A pilot isn’t an episode, not really. Not in the way we’d think of episodes. It’s more a proof on concept – a test or a prototype even. They’re usually not even supposed to be seen by the public and usually don’t even have episode titles. It’s for the big execs to look at and decide what needs fine tuning, who needs recasting, maybe even going all the way back to square one!
And as we said, the public generally see the finished first episode, by then sometimes renamed, sometimes not (look at Smallville and Alias at the time) and usually the pilot disappears, never to be seen again.
The Buffy pilot, therefore isn’t a long-lost episode of the show. It’s not some key episode zero. It’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer BEFORE Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Scenes are in different orders. Cast members were changed out. Some sets are different. Some music choices are not included. Some scenes have no sound effects at all! And the plot only bares a passing resemblance to Welcome to the Hellmouth.
There’s no Master yet. No Angel. There’s not even an Alyson Hannigan in sight (although there is a Willow…)! There are early glimpses of characters who would come later, like Harmony and Jonathan.
It’s a sketch of a show that hasn’t found its bones yet. And somehow, someway, magic happened. The network liked what they saw and changed accordingly. Willow changed. New characters were added. A new side-plot was mixed in. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer was born.
Now, we take a second to glimpse into the moment where it hatched… before it knew what it would become…
| Episode No. | Buffy the Vampire Slayer Unaired Pilot Presentation |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Joss Whedon |
| Written by | Joss Whedon |
Buffy Summers begins her first day at Berryman High School, already carrying the weight of a past she’d very much like to leave behind. She meets Principal Flutie — all nervous smiles and administrative panic — along with Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and the new British librarian, Mr. Giles, who seems far too interested in her for someone who’s only just arrived.
After class, Buffy and Willow walk the halls together. Buffy casually probes Willow about the librarian, and Willow explains that he’s new, “from some British museum,” which is exactly the sort of detail that should make Buffy nervous. Before she can follow that thread, Cordelia and her entourage sweep in, all confidence and cruelty, trying to pull Buffy into their orbit and away from Willow.
Elsewhere, Aura and Aphrodesia — two girls who exist solely to gossip and apply lip gloss — are getting ready for gym when a body falls out of a locker. The scream travels fast. Buffy hears the news, finds Principal Flutie, and insists on seeing the body herself. The moment she spots the two puncture marks on the neck, she heads straight for the library.
Giles, of course, is not remotely surprised. What shocks him is Buffy’s refusal to engage. She snaps, telling him she had a life before all this — friends, normality, sunlight — and that becoming the Slayer cost her everything. She wants no part of it now. Xander, unfortunately, overhears the entire exchange from the stacks.
Later, Buffy asks Xander about Willow. Xander mentions that Willow has gone off with a new “boyfriend,” and when he describes the guy as having a “Lionel Richie” vibe, Buffy bolts. She and Xander hear Willow scream from the auditorium. Buffy charges in to find a blond vampire feeding on her, and the fight begins. Two more vampires appear. Xander and Willow scramble to escape, brandishing a cross like it’s the only thing keeping them alive. Buffy dispatches the vampires with ease and, for the first time, declares herself: “I’m the Slayer.” One vampire flees; the blond one doesn’t get the chance.
The next morning, Giles is unimpressed — not by the victory, but by the sloppiness. Buffy let civilians see too much. She let her identity slip. Willow and Xander leap to her defence, but Buffy herself seems entirely unbothered. She’s not trying to be perfect. She’s just trying to survive her first week of school. She’ll be ready, she insists – and throws a stake right into her target.
0:00 : A screen card appears before the presentation begins. It specifically says that music is not cleared and that the short is not for airing.
0:48 : We open cold with a couple breaking into Berryman High School. The script doesn’t name either character, but it’s Carmine D. Giovinazzo and Julie Benz, who will reprise the same roles in Welcome to the Hellmouth.
1:26 : In the aired version, Darla kills the boy in the hallway. Here, he seems to lure her to the auditorium, where a play is set up for rehearsal. We don’t know what play it is until the final scene.
2:28 : Darla, as she does in the first episode, bites the boy, revealing her vampire make-up. There’s no music or morph effect here.
2:35 : There are no opening titles. The show’s name comes up, in an unknown font.
2:49 : We see Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy entering the high school. Buffy isn’t dropped off by her mother in this version, with the character of Joyce not even appearing. Originally, Joyce was always going to be offscreen.
3:05 : Yes, as you may have noticed, Sunnydale hasn’t been decided on as the town’s name, so the school is called Berryman High School. It’s still filmed at Torrance High School though.
3:10 : Rather than take place in his office, Buffy meets Flutie in the hallway. He glosses over her past at Hemery High. The school is also not named.
3:10 : He’s also not played by Ken Lerner, but by Stephen Tobowlosky. As an actor, he’s appeared in roles across television and you’re bound to have seen him somewhere. Please note a personality trait that didn’t make it to series; every time he talks to Buffy in the pilot, he gets her name wrong, calling her something else beginning with B. She’s ‘Bambi’ and ‘Bunny’ here.
3:53 : Xander approaches Willow in the quad, in this version played by Riff Regan. It’s the same scene about math from the first episode, just expanded.
4:20 : Cordelia approaches both Xander and Willow, with her ‘softer side of sears’ comment aimed at Willow. It’s delivered much less harshly in this version.
4:26 : A student asks Cordelia out. Please note, Jesse, who does this in the aired version, doesn’t appear here.
4:29 : She’s also accompanied by two further Cordettes, one of which is Nicole Bilderback, who had auditioned for a role in the series and would later appear in the show in The Wish. The other is Harmony, played by Mercedes McNab, who would appear from The Harvest through to Season Five in a recurring role.
4:32 : Harmony mentions that the band playing at the Bronze is ‘Dingoes Ate My Baby,’ which is the name of Oz’s band in Seasons 2-4.
4:41 : Xander interrupts Cordelia’s fashion critique and she’s suitably quick to snark: “Was I talking to you? Has any girl ever spoken to you of her own free will?” When he asks why that is, she coldly tells him to look in the mirror and walks away!
5:00 : Out in the quad, rather than in the hallway, Buffy collides with Xander and drops her bag. She asks him where the library is and then wanders off. Then he notices the stake on the floor.
5:23 : The library at Berryman High School. It’s immense and massive, far bigger than the one on the final series. There’s a spiral book case that leads to the stacks. Presumably this is a real library and not a set.
5:45 : Enter Giles. This scene is almost exactly the same as the original. Giles gives her a different version of the Vampyr book and Buffy freaks and runs.
6:37 : We see a shot of Buffy in class, with Willow and Xander, but she’s vacant. She’s restless, clearly thinking about Giles.
7:08 : In this version, the history teacher asks Willow to catch Buffy up, rather than Buffy finding her via Willow’s reputation. Buffy tells Willow, almost instantly, that history is not her best subject. In fact, she claims “she lacks a best subject.”
7:27 : The two walk and Willow claims her dress is ‘dorky’ although Buffy is instantly friendly. She asks Willow about Giles. Then Cordelia and Harmony come up and take Buffy to one side, ignoring Willow.
8:18 : Aphrodisia and Aura enter the locker rooms. The dialogue about Buffy and their names is kept in the final version. Aura finds the guy from the opening in her locker, just as before. Both girls are played by the actors who made it to air: Tupelo Jereme and Persia White, respectively.
8:40 : The song playing over this scene is ‘Salvation’ by Rancid.
8:49 : Xander approaches Buffy with the stake. The pepper spray line is absent, but Buffy describes her last school as ‘interesting’. Xander shows her the student cliques and they bond. Xander seems more mature here, using language that one wouldn’t expect from him. This scene is completely missing from the aired version and really should have been kept!
10:09 : Willow is approaching and tells them about the body found in the locker room.
10:26: Cordelia interrupts and has her “Don’t you have an elsewhere to be?” line. Harmony and the other Cordettes are also present.
10:56 : Flutie calls Buffy ‘Betty’, ‘Wilma’ and ‘Bambi’ here. He also claims that they very seldomly have dead bodies on campus. He has a strict policy about that!
11:40 : Buffy enters the locker room, by asking permission (!), and sees the wounds on the boy’s neck. “Oh great!,” she sighs.
12:02 : She enters the library and climbs the winding staircase to Giles. The dialogue is mostly the same as the aired episode, with Giles not understanding her and Buffy saying she doesn’t care.
13:10 : Buffy flips her way down to the ground level, a show of her abilities. She asks if Giles can leave her alone and he begins the speech. “Because you are the Slayer…”
13:29 : In a change from the aired version, Buffy looks straight back at him and deadpans that he’s really going to do the “speech and everything”. She then interrupts him, as she does in the original.
14:05 : Giles goes into his list, pulling books off the shelves and handing them to Buffy. The Time Life series joke is intact.
14:37 : Xander is more explicitly seen listening from the stacks, before his entrance in the filmed version.
14:57 : Buffy tells Giles that he should see what happened to the last guy who was sent to guide her, referring to Merrick. Then she starts telling him about her experience and how isolated she feels. “So I kill the vampires. Yay me. But what’s left? My grades are the suck, my social life has achieved leper stage and I get thrown out of school for causing trouble. Not exactly a medal and a book deal, if you know what I mean!”
16:13 : Then she leaves and Xander is seen talking to himself behind the bookcase.
16:18 : The Bronze appears, looking way more like a nightclub than it does in the series. A poster for the Dingoes can be seen outside.
16:34 : Buffy is in the queue when a guy with glasses asks if she’s the new girl. It’s Danny Strong, a whole season before appearing as Jonathan.
17:20 : Xander pretends he doesn’t know anything until Buffy mentions Willow has snuck onto campus with a guy he doesn’t know. Buffy asks after the date, who Xander describes as ‘pale’ and wearing out-of-date clothes. Very ‘Lionel Ritchie’ apparently. Buffy runs.
18:03 : Willow is in the auditorium rather than the graveyard. The vampire she’s with is played by J. Patrick Lawlor, not named in this episode as Thomas and with more confidence here that he has in the filmed version.
19:06 : He vamps out. Again, as with Darla, there is no sound.
19:10 : Buffy and Xander race onto campus. The school’s team here is the Bulls rather than the eventually-used Razorbacks.
19:18 : Buffy hands Xander her purse, telling him he might need it. It’s then that he reveals he overheard the vampire conversation in the library. Willow screams from somewhere ahead of them.
19:27 : Thomas is feeding from Willow, which he didn’t get the chance to do in the series. Buffy interrupts, entering the auditorium. She questions his clothing and Buffy charges the stage, kicking the vampire down.
20:00 : She tells him it was a mistake coming here alone. And then more vampires converge on the stage. None of them are named. Buffy pummels them, one by one.
20:25 : Thomas tells Buffy that she’s watched too many movies. As she starts to fight, she yells at him, in defiance: “You can never watch too many movies,” each syllable punctuated with a kick.
20:44 : Great line. As Buffy hits the deck, she proclaims that that was ‘her favourite spine’.
21:09 : As Xander finds Willow, Darla, unnamed, attacks them, pushing Willow away with disdain, claiming to hate leftovers.
21:21 : Buffy stakes a vampire for the first time. He falls to the floor groaning and, without special effects, turns into fine, white dust. A brief dusting sound effect is heard.
21:45 : Darla attacks Xander. Willow grabs a cross from Buffy’s bag and burns Darla into ash. We hear her face bubbling!
22:39 : Buffy doesn’t appear to stake the rest, but when Thomas asks who she is, Buffy says that she’s the Slayer, prompting the other vamps to run.
22:21 : When Thomas yells after one, he yells back “I’ll call you!”
23:20 : Thomas surprises Buffy as Xander and Willow come onto stage. Slayer and Vampire fall through the trap door in the stage and Buffy pulls Thomas down with her. A noise is heard of the two fighting, although there’s no dusting sound effect, and Buffy emerges unscathed as Xander helps her up. The three sit and Buffy tells her that this is a destiny thing when Xander asks what a Vampire Slayer does.
24:24 : The song playing in this scene is Dionne Farris‘ ‘I Know’.
24:09 : A poster is put up in the quad for the play: ironically, it’s a telling of Nosferatu!
24:38 : Cordelia and her group see Buffy with Xander and Willow. Cordelia says that Buffy has “found her level.” Harmony cannot believe they were even nice to the newcomer.
24:45 : Giles admonishes Buffy for not being prepared. He’s annoyed that she revealed her identity. “I cannot believe that the fate of the world may well be in the hands of this ‘teen thing’”. No ‘earth is doomed’ line here.
25:29 : Buffy smiles and tells him to “Relax. The world’s in beauty hands. Trust me.” She then throws a stake straight at the poster, hitting the image of Nosferatu in the heart.
The Watcher's Guide 