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Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons

CNN
Monday, May 20, 2003

Each season of Buffy has brought new characters, new situations and variations on a handful of themes. Here are highlights of the show through the years.
- compiled by Lauren Gracco and Ann Hoevel

Season 1

From left to right, Giles, Willow, Xander and Buffy.
The beginning

• Vampire slayer Buffy Summers arrives at Sunnydale High after transferring from a school in Los Angeles, California. She makes friends with some fellow loners: goofy Xander, nerdy Willow, snotty Cordelia, and her British librarian -- and new "watcher" -- Rupert Giles.

Buffy and Angel kiss for the first time.

Buffy meets a boy

• Meeting men is a challenge for slayers -- but not Buffy. She meets devilishly handsome Angel, who keeps popping up with hot tips about local vamp activity. Angel is a vampire with a twist: He's got a soul, which makes him good on the inside.

• Angel's split personality leads to some pretty interesting complications throughout several seasons -- as does Buffy's pursuit of a regular boyfriend.

Sunnydale is a treacherous place for teenagers and principals alike.

The deadly high school

• With the mystical forces behind the Hellmouth centered in Sunnydale High causing brutal killings and demon activity, the high school is better off stocking the nurse's office with body bags than Band-Aids. Through the years, the school remains a haunting -- and haunted -- place.

• Principals don't fare well. In season 1, students possessed by an evil hyena spirit devour Principal Flutie. Future principals are equally doomed.

Pal Xander, left, revived Buffy with CPR.
The evil and the dead

• In season 1, the evil force is the Master, the big daddy of the vampires in Sunnydale, who is stuck below the ground. Eventually, he rises -- at Buffy's expense.

• Despite a prophecy stating she will die at the hands of the Master, our young heroine marches forward to try and save the world. She's bitten by the Master and tossed into a pool of water to drown. Xander revives the newly dead slayer with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It won't be the last time Buffy dies on the job.

• Surging with new power, Buffy finds the Master and does what she does best -- gives him a good old-fashioned slayer staking. All in a day's work.

Season 2

Lovesick evil vamps Drusilla and Spike.

Spike and Drusilla

• Drusilla and her boyfriend Spike, old acquaintances of Angel's, arrive in Sunnydale for season 2. They're there to hunt Buffy. When they fail, they stick around town to wreak havoc.


Kendra the vampire slayer gives Buffy a shock.
Kendra the Vampire Slayer

• Drawn to Sunnydale after her watcher dies, Kendra -- a slayer called into service after Buffy's death in season 1 -- tries to kill Angel.

• With the one-slayer-at-a-time rule broken by Buffy's first resurrection, Kendra and Buffy fight together, but struggle with their different slayer styles. Drusilla eventually kills Kendra.

Sometimes love hurts, like when Buffy spears her boy to save the world.

For love of Angel

• Angel and Buffy consummate their long-time romance -- but that one moment of true happiness triggers a curse and relieves him of his soul. Angel's evil alter ego, Angelus, is released.

• Angelus, Spike and Drusilla kidnap Giles and plot to take over the world, while Angelus takes special joy in taunting Buffy. Willow magically restores Angel's soul, but not before the evil vampires' damage is done. Buffy has to slay her true love Angel in order to save the world.


Season 3

Faith was called to be the new slayer in town after Kendra's death.
Faith the Vampire Slayer

• Faith the vampire slayer, called to duty when Kendra was killed, crashes Sunnydale. She's rough, tough and packs a whole lotta 'tude.

• After accidentally killing a human, Faith spins out of control; never too stable to begin with, Faith joins the dark side and becomes the muscle for Sunnydale's demonic Mayor Wilkins.

Angel returns from torment in hell.

Hell and heartbreak

• Angel returns. At first, Buffy keeps him a secret -- but the "Scooby Gang" soon finds out he's back, and they're none too happy about it. Angel makes amends and at the end of the season, he and Buffy break up, prompting him to leave for Los Angeles.

• Spike also returns. The big bad is now the big sad, since Drusilla has dumped him. He kidnaps Xander and resident witch Willow for a love spell that ends up revealing the love affair between those two.

Buffy and friends blow up the school, killing the newly ascended Mayor Wilkins.

The slithery mayor

• Mayor Wilkins, never a pleasant man, begins to turn into a demon snake at the Sunnydale High graduation. Literally. The serpent promptly eats Principal Snyder and doesn't even chew.

• Buff and gang lead the serpent into the library, where they blow him up, along with the school. The world is saved again, and school is out for the summer.

Season 4

Buffy navigates her way to class at UC Sunnydale.

College days

• Buffy, Willow and her boyfriend Oz -- a werewolf -- start school at UC Sunnydale. Xander skips college, and Giles, unemployed since the school's destruction, continues to watch Buffy.

• Oz dumps Willow, drops out of school and heads to the hills for some werewolf self-realization. Willow befriends Tara, also a witch, and Buffy struggles to balance college and slaying.

"The Gentlemen" gather the beating hearts from the chests of their silent victims.

"Hush"

• In one of the series' best episodes -- one with virtually no dialogue -- Buffy falls asleep in class and dreams about a fairy tale involving the "Gentlemen," a secret box and screams.

• Sunnydale residents go mysteriously mute, and Buffy and her crew silently work to unravel her dream.

• The Gentlemen, it turns out, are behind the silence. As they arrive in town to tear the hearts out of their scream-less victims, Buffy teams up with a graduate assistant, Riley, to find the box, release the voices and kill the Gentlemen.

Born at the Initiative's headquarters, Adam is a jigsaw puzzle of monster parts who becomes hell-bent on world domination.
Buffy and the "Initiative"

• Riley introduces Buffy to the "Initiative," an underground monster-tracking group funded by the government. Buffy helps the Initiative until its leader, her psychology professor, builds a superpower Frankenstein's monster-like creature: Adam. Adam then kills his creator and plots to build an army of Frankenstein's monster-like creatures.

• The Initiative does have some success with Spike, who has returned to Sunnydale with his new friend, Harmony, looking for a magic ring that protects vampires. Buffy steals the ring; the Initiative captures Spike and places a mind-controlling chip in his brain.

Faith and Buffy swap bodies as they touch, thanks to Faith's magic cube.

Faith and Buffy, Buffy and Faith

• Faith wakes from a long coma and wants revenge on Buffy, since Buffy delivered her coma-inducing beating. Using a magic body-changing box her late boss left her, Faith transfers into Buffy's body.

• But walking in Buffy's shoes (and feet) makes Faith develop a conscience. The girls unintentionally team up to battle Adam's followers, and they switch back to their own bodies.

Season 5

The mischievous and evil god Glory revels in one of her earthly pleasures: shoe shopping.

Split personality

• Glory rolls into town and terrorizes the Scoobies with her brute force, thirst for destruction and search for her "key," which turns out to be Dawn, Buffy's sister. She's partial to sucking the brains and knowledge out of Sunnydale locals.

• But Glory isn't just Glory -- she's half woman and half man. The man, Ben, is a doctor at the hospital and a big fan of Buffy's. Together, Glory/Ben is a god, something the gang has never faced before.

Tragedy in Buffy's life

• Joyce, Dawn and Buffy's mother, dies. The slayer comes home to find her mother's lifeless body on the couch.

• Meanwhile, commando boyfriend Riley, confused and frustrated by the slayer's absence of feeling for their relationship, leaves for good. And bad turns to worse as Buffy's former enemy Spike realizes that he's in love with her and feels compelled to tell her, much to her disgust and shock.


Buffy jumps into the opening of a hell dimension, sacrificing her life to save her sister, Dawn, and the world.

Buffy dies again

• Glory learns Buffy's kid sister's true identity, and Dawn is kidnapped for the hell-opening ritual. As Dawn's blood spills, bad things start to happen -- demons fly, lightning strikes, chaos ensues.

• Buffy realizes that because she is Dawn's sister, she can put a stop to hell. The slayer says goodbye to her tearful sis, plunges into the hell dimension, and dies.

Season 6

Buffy surfaces from the grave, which she dug out of using her bare hands.

Willow resurrects Buffy

• With Buffy dead, Willow convinces the Scoobies to try to save Buffy from hell. But before Willow can complete the resurrection spell at Buffy's gravesite, vampires ambush the group. The Scoobies run for safety.

• After the battle, a dazed, confused and resurrected Buffy claws her way out of the ground. She's back ... sort of.

Buffy cuts her hair in response to frustrations at home. She's rather pleased with the cut after she visits a salon.
Would you like fries with that?

• Back from the dead, Buffy faces an even bigger challenge -- supporting herself and Dawn. Coping with the stresses of running a household, dealing with social workers and fighting the undead, the not-quite-dead-slayer tries to hold down a day job.

• After dropping out of college, Buffy ends up making minimum wage (and fighting evil plots) at the Doublemeat Palace -- a burger joint where mystery meat and mysterious employee absences are on the menu.

Buffy and her friends ponder the demon Sweet's parting words before they begin the musical's grand finale.

"Once More with Feeling"

• In another of the show's greatest hits, the residents of Sunnydale spontaneously burst into song and then into flames. Buffy and the crew must find a musical-loving demon who's causing the mayhem.

• As they reveal secret thoughts and feelings through song and dance, the Scoobies track the spell's origins to a necklace Dawn fingered from Giles and Anya's store.

• Buffy battles the gypsy demon -- who threatens to take Dawn back to hell with him -- and finally reveals that she was resurrected from heaven.

When Willow embraces black magic, her hair, eyes and clothing all turn black.
Willow: Back in black

• Struggling with black magic all season, Willow finally turns evil after Warren -- the leader of a previously annoying but harmless group of would-be evil wizards -- shoots at Buffy and unintentionally kills Willow's girlfriend, Tara.

• Her grief overcomes her, and she becomes an all-powerful evil witch bent on revenge. After flaying Warren alive, Willow sets out to destroy the world.

• Sensing trouble in Sunnydale, Giles returns from England. As he's drained of his good magic and Buffy and Dawn are trapped, Xander is left to face Willow alone. He reaches out to her with love and his friendship pulls her back from the brink of destruction.

Season 7

The potential slayers practice martial arts in Buffy's back yard.

New beginnings

• Sunnydale High is rebuilt on the cursed site of the old school. A new principal, Robin Wood, presides. He's the son of a slayer and pretty handy with a stake himself.

• Spike returns with a new soul -- a changed man, clearly. And the "Potentials," girls rounded up from all over the world with the potential to be slayers, come to town to train with their leader, Buffy.

Don't let Caleb's good looks fool you -- he worships the First and likes to kill young women.
The First

• The First is an evil that is the baddest of the bad. Working for the First are bringers, cloaked men with no eyes or tongue; ubervamps, harder to kill than the average blood-sucker; and Caleb, a nasty and incredibly strong preacher gone bad.

• The First shows its face and form by borrowing the bodies of dead people the Scooby Gang knows.

Faith returns to Sunnydale with Willow to help fight the First.

The gathering storm

• Faith returns, sans her murderous attributes, wanting to help fight the First, and so does Angel.

• As the show heads into its final episode, the gang gets ready to go toe-to-toe with the worst evil the Hellmouth can muster. Who will live? Who will die? The answer will be provided soon, very soon ...

All pictures and commentary provided by CNN.