Welcome to the Hellmouth
Picking up where the feature film left off, Buffy Summers and her mom move to Sunnydale, California, for a fresh start, unaware of the evil lurking in this quiet suburb.
While also meeting her new "Watcher," Giles, the mercurial school librarian, her newly assembled team encounters the ever-abundant unearthly creatures in Sunnydale.
[2] Joss Whedon developed Buffy the Vampire Slayer to invert the Hollywood formula of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie."
Inside his office, Principal Bob Flutie (Ken Lerner) sees on Buffy's permanent record that she burned down her previous school's gym; she nearly lets it slip that she did so because there were vampires, but she quickly changes the end of her statement to "asbestos."
Inside the library, new librarian Rupert Giles (Anthony Head) places a book titled Vampyr in front of Buffy after recognizing who she is.
Buffy forces her way into the locker room, examines the body, and finds the characteristic puncture wounds of a vampire on his neck.
That night, on her way to her first visit to The Bronze, Sunnydale's popular hangout, Buffy meets a mysterious, handsome stranger, Angel (David Boreanaz), who warns her that she is living on a Hellmouth that is about to open and that "the Harvest" is coming.
Buffy uses her fashion sense to pick out a vampire (J. Patrick Lawlor) in the club and is alarmed to see Willow leave with him.
[1] Writer Joss Whedon says that "Rhonda the Immortal Waitress" was really the first incarnation of the Buffy concept, "just the idea of some woman who seems to be completely insignificant who turns out to be extraordinary".
[3] This early, unproduced idea evolved into Buffy, an inversion of the Hollywood formula of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie".
[5] The idea was first visited through Whedon's script for the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which featured Kristy Swanson in the title role.
"[8] Several years later, Gail Berman, a Fox executive, approached Whedon to develop his Buffy concept into a television series.
[14][15] Whedon has declared in June 2003 that the non-broadcast pilot would not be included with DVDs of the series "while there is strength in these bones," stating that it "sucks on ass.
[18] Whedon hoped to include actor Eric Balfour in the title credits to shock viewers when his character dies.
[19] Brian Thompson, who plays the vampire Luke, returns to the series in season 2 as a different character, the Judge, in "Surprise" and "Innocence".
Willow's character demanded that she be shy and unsure of herself, and the casting department encountered some difficulty finding actresses who could portray this effectively and still be likable.
'"[23] Whedon conceived the character as introverted, saying "I wanted Willow to have that kind of insanely colorful interior life that truly shy people have.
"[24] Nicholas Brendon, who had recently been fired from his job as a waiter and was struggling financially, was attracted to the pilot script for Buffy because of how much he had hated high school.
Although she had only fifteen minutes to prepare for the character, the producers were "really responsive" to Carpenter's audition, and she left feeling confident she had gotten the part.
"[31] Veteran character actor Mark Metcalf appeared in heavy prosthetic make-up for the role of The Master, belying his iconic performance in the film National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) as Douglas C. Neidermeyer.
[32] Many actors auditioned for the part, but Whedon felt Metcalf played it with more complexity, bringing a "sly and kind of urbane" sensitivity and a charm to the villainy of the character.
Sutherland, who disliked the horror genre, was not looking for acting jobs when her agent called her with the opportunity to play Joyce.
[33] Bob Flutie, Sunnydale High School's principal, was originally played by Stephen Tobolowsky in the unaired pilot.
He also wanted the vampires to be "clearly monsters," as to not make it seem like a high school girl was killing normal (looking) people.
This episode introduced the idea that vampires' clothes would resemble the era in which they died, with Buffy identifying one by his dated outfit.
Joss Whedon felt this concept was a "charming notion" but ultimately rejected it for the most part because he believed that, if every vampire in the show was dressed in old-fashioned clothes, they would cease to be scary.
Club wrote that the episode was "a good introduction to the show, establishing the characters and the premise quickly and cleanly, before ending on a cliffhanger".
[40] John Levesque, writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, called the fledgling series "witty, intelligent and thoroughly entertaining" and dubbed it "the best thing I've seen on The WB".
First episodes often get bogged down in establishing lore, and while 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' is no exception, the snappy dialogue and the charm of our core protagonists mean it doesn’t really matter.
[45] Nikki Stafford, in her book Bite Me!, called the first episode "excellent" and complimented the strengths of the main cast as well as the show's unique approach.
