Monday, May 31, 2010

"Welcome to the Hellmouth"

Review by Paul Steven Brown

I hear that it gets better after season one. I certainly hope so, since the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer wouldn’t have motivated me to come back for the next episode, if I had caught it when it originally aired. Since the first two hours originally aired on the same night back in the spring of 1997, my attitude may change after watching “The Harvest”.

As it stands, “Welcome to the Hellmouth” has the duty of introducing us to the title character, her co-stars, and the town of Sunnydale. Creator Joss Whedon smartly skips over retelling how Buffy discovered her supernatural powers and her role as a slayer. This allows the show to hit the ground running a lot quicker. If we want to see some version of Ms. Summers’ origin, we can always watch the 1992 film starring Kristy Swanson.

Buffy Summers is a very likable character right out of the gate. Aside from being extremely cute, she appears to be awfully good-natured and positive for someone that has been recently thrust into the role of a vampire slayer. As we follow her on her first day at a new high school, it’s clear that she knows how to walk the tightrope of cliques, while not feeling beholden to them. She could easily fall in with the cool kids’ crowd, but she obviously feels more comfortable around other oddballs like Willow.

Willow is already a fun character. When Buffy offers her advice to help Willow with her social insecurities, it comes across as someone trying to help a friend and not mold a pet project (see Clueless). Alyson Hannigan (who would quickly become a geek sex symbol) seems to be able to handle the quirky Whedon dialogue more naturally than most of her fellow cast mates. When she makes an embarrassing or sarcastic remark, it doesn’t seem as forced as when Xander speaks.

Xander. This guy is already annoying. Obviously Xander is the progenitor of the smart ass character that will continue to be a staple of Joss Whedon’s later show. Firefly had Wash and Dollhouse had Topher (I wonder if the shortening of all their names is an intentional gimmick). These later two are an improvement on the original concept, at least in this initial form. Hopefully, Xander will become a more refined version of the jester character, similar to the ones that followed him. At the moment, I like his friend Jesse more (played by Eric Balfour who was Claire’s boyfriend Gabriel on Six Feet Under).

Giles is obviously overqualified to be a high school librarian, but we quickly learn why he has situated himself in Sunnydale. Still, he does look like a creepy pederast when we see him skulking around the local teen club, the Bronze, looking for Buffy one night. Still, he’s young enough to actively participate in some vampire hunting, which gives him some advantage over the older Donald Sutherland Watcher character.

The library is already being set up as the base of operations for Buffy and her gang. Not only is this a convenient location to have them interact with Giles without it seeming weird, but it will undoubtedly be a great source for research and exposition download. Also, with its two tiers and rounded structure, the library feels like it could be Buffy’s version of the Batcave or the bridge of the Enterprise.

Cordelia is also given billing during the credits. So far she’s seems to only exist as a foil to Buffy. Buffy could easily be just like Cordelia if she didn’t have so much hanging over her head. I’m sure Cordelia will become more important to the overall mythology of the show, but at the moment she is very much on the outside of the Buffy gang.

The bad guys are a bit of a mixed bag. Darla is almost a vampire version of Buffy. This could be fun if played right. The Master comes across as a demonic John Malkovich who can’t seem to get past a mystical version of an invisible fence. He doesn’t seem very threatening yet, but he is literally being kept on a leash for the time being.

Luke seems like the only credible threat at the moment. Even under the vampire make-up it’s hard not to recognize Brian Thompson. He’s best known for playing the alien bounty hunter on The X-Files for most of the series’ run. As Luke, he’s pretty much just a big thug, but Thompson seems to have fun with the character, especially when he gets to dish out threats and insults to Buffy during their fight in the mausoleum.

The look of the show is pretty dated. It’s obvious that this was filmed in the late ‘90s when we see the fashions worn by the teens of Sunnydale. The band at the Bronze is gloriously pop-grunge and very indicative of the era. This is not a criticism, but I’m sure there will be many flashback moments that will remind me of my college days as I watch this show.

“Welcome to the Hellmouth” barely gets the plot rolling by the time the episode ends. Now that the characters introductions are out of the way we’ll hopefully get to dive headfirst into some plot with the second hour. It’s going to be very interesting to see how Buffy the Vampire Slayer grew from this mediocre first episode to the cult phenomenon that ran for seven seasons and spawned a five season spin-off. Hopefully, there will be an episode that makes it very evident that the show has turned a corner.

As I mentioned in the first post, all commenting is to be spoiler free and only about the episode that is being written about in this particular post or episodes that were before it (which would be kind of hard since this is the first one).


  1. I remember watching this when it first aired, and I am not too ashamed to admit that I really tuned in explicitly because the show starred several hot girls. I also remember being distinctly impressed by the dialogue (as cheesy as it occasionally was), if not so much by the acting. I followed the show for two or three seasons because of the quality of the writing, and until I had a major falling out with TV in general.

    I had also come to this show from a few years interest in some of the White Wolf Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game and Jyhaad table-top card game stuff, so I was already fairly invested in some of the paranormal concepts Joss played to in the series.

    It's interesting to think of how much Buffy influenced some similar genre projects in both TV and other media, which is something to keep in mind--at this point, many of the unique things from Buffy have been re-done to death.

    Regarding Xander, I also have to admit here, perhaps somewhat more ashamedly, that I really identified with his character. Sure he was annoying, but he was also charmingly funny and sardonic at times.

    It's hard to comment much more without drawing on my knowledge of later episodes and seasons (though I still haven't watched the last couple). Suffice it to say that though not every episode is a winner, there are more good than bad, and the characters do, for the most part, have well realized arcs.

    Great first review, BTW. I'll be interested to see how your opinion of the show changes over the next few episodes.

  2. I remember when this was shown on BBC2 for the first time. Both "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "the Harvest" were merged into one feature length episode.

    When re-watching the DVDs with my (now) wife, there was a very distinguishable difference between how the two Episodes worked apart. There just wasn't enough "meat on the bones" for the first 45 minutes to be digestable on its own.

    Never the less Buffy turned into a must watch series.

  3. I vaguely remember watching this for the first time. Here's what I DO remember thinking:

    "Wow. This is nothing like the movie... which is probably a good thing. No Luke Perry."

    "I want that nerdy guy [Xander]."

    "These kids are supposed to be MY age, but they look about 5 years older."

    "I like this. So, there's no way this lasts more than a few episodes."

    "I am SO not telling my friends I watched this."

  4. Thanks for the comments, gang. I'm looking forward to seeing the show turn the corner. I've been warned by several people that the first season is pretty rough compared to what BtVS finally becomes. I'll try to be patient.

  5. I was a bit late to the party too with Buffy, and I'm still not totally sold yet (I'm on Season Two). I keep going though because my best friend and my boyfriend keep telling me how brilliant is will become. (It feels a bit like hard work at the moment though!)