Together with Willow and Xander (Alyson Hannigan and Nicholas Brendon) and the rest of her friends - affectionately called the Scooby Gang - each week Buffy balanced the totally relatable challenges of passing history exams while staking (or dating) the undead, all with her trademark irreverent sass and witty repartee. The series centered on the trials of Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a cheerleader turned superhero who’s the only thing standing between the California suburb of Sunnydale and the apocalypse. Or at least, it provided a glossed-up version of high school: fashions rivaling Clueless’ Cher, evenings spent at under-18 clubs frequented by a parade of on-the-cusp punk and rock bands and the struggles faced by teens growing up in a single-parent home.Īmong this new genre of shows The WB launched is the perennially beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003.
The WB, which later became The CW, captured the emerging teenagers’ experience of coming of age at the close of the 20th century.
In the mid-‘90s, a new channel found magic by connecting with the then-current generation of teens, Gen Y (for the youngins out there, that’s what they used to call millennials).
