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Chapter 1: How did 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' evolve from a film to a TV series?
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This is Talk 90s to Me, where we get chucked out of school for burning it down, go to another one which has a hell mouth in its library, gather a collection of dorky, funny friends, fall in love with a couple of real wrong-uns and a boring rebound guy, try to live like a normal teenage girl whilst having to kill off vampires, monsters and big bads, die twice, come back equipping and generally cause havoc whilst never quaking in our stylish but affordable boots.
I'm Miranda Sawyer. And yes, this week on Talk 90s to Me, we are talking Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo!
And with me to discuss all things teenage and monstrous and vampiric, I am delighted to welcome Brendan Murphy, ace comedian and creator of Buffy Revamped, a show where he goes through all seven seasons of Buffy in 70 minutes whilst playing its most iconic male character, and that is Spike. Spike. Spike. Spike. Hi, Brendan. Hello. You are the perfect expert.
And you are the perfect expert because, as ever, I have not watched Buffy. I never watched any telly in the 90s.
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Chapter 2: What themes does 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' explore regarding teenage life?
And the idea is based on two things. One is the idea that high school and teenage life is hell on earth.
Yeah.
Which I do quite like. And the other one is the idea that in most horror films, there is a beautiful young blonde girl who is chased down and killed. She's always the person that leaves the house. You're like, mate, don't leave the house. What are you doing? You're going to die because you're too pretty. And you also are probably slightly... you know, you're having sex, so you have to die.
And this is a quote from him. He said, the first thing I ever thought of when I thought of the movie, because there's a movie before the teleshow, was the little girl, the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie. The idea of Buffy was to subvert the idea and that image and create someone who was a hero where she'd always been a victim.
That element of surprise, that element of genre busting is very much at the heart of both the movie and the series. Absolutely. As soon as you read that, you're like, oh, I'm sold. But they do this movie. They do the movie first before they do the series. The movie has all the elements of the series, but not quite right, right?
Yeah. So he wrote the script, but he didn't direct it. So it was kind of his vision, but it didn't go quite down how he wanted it to.
No. It didn't. And it's a different cast. Notably for the watcher, which is who is eventually played by Antony Head, it's Donald Sutherland. And Donald Sutherland misbehaves really badly on the film. I think we can say this. It seems to be completely backed up by evidence in that he just didn't say the script.
He would just go off script and throw everybody off and was really difficult to deal with.
I think perhaps at the time people weren't taking it seriously as a concept. And Joss Whedon is this, you know, wunderkind, this precocious young sci-fi nerd who has studied film and comic books and therefore in the TV show you get all of these wonderful references and whatnot. But I think going through the Hollywood sort of film mill...
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Chapter 3: How did Joss Whedon's background influence the creation of 'Buffy'?
And, you know, one of the sort of themes of Buffy is one girl in all the world. So she is special. She's outstanding. But by the end of it, it's all of the women. It's all of these young women just coming in, finding their own power and also no longer having to hide it because like a lot of the series of her making sure she's not rumbled. She has to go out at night. She can't tell other people.
People think it's weird. I mean, there's other slight plot holes in terms of like the police never calling up the vampire threat. Yeah. The death count's pretty high.
And there's also a factor, though, but she doesn't, I mean, you know, she meets another slayer who's like her dark counterpart in a later series. But there is also the element where she's a slayer. So she is this absolutely exceptional person, but she doesn't really want to be. She wants to go to the mall. They always say mall, don't they? don't they? Yeah, yeah.
She just wants to be a normal girl. She wants to be normal. And that's a big theme because what's interesting to me is like, obviously she's exceptional, but also even in being normal, teenage girls are quite exceptional. They're like... An unusual being.
There's this kind of role that I think for Buffy that she's been told she has to fulfill. And she kind of can do. She could pass. You know, she auditions for the cheerleading team. She's got a very sort of all-American look. She looks like an innocent blonde girl just going to school. And she didn't choose to be a slayer either. It's just something that's within her.
And then she's being told by, you know, her watcher, you have this, you know, this power and responsibility as well that you have to go out and fight the forces of evil when she just wants to go to the prom.
Yeah, exactly. She wants to wear cool boots, man. OK, so they make this film. It isn't, you know, it's all right. It's not really particularly well received. It's OK. And then Joss Whedon is given the chance to make it into a series. It came out on a channel called WB, which stands for Warner Brothers. But this was a small, small channel, not well known.
The WB was like, I think they were just starting around that time, putting out stuff that was geared towards a teen demographic. So there were lots of other shows. This was a little bit of a standout because of its supernatural nature and also the sort of form in which they broke genre barriers. They had a musical episode they started.
But when it first came out, I think the WB just thought, oh, well, it's... The film did all right with the demographic that we're looking at, and they didn't really think anything beyond that. But it did soon to outgrow the channel and sort of bring a lot of notoriety to it as well.
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Chapter 4: What makes the character of Buffy unique in the horror genre?
She's the hero. She is the slayer. She has the burden and responsibility. Then you've got Willow, who is her really so sweet, nerdy, wallflower best friend.
That's played by Alison Hannigan. And she has a cute red haircut.
Absolutely. And she's apologizing for existing. The wonderful thing is all of the characters go on the most tremendous character arcs through the seven seasons. Willow goes from being this complete, just the shyest little thing in the world to becoming the greatest threat to the world. Yeah. When she turns into Dark Willow, she almost destroys the world.
She has this unbelievable like witchcraft power within her. Xander is a goofy friend who is tripping over himself, but means well and is kind of the heart of the group.
And that's played by Nicholas Brandon and it's basically Joss Whedon.
Basically, yeah. Xander is, I think, the character that ages less well when you're re-watching through the 2026.
That's just boys. Yeah. Boys from the 90s age less well.
There's like a thing in my show where I ask the audience, you know, Xander, is he an incel or is he just a 16-year-old boy?
It's so true.
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Chapter 5: How do the friendships in 'Buffy' impact the narrative?
He's not good, that mayor, is he? He's a wrong gun.
But that's when I think CGI had just sort of started and it's like, now this is... It's a little bit, it hasn't aged too well. But lots of it looks fantastic still.
Okay, you mentioned a little bit earlier Spike, and Spike is a very interesting character that we will return to. Before we get to him, I think we should talk about Angel.
Sure.
So Angel is Buffy's love interest, essentially, but also her foe. He ends up having his own show. Yeah. And he is played by, let me get his name right. You can tell me his name.
David Boreanaz.
David Boreanaz, thank you. Yeah. And one of the reasons why it works is I was reading around, obviously, as you do, is that actually him and Sarah Michelle Gellar really get on well. They're completely different. He's slightly jocky. He's very inexperienced. She helps him a lot. But he is so amiable. Yeah.
And he's, I mean, to be honest, he's the, I mean, I can't bear this, but he's the kind of person that does practical jokes. I can't stand practical jokes. Yeah. Like literally, so Seth Green, who comes in a bit later, he plays Oz. This is what David Borealis did. He would do a poo in Seth Green's trailer every day and not say who it was and not flush it. Isn't that funny? Ha ha.
And then Seth Green found it. So that's the kind of thing that I have to say would make me want to kill him. But anyway, practical jokes are go-go from David.
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Chapter 6: What role do love interests play in Buffy's development?
The first series was really successful. Like movie type people are looking at Sarah Michelle Gellar. Right. And so she does, I know what you did last summer. She does Scream 2 and she does Cruel Intentions.
All iconic films.
Absolutely iconic. She is completely great in them. But Joss Whedon doesn't like it and he says some mean things about her in Cruel Intentions. He calls it porny. Please. And of course, Sarah Michelle Gellar, because she is so great, says, I did what I think is my best work to date in that movie. Brushing it off by calling it porny is unbelievably hurtful to me.
He owes me flowers and that's on the record. She's so gracious about it. But Nicholas Brendan, who plays Xander, he basically says that seasons one and seasons two, we were all in it together. That was the thing. We were a team. And then it basically went away with the success of the show because status has changed. People move off and make other shows. And it all went a bit kind of hoo-ha.
And another writer says, in retrospect, the Buffy set was definitely pettier than other sets. You had young cast members. Sarah had become extremely famous. Some people were jealous of her. And there was a little bit of hierarchy because she was literally on the cover of magazines nonstop starring in huge movies. And it kind of altered everything.
Plus, there were other factors which we will come to later on. But it's weird because it actually starts going a bit wonky really quite early on with the personalities. I mean, there's no way you would see it. You don't see it on the show.
I think it's amazing that none of that managed to come through in the show because it really does. I mean, they managed to keep on churning out episode after episode of such high quality. But yeah, can you imagine? I mean, being 20, 21, 22, with even younger actors as well. Yeah. And going through all of that must be insane.
You know, American shows have loads of episodes. It's not like here where we do like six and we go, okay, that's all. Yeah, absolutely. You know, they go on for ages. If you're someone like Sarah Michelle Gellar, you're in everything. You know, it's not like you're really getting much time off because the whole thing revolves around you.
But also even Alison Hannigan, you know, you're just constantly in it all the time.
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Chapter 7: How does 'Buffy' address serious issues like trauma and consent?
Right? Yeah, I mean, hey, I wonder where J.K. Rowling came out at the same time, same year. Yeah.
So from what I've read about the show, the seasons are very, very different. So season one, establishing. Season two, we like. Season three, is that the imperial phase, would you say?
Oh, well, that's the final year at high school.
High school, yeah.
Which, I mean, I think it's great. The thing is, you might be talking to the wrong person for a keen critical analysis. I'm not talking to the wrong person. I love it. I think the general fan response is season four, people start to struggle with... And why do they struggle? I think, you know, I think it's Riley.
Yes. Okay. So let's talk about Paul Riley. So basically... Buffy has this incredible love affair with Angel who has to leave and it's just really sad. And then she has a rebound and rebound is Riley and it is played by quite an inexperienced actor. He's essentially a jock, you know, not to be the... He's like... He's a track athlete or something. Yeah.
Yeah. He does a wonderful job, but the character is meant to be the antidote to Angel, who's this broody vampire who just nothing will work and is always not there when she needs her, but, you know, confined to vampire rules, can only be around in the evenings and whatnot.
LAUGHTER
It's so funny, isn't it? You know, I'm hanging with my mates during the day and I'm like, oh, Kate, you're available now.
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Chapter 8: What is the legacy of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' in modern media?
She just has this insane power and she's... Yeah, almost like a slayer herself. But all of Buffy's friends, everyone in that network is sort of gone. And she's on her own against the biggest foe.
This is so Harry Potter. It's the same.
Got to pull it together.
Yeah. And then you have to bring them all together.
Yeah.
And it's good versus evil, which we will never get sick of. And actually, I think, you know, it was popular in the 90s to see these stories. And then we started flirting with the idea of, oh, what about the bad guys? Let's hear their point of view, anti-heroes, things like that. And I think we maybe need to go back to good old-fashioned good versus evil, rooting for the good guys.
That's quite cool. As long as it's a cool good guy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, essentially, let's face it, the Dark Lords are always the coolest, really.
That's true. They dress the best.
They are the best. Okay. I would like, you know, we very briefly touched on the musical episode. The musical episode is very important, isn't it? People really love that episode. Do you want to talk about it?
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