Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest

Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted in the spring of 1997 with two back-to-back episodes: Welcome to the Hellmouth and The Harvest. In addition to introducing viewers to a new version of Buffy, her Scooby Gang, and the season's Big Bad, their overarching story also established one of the series' core conflicts: our heroine's responsibilities as the slayer and how those clash with her desire to live a more normal life. Kristen & Mike kick things off with a discussion about how they discovered the show and why they love it so much. They also touch on Buffy's origins as a feature film and the unaired pilot that preceded the series. Then it's time to dive deep into these episodes and see if season one is really as bad as a lot of the fans remember it. There's no question that the show was still trying to find its footing at this stage, so it's interesting to see shades of where it was headed and make note of which elements were ultimately sidelined altogether.