the Hellmouth” is where a girl goes “What kind of name is Buffy, anyway?” And someone walks past and goes “Hey, Aphrodesia!” to her.

Also, Xander *technically* has a normal name. It’s just abbreviated in a weird ass way. Apparently “Alex” is too mainstream for Sunnydale…

Lor: NO STOP IT. HIS NAME IS ALEXANDER AND HE CHOOSE THE XANDER PORTION AS A NICKNAME?!

…maybe I should start going by Rraine. It would actually be Raine, but I think the extra R adds Sunnydale-ness.

Buffy goes to visit the principal and I’m now distracted by all of the eye make-up in the world. It’s taken up residence on Buffy’s eye lids and it kind of reminds me of cotton candy. Mmm, cotton candy.

K: By which you mean fairy floss?? #funwithAustralianEnglish

Rraine: Fairy floss does not sound delicious. It sounds like the used dental string of small mythical creatures. We all know how I feel about shared teeth gunk.

We meet Cordelia and she’s kind of a bitch. (K: KIND OF???) She makes fun of Willow’s maw-maw dress, but she’s wearing lime green pants so that really takes the zing out of her zingers.

Buffy heads to the library for some books and the librarian, Giles, is all “clearly you’ve been looking for this all your life” and lays down a fat “Vampyr” book down. Me and Buffy are all, “pass.” She runs away probably afraid that there is a chapter on sparkling in there.

Wait. I forgot this was a better time. You can come back, Buffy!

She doesn’t listen to me.

K: Sad panda. On the subject of Buffy and Twishite, I keep seeing people wearing this t-shirt, and I desperately want to kidnap them until they tell me where they got it from:

 

Rraine: Uh, FROM THE BOMB DOT COM?

Later on in the episode the body of We Never Knew Ye is found stuffed in a gym locker. I’d like to take this moment to thank TV for instilling the fear of God in me around human body sized lockers. You just never fucking know.

Buffy just said the library gives her “the wiggins.” LOL.

Which, this is probably the best place to mention that I find all of this dialogue great. This is not a sarcastic statement, I promise. I truly am enjoying the dialogue here. Please take me seriously, because I’m not joking.

Except for maybe the word “wiggins” which is terrible, but I’m enjoying most of the rest of it.

We get another example of a great one liner when Cordelia interrupts Buffy’s lunch pow-wow  with what I’ve heard referred to as the Scooby Gang, to announce that gym is cancelled “due to the extreme dead guy” found in the locker.

K: One of my favourite Cordy lines happens somewhere in here: “Don’t you have an elsewhere to be?”

Rraine: Buffy goes to check out the dead body herself, and we get to see her use her Buffy Brawn to disrespect a locked door. I like Buffy Brawn. I’m a sucker for strong females. Except not these kind:

I mean, no disrespect Mrs. Very Strong Woman, I’m just saying I’m not a sucker for you.

K: Is it just me, or does she look like she has one fake boob? It’s giving me the wiggins.

Rraine: Believe it or not, I’ve been averting my eyes.

Buffy finds the fang marks on We Never Knew Ye and she is not pleased.

Pilots are always hard because they are so exposition heavy. Welcome to the Hellmouth, while peppered with the brilliance of nostalgia, is not very different. We get a whole scene in the Wiggins Library that basically explains to us the set-up of the Buffy-verse. Mutual sucking is how humans are turned. Buffy is the chosen one. Giles is a Watcher. Buffy has lots of teen angst. Probably as much teen angst as she has eye shadow, so again, a lot.

She really doesn’t want to fight vampires right now because last time she did she totally lost all her friends. Girls gotta have some sleepover buddies, y’know?

K: I have to say, the first Slayer/Watcher conversation is one of my favourite things from season 1. Especially when Buffy says “It’s the weirdest thing. He’s got two little, little holes in his neck and all his blood’s been drained. Isn’t that bizarre? Aren’t you just going, “oooooh?”

Rraine: I guess it’s the difference between watching this for (basically) the first time or being a fan of the series. To me this felt exposition heavy because it was exposition to me. These aren’t really details I was acquainted with, you know, and I got info dumped on.

Xander did too because he was on hand to overhear all the exposition.

K: Well, obviously. He already found her stake, and didn’t believe her lame-ass explanation that a“pepper spray is SO pssé” and that everyone in LA is using stakes now.

Rraine: It’s LA. I’m pretty that’s an actual thing that would happen there.

Later that night Buffy heads to the all-ages club (?) called The Bronze. She is wearing the weirdest outfit of ever. Like high-waisted, high-watered business pants and I don’t even know what. I’m really sad about this outfit and the fact that she’s wearing it to a club, but she wore a fetus skirt to school.

K: Uh, Lor? Did you see the outfits she went through BEFORE deciding on the high-waisted business pants? There was a black PVC dress that looked like she’d borrowed it from Christian Grey’s Mrs. Robinson. And a floral dress that I’m pretty sure was last fashionable in Little House on the Prairie. High-waisted business pants don’t look so bad in comparison!!

Rraine: Uh, K? They are still high-waisted business pants. I stand by my statement.

On her way to the club, Buffy is being followed and it turns out to be Angel. I don’t know shit about this series and I know that that’s Angel. They have a pretty cheesy exchange, but he gives her a silver crucifix which I guess makes up for it. Us girls love our multifunctional jewellery!

K: Who doesn’t love free jewellery from total strangers?! This is also about the one and only time Buffy does any gymnastics-y stuff. Probably for the best…

Buffy makes it to The Bronze, and meets up with Willow. Awkward girls the world over feel a pang of empathy when Willow says that she doesn’t date much because “When I’m with a boy I like, it’s hard for me to say anything cool, or-or witty – or at all. I-I can usually make a few vowel sounds, and then I have to go away.” Oh, honey. We’ve all been there.

Rraine: Replace “with a boy I like” with “around most people” and you have me in a nutshell but without the ginger hair and another weird maw-maw dress.

Buffy spots Giles pulling a Mr. Creepy Collins and hanging around students during non-school hours. They discuss more vampire things and he tries to get Buffy to hone her vampire-dar. Instead she points to a guy with an outdated outfit and says that it clearly makes him a vampire. Meanwhile in 2012, I’m looking at the crowd screaming HOW CAN YOU TELL?

K: She can tell because he looks like he escaped from Wham! rather than from The Backstreet Boys. DUH, LOR.

Rraine: Your old is showing.

K: Buffy tells Giles about meeting his friend (Angel), and says, “I REALLY didn’t like him.” Every time I watch this episode, I go “Oh, honey. You will.”

Rraine: Below, Wham! Vampire is talking up Willow! Buffy gave Willow a whole, “you could be dead tomorrow” pep-talk so she went out and found herself a man! Or a boy. I keep forgetting they are 16.

Anyways, I’m not sure what it says about Willow that she found herself the boy who looks like Wham! instead of Backstreet Boys, but alas. Wham! is showing Willow out of the club (at the same time that Blonde Misdirection Vampire is doing the same to Jesse) and Buffy is in hot pursuit.

Buffy stalks around and accidentally pulls a stake on Cordelia. This line is still amazing:

Cordelia then says she needs a moment to call everyone she’s ever met, so clearly, she wants you to tell your friends about this website.

/promotion.

More stuff happens in the underground vampire lair of ant hill tunnels. It’s funny how the whole “vampire” aspect of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is so far the least entertaining to me. There’s some dude stuck in the tunnels and he’s trying to get out. That’s all I have to say about that.

K: That’s the Master. He has a penchant for black leather, and likes to jab his finger into people’s eyes. He’s kind of the Montgomery Burns of the Buffy world, only in some kind of ugly black jumpsuit thing…

Rraine: Uh, do I have to call him Master?

Wham! Vampire tells Willow he knows a shortcut to the ice cream parlor, THROUGH THE CEMETERY.

Just, fucking no. There is never a shortcut through a cemetery at night, guys. Never.

K: Seriously. I won’t even go to our local cemetery during the DAY because of all the statues shaped like angels, because they might be Weeping Angels #Whovianproblems

Also? Do they not lock cemeteries at night in the US? Because they do here. Cemetery ≠ PARK.

Rraine: Willow learns the whole cemetery ≠ park thing the hard way when she’s shoved into a mausoleum by Wham!. The blonde Misdirection Vampire (have I been that distracted or do none of these vamps get actual names?) from the opening comes in with Jesse in tow.

K: They have names. Blonde Misdirection Vampire = Darla. She’s important, so you should probably remember her. The big dude is Luke. Wham! is Thomas. You can forget their names. They don’t stick around long.

Rraine: Pretty sure my names are better anyways.

The Vampy Brigade is busy menacing Willow and Jesse and Buffy appears with Xander.

Buffy stakes Wham! and fights Darla. But, see, Buffy does a lot of mid-fight snarking. Like seriously, between roundhouse kicks, she just HAS to throw out a few insults. This makes me want to offer her a job as a Snark Lady, but it also opens the way for some really big vampire to appear and grab her (K says “Luke.”) Really Big Vampire Luke sends Darla after the escaped snacks.

Buffy and Really Big fight, but Really Big has the upper hand. Buffy ends up in a crypt, and we freeze on Really Big’s ugly mug as he is about to make her a Slayer Snack.

K: DUN DUN DUN. Another fun fact? Really Big Vampire is the alien bounty hunter from The X-Files.

Although I have to say, the problem I always had with this cliffhanger ending? Buffy was always going to survive. I mean, you can’t exactly have a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then kill Buffy off in the first episode. Best to wait until episode 12, amIrite? #whoopsspoilers

Rraine: Great, K. Just great.

I can’t take you anywhere.

 

Next time: Everyone worries about Jesse, but only a little bit on Buffy the Vampire Slayer – So1 E02 – The Harvest.