What was your initial, very first reaction to Buffy?

Scared, actually!

My first exposure to Buffy was almost two decades ago, when I would watch this channel called “Chiller”. It was a horror channel here in the US that would show all sorts of stuff. Freddy’s Nightmares, Buffy, sometimes they’d show a movie (I remember they pushed Midnight Meat Train a lot 🤔), but it was all horror themed or horror-adjacent.

Anyways, lil me is watching it in the earlier morning hours (the ones where you wake up and just can’t sleep), and here comes Kralik murdering people and messing Buffy up! It wasn’t until many years later that I gave the show a chance, and here we are!

But yeah, Helpless freaked me out as a kid!
 
I first watched in 2001 during the Thanksgiving Weekend Marathon on FX. Ep. Surprise of S2 was the first episode I watched. It hooked me and I fell in love with Bangel. Not having watched the series from the beginning I didn’t know why Angel couldn’t fly on a plane and why he was afraid of the sun. After that I watched the rest of Season 2. The ending in becoming 2 made me sob uncontrollably. I then caught up on the episodes I had missed and doing so found out the reason why Angel is afraid of the sun. I have been a fan ever since. After Buffy ended I watched Angel and kept watching Buffy reruns.
On January 4th 2010 I found this board and have enjoyed being here ever since.
 
Reason: Wanted to clean up my post.
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When I first found out Dawn hadn't always been there when I watched Season 5 I was very shocked. II watched Season 6 and 7 first so my reaction was backwards lol.
 
When I saw the promos of the series I was glad that a show about vampires was going to be shown, when the series was first shown on TV I was quite impressed even more so after a few months as that twat with the character name of Pike wasn't in it, he was bloody awful plus he didn't look right at all.
 
I saw it when it first came on Amazon Prime Video maybe a year ago? Maybe 2 years now? At first I remember thinking it was okay, I kinda liked the concept and the campy fun comedy mixed with gothic/demonic elements. Very 90s, very grungy. I watched maybe 1 episode every once in a while. When I started season 2, it seemed quite obvious that each character was getting paired up with somebody, even Giles was getting a love interest. So all that romance drama was a turnoff, made my eyes roll, especially all the Buffy/Angel stuff. Yuck. However, once Angel went bad everything changed. By the end of the season, I was extremely impressed, both by David Boreneaz as an actor, and even moreso by the writing. It's like a modern day Romeo and Juliet. Season 3 fueled the addiction further once Faith became a murdererous Slayer on the loose. By that point I became so eager to just eat up every next episode and I entered binge territory for the rest of the show.
 
I discovered Buffy back in 2015 while I was recuperating from a car accident. My arm and leg were broken, so I pretty much sat around channel surfing. One night on FX, I caught a glimpse of Dark Willow and I was completely.ENTHRALLED. After that, I made sure to catch the show whenever it was on. It was fun! I mean, I'd always know about it, but never sat down to watch.
 
I think it was that Julie Benz appeared on set as the vampire Darla, she scared the beejesus out of most actors.
 
So Buffy is my mom's favorite show, and for a while that's all I really knew about it (plus the vampires part). I vaguely remember her saying something about Buffy dying and Willow slaying, and at one point she showed me 'Standing' from OMWF, but that was kind of it.
Then a couple years ago, my mom suggested I watch it, so I said yes because we usually have similar tastes.
I went into the first episode expecting to like it, but after the Darla twist, I was a little shocked and really intrigued. The entire episode pulled me in and by that last shot of the episode, I knew I was hooked.
 
I should probably note I saw the movie first, as it aired quite frequently on HBO. I don't recall it being that bad. Then again, I wasn't trying to make a feminist/existentialist classic without a lot of Donald Sutherland.
 
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I only vaguely remember walking into it while my step-mother at the time was watching it (this was probably late 90s). I remember enjoying the score and the action. Then the romance. Then being obsessed with the romance. It wasn't until I was obviously old enough to comprehend the various background messages and tropes that I truly fell in love. So perhaps first impression? "What's this? Ms. Stepmom is watching it, so it must be grownup."
 
I loved the first season. It had a good consistent world, absolutely great dialogue, the characters are very believable, the story had great variance and twists, especially considering its budget.

Would have been a good 9/10 on its own.
 
I thought it sounded stupid.

Like I was supposed to be thinking, “A girl who is really girly but is tough?! No! Cannot be! Those are opposite things! You cannot be a traditional girly girl and be smart or tough! You must be either girly and weak or have no makeup and wear glasses and be smart or be scary looking and strong. Those are the only possibilities!”

And then they come along and enlighten me. And I’ll be shocked. “Wait, she is girly AND she is a woman of substance?! How is that possible?! And she can fight?! OMG, I must watch this show!!!!”

I was eye-rolling.

Plus they advertised it like it was going to Silence of the Lambs and back then we knew damn well that no TV show was ever truly scary. They overdid the ominous in all the commercials.

Then I started being irritated that people I knew and liked were saying it was good.
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I was a busy adult when Buffy began airing. I thought it sounded stupid and the ads for it were ridiculous so I avoided it like the plague.

When I saw it, by accident, I was surprised by how much I liked it.
 
After watching it Thanksgiving weekend on FX and liking it; why didn’t I know about this when it aired in 1997 on WB. After watching the series I found out that I really would have liked it a lot.
 
Mentioned this in another thread, but I jumped in fairly late on the BTVS train. A friend was a fan and encouraged me to watch it. This was somewhere mid-way through s5. I don't actually recall the episode I watched on TV, but I was drawn in immediately.

Which I suppose speaks volumes to the quality of the show. I had no idea what was going on, but I liked it enough to say 'I want to watch this from the beginning'. And so I did.

I do recall buying s1 on DVD and thinking, 'how did this show get renewed?'
Half of the episodes are good. It showed promise, and obviously I'm glad it did get picked up for another season!
 
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