12 Small Details You Only Notice Rewatching Buffy The Vampire Slayer

After six years of fighting all manner of supernatural creatures, Buffy’s final season gets back to basics with a battle against, essentially, evil itself. The First is a ghostly manifestation of all things bad. As a non corporeal being, it fights via the Turok-Han, an ancient race of super vampire. When Buffy first encounters one of these beasts, she almost dies in the tussle, and it’s only a good while later that she’s able to best it after an epic bout.

Re-watch season seven, though, and this scene makes a lot less sense. The climax to the series sees Buffy and the awakened slayers descend into the Hellmouth for a final war against evil, where wave after wave of Turok-Han charge at them.

The forces of good stand their ground, and… kill hundreds of these supposed super powered monsters with ease. There’s nothing to explain this, either - sure, Buffy et al had been training heavily, but this level of improvement over such a short time would set off alarm bells for a doping committee.

Joss Whedon has acknowledged the discrepancy on the finale’s audio commentary, and to his credit has not hastily made up an explanation. It appears that he simply isn’t bothered that this aspect is slightly off - which, after seven years of top class telly, is fair enough!