It’s her first day at college, and Buffy is not having a good day, thrown out of class, not making friends, and finally having her butt handed to her by on-campus vampire Sunday. Can she regain her life before Sunday takes it from her?
It’s the start of a new season, and that tends to mean some kind of shake-up and movement of the various pieces. It also means it’s time for a Buffy angst story, as per the first episode of the last two seasons. In all fairness, though, this episode has several things to achieve. It has to set up the new situation for Buffy and friends, make use of a reduced cast and is a good chance to bring in new viewers. The fact that it achieves all of these so well is testament to Joss Whedon’s creative powers.
With the cast cut back to Season One-style plus Oz, the tone becomes much more in that vein. The loss of the recurring cast of Season Three is something of a plus as the original main stars get some of the best scenes they ever have, especially the much-underused Nicholas Brendon. Just as Buffy is in the pit of despair, Xander turns up just in time to help her back out. It’s a relationship that’s been missing for some time and shows the strong bond of friendship between the two.
Sunday is a great vampire character and would have been good to keep around, if only for a few episodes. Still, it’s a great fight scene when she takes on and beats Buffy, only bettered at the end with a stake-twirling, head-butting, hard-punching Slayer reclaiming her territory.
One concern is that finding things for Giles to do could be a problem, but by the end of the episode things seem to be back to normal and you can’t wait to see more. The humour is still present in spades, too, with Buffy’s visit to Giles’ house hilarious, not to mention Oz getting to know his students, Xander’s Yoda speech and some top tough Slayer-speak.
If there’s any criticism, it’s that Buffy would not be beaten so easily and there’s a little too many scenes of Buffy feeling lonely, but these quibbles are made up for so easily that they’re completely forgivable. A good start.
****
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