So what is a slayer? Buffy Summers is a member of a bloodline of girls gifted with the strength, speed, and healing factor of vampires, chosen to combat demons and the forces of evil. They are trained by Watchers, a group of men (though in Buffy's time, a few women have broken into the club) who seem to know a lot more about the history of the slayers than the girls they train. There is always only one slayer; when one girl dies, the next one is called, and a slayer's life usually does not extend too far past their teenage years (it's dangerous work saving humanity).
And so we are (re)introduced to Buffy Summers, a girl who was called when it was least convenient for her. She was at the height of popularity at her old school, only to have to turn herself into an outcast in order to save her classmates. After getting expelled, she and her mom have come to Sunnydale to try to make a fresh start. Buffy thought her days of slaying were over, but she didn't count on the Hellmouth.
Rounding out the first season cast are Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, Cordelia Chase, and Rupert Giles. Xander and Willow are misfits themselves, and they form a close friendship with Buffy because they don't care that she is sometimes strange. When they learn the truth about who she is and what she does, they are startled, but they never think that Buffy is strange for what she must do. Cordelia, on the other hand, is the girl who represents what Buffy used to be. She extends a hand of friendship to Buffy because she assumes that, due to Buffy's attractiveness, she must also be popular, and feels that she has found another girl to be a member of the "Cordettes" (her sychophantic friends). But when Cordelia observes Buffy being nice to Xander and Willow, she determines that Buffy is just another geek. Giles is Buffy's new Watcher (her old one was killed), and he is a stuffy Brit who was not prepared for a free thinking slayer like Buffy.
Mind you, these descriptions barely even scratch the surface of the characters; the people populating the Buffyverse are so incredibly fleshed out that I could do a very lengthy post for each major character, as well as a few of the supporting characters.
Every season of Buffy has a "Big Bad" that is around throughout most of the season (Season 4's Big Bad entered around mid-season, making him the one who took the longest to show up), and they tend to reflect a core message of the year. In Season 1, that enemy was The Master, an ancient vampire who plans to open the Hellmouth and bring about hell on Earth. The Master's age (he may in fact be the first [sentient] vampire ever) has brought with it some new abilities; he has incredible strength and exercises powers of hypnosis. However, he has also lost his human appearance, and has come to resemble a humanoid bat (however, he most likely sees this as an advantage, as, even though he cannot blend in with his prey for easier hunting, he can strike fear into his victims in ways most vampires cannot). The Master's similar appearance to Nosferatu makes him appear like a classic horror villain, and the first season's main theme is "high school is hell". This theme will continue for the first three seasons, but other themes become the primary ideas.
The first season is very episodic in relation to what was to come; a few plot threads carry on from week to week, such as Xander's crush on Buffy, Giles' exasperation with Buffy's attitude, and Angel's mysterious nature, but overall, most of the episodes are fairly stand-alone. Many of the villains-of-the-week are callbacks to classic horror monsters, such as the substitute teacher who is really a praying mantis demon that preys upon virginal males (sorry, Xander), or the ventriloquist dummy that may be more than it seems (although this story has a bit of a twist thrown in). However, by about mid-season, a plot thread develops that is slowly built up until the season finale; when a young boy becomes a vampire of legend known as "The Annointed One", The Master begins preparing to open the Hellmouth (note: for as big a deal as they made the Annointed One out to be, I don't think they ever really explained why he was so important, or displayed his great powers; I think that the writers acknowledged this and made fun of this fact in the way they killed him off in Season 2).
Even though this season didn't have a strong overall plot throughout the course of the season, the character relationships were strongly established. Of course, many of the characterizations seen this year, while still great, don't even begin to show us who we are truly seeing. Willow, who is extremely mousy and awkward this season, will eventually become so much more. The same goes for Giles; in Season 1, he is a tweed suit-wearing fusspot, but by the series' end, he becomes something of a badass. Then there's Angel and Darla. For the first half of the season, we are led to believe that Angel is a human, merely because we aren't told he's a vampire. And even when we learn what he truly is, we cannot even begin to comprehend who he really is and what he is capable of. This year, Angel comes off as a mysterious loner whose love for Buffy is matched only by his unwillingness to fight the good fight. This is not a person who could carry his own television show. Darla is a vampire in service of The Master. This season, she is never seen outside of a Catholic school girl uniform and serves as a formidable, if not memorable, opponent for Buffy. She was actually the first vampire to appear on the show, and I'm pretty sure that in the original script, she was only referred to as "Vampire Girl". I don't know if Whedon decided that Darla should come back after working with actress Julie Benz or if fans liked the character a lot, but Darla would go on to become an extremely important character in the Buffyverse on the show Angel (even though she was introduced on Buffy, she is without a doubt an Angel character).
The first season of Buffy was no doubt good, but it in comparison to what was to come, it was
almost childish by comparison. With a show like Buffy, when you compare the seasons, it is not a question of which ones were good and which ones were bad, it is a question of which ones were incredible and which ones were really good. Season 1 was one of the "really good" ones, but the writing had a long way to go before it would register as something incredible (and sadly, The Master was never as menacing as he could have been since he was trapped underground for most of the season). But the characters were no doubt always incredible, and it will always be great to see where they all started.Up next: Bad boyfriend...
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