Slayers, rejoice! A Buffy reboot is coming to our television screens.
For many of us, Buffy was the definitive show for girls who wanted to grow up kicking ass and fighting our own demons. They might not have been literal demons like the ones in Sunnydale, but Buffy taught us how to fight all the same. She was going through the same things as any other teenager, only some of hers had big scary teeth and an aversion to garlic. And if you thought your high school experience sucked, at least there wasn’t a literal Hellmouth underneath it.
The one-liners were perfection, the teenage angst was always relatable, and even the grown-ups were pretty cool. The show really helped to put things in perspective, too. Most storylines were comments on social issues that are still relevant today, which is probably why Twentieth Century Fox think it’s ripe for rebooting.
It doesn’t even need to stick to high school or small-town America for a setting, we could encounter Buffy and the Scoobs at an entirely different stage of their lives. The series ended with a massive number of new Slayers being unleashed throughout the world, and the show’s universe has lived on in comics.
There’s always some resistance to tinkering with anything about a beloved show, but then Buffy The Vampire Slayer itself is a reboot of its original movie.
So let’s skip to the acceptance part of the five stages, and consider what we should be excited about for this reboot.
First up: more diversity. Buffy’s showrunner, Monica Owusu-Breen, and the character of Buffy herself will both be Black women.
For an entire generation of queer women, on screen representation seemed to begin and end with Willow/Tara. How might that pairing look updated for 2018: can they avoid the Bury Your Gays trope this time out? Admittedly, lots of characters died and some of them once a season, but it would be refreshing to see how a relationship between two female characters might be treated this time around.
Not to mention the subtext-fuelled flirtation between Faith and Buffy, which was the original fan favorite before Willow had even had her first Sapphic stirrings. Which new actress will be tasked with being the bad girl, and can they recapture the chemistry between Eliza Dushku and Sarah Michelle Gellar? Fans are already throwing out names for who they think will make interesting new takes on beloved characters, though the network hasn’t announced any casting yet.
Also still to be seen is whether the original cast will return in any capacity. While some of their diaries are busier than others, it would be beyond cute to see them turning up in the same universe almost twenty years later, much like Supergirl has done with legacy actors Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher from Lois & Clark.
There’s always going to be resistance and some online uproar, but rebooting with the intention of showing more diversity, and continuing to center women at the heart of the story is a continued step in the right direction.
Will you be tuning in for the revamped and rebooted Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
What Do You Think?