Written by: Joss Whedon.

Jesse... Eric Balfour
Principal Flutie... Ken Lerner
Joyce... Kristine Sutherland
the Master... Mark Metcalf
Darla... Julie Benz
Luke... Brian Thompson

Summary:

16 year old Buffy Summers moves to Sunnydale and starts in a new school. But things that she is trying to escape from come back to haunt her when a body is found in the school. It appears that Sunnydale isn't a normal town but neither is Buffy just a regular girl, she is the vampire slayer.

The first episode of Buffy ever, when all the characters were still young and innocent, those were the times. This is a great opening episode of a series, it explains all the characters and the slayer mythology without feeling like a boring history lesson. I really liked that this isn't predictable, in the beginning the frightened blonde isn't the one being used, but actually the monster to be feared and the bubbly normal teenage girl turns out to be the only one that can fight those monsters.

Joyce was doing well as a mother up until the point where she said “Try not to get kicked out”, that wasn't very supporting thing to say. But she was playing the good mother later when Buffy was leaving to the Bronze but why hadn't she heard about the dead body found at the school?

Principal Flutie tearing Buffy's file, then taping it back together was funny. Xander was cute as the “bibbling idiot” and Willow is really sympathetic character with her quirky nerdiness and shyness, really felt bad for her when Cordy was bashing her. Really loved the talks between Buffy and Willow, and we got the famous reason why she and Xander broke up. He stole her Barbie, heh.

Cordelia is a perfect bitch, she's the character you love to hate and has some great dialog. Buffy could have become one of the cordette's, a popular cheerleader who tormented Willow and Xander since she had already had Cordelia's approval. But despite being a “retired” slayer, she didn't ignore her duty and sacrificed her “social life” by doing the right thing and becoming friends with Willow, Xander and Jesse. And you can see from the look she gives Cordelia as she's being nasty to Willow that Buffy doesn't really like Cordy's behavior. And it's not hard to mistake Cordelia for a soulless bloodsucker. *Grin*

Did Giles think he gave the vampyr book to the wrong girl when Buffy fled the library? Really loved the interaction between Buffy and Giles, they really have great chemistry and he got a reality check on slayer's life, he did look a little taken back so I guess he hadn't really thought about it from that point of view. Poor Giles really looks out of place in the Bronze in his tweed suit and gotta love that stuttering, “but you didn't... hone”. And for some reason Buffy saying she didn't like the dark, annoyingly gorgeous guy didn't sound very convincing, it always makes me break into a smile.

And Angel. The first time I saw this episode I was really surprised by how young and skinny Angel/DB looked, and lets not forget yummy *swoon*. And the chemistry between Buffy and Angel is unbelievable, the screen was sizzling when they were together. And lets not forget the smirk...

Okay, I'm back. Just got a little distracted by the dark, mysterious smirking salty goodness. Lets move on to the characters that don't make me so distracted. Master is a great villain, on my top three of favorites, he's creepy and sometimes kinda funny, “Bring me something... young”. Luke is in a way cliché bad guy but for some reason I like him as a disposable baddie. And in this episode I wasn't as annoyed with Darla as I could be and Buffy could have staked her skanky ass if she hadn't been so busy joking. She should have just “plunge and move on, plunge and...” like Giles instructed in Never kill a boy on the first date. But we'll get to enjoy her turning to dust later. Buffy was a little easily thrown around by Luke, guess she wasn't on the top of her game yet, but the episode ended in a suspending cliffhanger. Where was the cross-necklace that Angel gave her?

10 -