Before the new term starts, Buffy finds a new visitor to Sunnydale, who has an oddly personal interest in her: Dracula.

Now, there was no conceivable way this wasn’t going to come across as silly, so it’s good to see that when Dracula first turns up, Buffy’s immediate reaction is, ‘No!’, which is pretty much how the audience feels. Now, having said that, it’s obviously necessary to spin a half-decent story around the old Count and sadly half-decent is about as good as it gets.

First things first, though. The opening teaser sequence is great, with the new stunt team showcasing some of their work by putting Buffy through her paces and giving a ‘new season, back in business’ vibe. Then there’s the usual excitement at seeing the gang back for another year, and further pleasure when they’re all actually doing something, and seem to have realized what the fans were complaining about last year, that some of them weren’t being involved.

Unusually, this is the first season opener where Buffy is her usual self; season two she was recovering from dying, season three she’d left home, season four she was unsure about college. This time she’s comfortable, and the gang are all close again. It’s the way Dracula affects several of them that makes for good viewing as the too-long-ignored cast members finally get a chance to shine. Giles, wondering whether to stay in Sunnydale, not only gets a wonderful scene with Dracula’s sisters/daughters/whatever, Xander is turned into Dracula’s bug-eating butt-monkey and decides he’s not taking it anymore, which might make him a more integral character, Spike and Riley have a great face-off that sets up some good friction for later on and Anya and Xander go through some problems, with Anya starting to realize she wants to be her own person. Hopefully all these should pay off later in the season. Having said this, I’m fed up with Riley. Starting off as a rather nice sensitive soul, since being revealed as the Initiative’s greatest soldier, he’s just turned into a macho, posturing idiot, trying to protect a girlfriend who clearly doesn’t need protecting, and a character flaw that’s going to get him killed sooner or later.

Meanwhile, Buffy faces off against Dracula. This is the bit that somehow doesn’t quite work, because it’s almost impossible to treat Drac as a serious threat knowing he’s a fictional character. It’s a hilarious conceit that Anya once dated him for a few centuries and he and Spike had a run-in while the rest of the Scooby Gang didn’t think he was real, but it’s never clear just what he wants from Buffy. He manages to bite her, she drinks some of his blood, but why is never very clear. Dracula says he wants Buffy to know the darkness of the source of her Slayer powers, but quite what he plans to do with her is anyone’s guess. Considering he can escape nigh-on any attack, he’s also an odd villain, and the ending, though hilarious, makes it unclear if the Count is still around or not.

Overall then, some great moments, good use of characters, some really funny bits (the beach scene is pretty cool too), a puzzling (if expected, considering most people knew about Dawn in advance) ending, some hints about the overall season arc of Buffy exploring her heritage, but something just didn’t quite work about Dracula’s visit. A shame, but in the creators’ defence, it’s unlikely they could have used him any better considering how familiar he already is.

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