Given the glut of new television every year, it can be hard to make time to go back and watch things that you might have missed. That’s especially true of network-era shows, which tended to have many more episodes than their modern-day streaming counterparts.
Even so, if you’re looking for something great to watch on Hulu, we’d recommend starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This fantasy series, which follows a teenage girl who has been given the ancient responsibility of hunting and killing vampires and other demons, is one of the great shows in TV history. Here are three reasons it’s worth watching:
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It perfectly melds its fantasy and teenage stories
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Buffy is the way it uses its bigger, fantasy stories as metaphors for the normal experiences of adolescence. There are countless examples to choose from, but it’s truly remarkable to consider the ways the show seemed to make its two worlds seem not just to coexist but to actually reinforce one another.
Buffy herself was always a teenager and the chosen one, and both elements of her existence were equally important in how she ultimately found the courage and strength to save the world.
It’s still incredibly funny
There’s a lot to be said about Joss Whedon, who created Buffy and is responsible for much of its brilliance, but one thing that has always been true of him is that he knows how to write good banter. Buffy is filled with precisely that kind of repartee. It’s a show that understands how each of its characters might interact with one another.
More than 25 years later, Buffy remains one of the more clever shows of any kind to ever air on network TV, and while a few of the references might be dated, you’ll also be shocked by just how well the show’s sense of humor holds up all these years later.
It’s a deeply moving show when it wants to be
Because Buffy aired for seven seasons and 144 episodes, it had time for both formal experimentation and also to tackle some truly weighty material. There are episodes of Buffy that are as heartbreaking as anything you’ve ever seen on prestige TV, even if the budgets are lower and the sets are a little worse.
That’s a credit to the writing, but also to the immense talent of the ensemble cast, which is led incredibly well by Sarah Michelle Gellar but also includes at least a dozen other actors who proved themselves over the course of their time on the show.
