"Welcome to the Hellmouth"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Julie Benz as the vampire Darla in her first appearance. This sequence, in which the "helpless girl" turns out to be the threat, is used to subvert the obvious cliches in horror movies.
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 1
Directed by	Charles Martin Smith
Written by	Joss Whedon
Production code	4V01
Original air date	March 10, 1997
Guest actors
Mark Metcalf as the Master Brian Thompson as Luke David Boreanaz as Angel Ken Lerner as Principal Bob Flutie Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers Julie Benz as Darla J. Patrick Lawlor as Thomas Eric Balfour as Jesse McNally Amy Chance as Aphrodesia Persia White as Aura Tupelo Jereme as Girl Natalie Strauss as Teacher Carmine Giovinazzo as Boy[1]
Episode chronology
← Previous "Unaired Buffy the Vampire Slayer pilot (non-canon)" Next → "The Harvest"
List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes

"Welcome to the Hellmouth" is the series premiere of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This episode and "The Harvest" were originally aired as a two-part series premiere on The WB Television Network on March 10, 1997. The episode was written by the series creator and executive producer Joss Whedon, and directed by Charles Martin Smith. "Welcome to the Hellmouth" received a Nielsen rating of 3.4 upon its original airing and received largely positive reviews from critics.

The narrative follows Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) on her first day at a new school in a new town. She hopes to live as a normal teenager, but the duties and fate of the Slayer – to fight vampires, demons, witches and other supernatural beings – will not leave her alone; the ancient vampire the Master (Mark Metcalf) threatens to break free, and Buffy must turn for help to her school librarian and Watcher Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), her new classmates, Willow and Xander (Alyson Hannigan and Nicholas Brendon), and a benevolent stranger named Angel (David Boreanaz).

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." The series was created after the 1992 movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in an attempt by Whedon to stay truer to his original ideas. Many scenes were filmed on location in Los Angeles, California. The high school used for external and some internal scenes in the series is Torrance High, the same school used for the series Beverly Hills, 90210.

Plot [edit]

The series premiere begins at Sunnydale High School, where a boy (played by Carmine Giovinazzo) breaks into the school during the night with a seemingly reluctant girl (Julie Benz), promising her mischief and therefore fun. Nervous and on edge, the girl says she thinks she heard something and fears someone is in the school, other than the two of them. The boy calls out but gets no response, leading him to say "it's nothing" to the girl and assure her that they "are alone". The girl says " ok, that's good", after which she turns to face the boy, revealing her facial morph into her true identity; a vampire. She then bites the boy's neck. She is later revealed to be Darla.

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has a nightmare the morning of her first day at school. Her mother, Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) drives her to the school and encourages her to think positive. Inside the building, Principal Flutie (Ken Lerner) tells her she will start with a clean slate. He reconsiders that after realizing that Buffy burned down her previous school's gym. Buffy starts to explain that she did so because "it was full of vampi..." but she rapidly changes the end of her statement to "asbestos."

Buffy exits the office and bumps into a female student, spilling the contents of her handbag on the floor. Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) sees this and helps Buffy repack, mainly to introduce himself to her, as it was earlier suggested that he is attracted to her. She leaves without her stake, which Xander pockets because he called out to her, but she had already walked away. In history class, Buffy is helped by popular girl Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), who afterwards tests her "coolness factor," skipping the written as Buffy had just moved to Sunnydale, California from Los Angeles. To Buffy's horror, Cordelia humiliates an awkward Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) at the water fountain. Inside the library, Rupert Giles (Anthony Head) places a book titled Vampyr in front of Buffy after recognizing who she is. A stunned Buffy makes a hasty exit.

Buffy, Willow, Jesse McNally, and Xander meet during a break, and Xander returns the stake. Buffy claims it is standard self-defense in Los Angeles. Cordelia appears and tells Buffy that gym is cancelled due to the "extreme dead guy" in Aura's locker. Buffy asks whether there were marks on the body, freaking out Cordelia. Buffy forces her way into the locker room, examines the body, and finds the characteristic puncture wounds of a vampire on the neck. Buffy returns to the library and confronts Giles, who informs her that he is her Watcher. Buffy refuses to accept her calling as a Slayer, since it had gotten her kicked out of her previous school and robbed her of a social life. After they leave the library, Xander emerges from behind the shelves, having overheard the strange conversation.

That night, en route to her first visit to The Bronze, the cool hangout in Sunnydale, Buffy meets a mysterious, handsome stranger (David Boreanaz), who warns her that she is living on a Hellmouth that is about to open, and that "The Harvest" is coming. He also gives her a large silver cross pendant. In The Bronze, Buffy meets Willow and encourages her to seize the moment: "Because tomorrow you might be dead." She finds Giles and tells him about the stranger. Giles tells her to learn to hone her skills to sense vampires anywhere. Buffy uses her fashion sense to pick out a vampire in the club and is alarmed to see Willow leave with him. She loses them and is surprised by Cordelia, nearly staking her. Cordelia immediately calls her friends to tell them about it. While Buffy looks for Willow, Jesse chats up Darla at The Bronze. Buffy is stopped by Xander, whom she convinces to help search for Willow.

Meanwhile, under the streets of Sunnydale, The Master is woken by lesser vampires from a long sleep to prepare for the Harvest. He sends Luke to fetch young blood. Willow's new acquaintance takes her to a crypt in a cemetery, where they are joined by Darla and Jesse, whom she has bitten. Buffy and Xander arrive. Buffy kills Willow's vampire. Xander and Willow help Jesse, who has been weakened, flee. Luke takes Darla's place in the fight so she can help catch the kids. Luke throws Buffy in a stone coffin and is about to move in for the kill.^[1]

Production [edit]

Buffy creator Joss Whedon also served as executive producer, head writer, and director on the series.

Background and writing [edit]

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".^[2] 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".^[3] Whedon wanted "to subvert that idea and create someone who was a hero".^[3] He explained, "The very first mission statement of the show was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it".^[4]

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. The director, Fran Rubel Kuzui, saw it as a "pop culture comedy about what people think about vampires".^[5][6] Whedon disagreed: "I had written this scary film about an empowered woman, and they turned it into a broad comedy. It was crushing."^[7]

Several years later, Gail Berman, a Fox executive, approached Whedon to develop his Buffy concept into a television series.^[8] Whedon explained that "They said, 'Do you want to do a show?' And I thought, 'High school as a horror movie'. And so the metaphor became the central concept behind Buffy, and that's how I sold it."^[9] The supernatural elements in the series stood as metaphors for personal anxieties associated with adolescence and young adulthood.^[10] Early in its development, the series was going to be simply titled Slayer.^[11] Whedon went on to write and partly fund a 25-minute non-broadcast pilot that was shown to networks and eventually sold to the WB Network.^[12] Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired on March 10, 1997, as a mid season replacement for the show Savannah on The WB network, and played a key role in the growth of the Warner Bros. television network in its early years.^[13][14]

Music [edit]

The episode, being the series premiere, features the first usage of the theme song by pop punk band Nerf Herder. Parry Gripp, the band's songwriter, guitarist, and admitted fan of the show explained that the band created the theme song after "fancy pants Hollywood" failed to write a theme song that the producers approved up. Eventually, "they [the producers] asked a bunch of local, small time bands who they could pay very little money to come up with some ideas and they liked our idea and they used it. And the rest is history!"^[15] Several songs by the band Sprung Monkey play during the episode. When Buffy is deciding what to wear, the song "Saturated" is playing faintly in the background. At The Bronze, the band plays their songs "Believe", "Swirl", and "Things are Changing". All of the songs featured in the episode can be found on their 1995 album Swirl. The score for the episode, as well as all first season entries, was created by Walter Murphy.^[16]

Casting and filming [edit]

Torrance High School stood in for Sunnydale High.

Joss Whedon explained that several of the characters that appeared in the series were based on real life individuals. Cordelia, for instance, was modeled after a girl whom Whedon's wife attended high school with. Xander was based on Whedon himself.^[16] Whedon hoped to include actor Eric Balfour in the title credits to shock viewers when his character dies. Unfortunately, the show could not afford the extra set of title credits at the time. However, Whedon's wish was granted in the season six episode "Seeing Red", with the character Tara Maclay.^[17] Brian Thompson, who plays the vampire Luke, returns to the series in season two as a different character, the Judge, in "Surprise" and "Innocence".^[18]

Certain scenes, such as the argument between Giles and Buffy in the library, and Buffy's first meeting with Angel, were re-shot eight months after the first episode was recorded with both Whedon and Gellar feeling that Buffy was too angry in the original takes. Whedon subsequently teased Gellar that they were going to reshoot the scenes a third time.^[17] The high school used for external and some internal scenes in the series is Torrance High, the same school used for the series Beverly Hills, 90210.^[18]

Reception [edit]

"Welcome to the Hellmouth" first aired in the United States on March 10, 1997 on The WB.^[19] On the original airing of this episode, The WB provided a teaser advertisement briefing the history of past Slayers. It revealed horrific events in towns that were halted when a particular woman arrived. This promotional teaser does not appear in syndication or on DVD.^[20] "Welcome to the Hellmouth" earned a Nielsen rating of 3.4, meaning that roughly 3.4 percent of all television-equipped households were tuned in to the episode.^[21] It was the 100th most watched episode of television that aired during the week ending March 16.^[22]

The episode received largely positive reviews from critics. Noel Murray of The A.V. 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".^[23] Murray, however, did note that it contained a "dialogue that sounds more faux-clever than actually clever" and that there was "an overall flatness to the action/horror sequences" that would continue until the second season.^[23] 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".^[24] He praised the acting of Sarah Michelle Gellar, noting that she "plays Buffy to perfection".^[24] Phil Kloer of The Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution called the show a "kicky little mix of camp comedy, high school hi-jinks and monsters" and likened its plot to the Fox sci-fi series The X-Files and the Nickelodeon horror-themed anthology series Are You Afraid of the Dark?.^[25] He ultimately gave the episode a B.^[25] 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. She contrasted it with the earlier movie, noting that "the movie version [...] was like Clueless, but near the end suddenly tried to be a serious film. The television show carries comedy, action, and drama simultaneously and features a far superior ensemble cast."^[20]

Footnotes [edit]

References

• Billson, Anne (2005). Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BFI TV Classics). British Film Institute. ISBN 1844570894. 
• Edwards, Lynne (2008). Buffy Goes Dark: Essays on the Final Two Seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. McFarland. ISBN 078643676X. 
• Golden, Christopher; Holder, Nancy (1998). Watcher's Guide Vol. 1. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 1932100008. 
• Havens, Candace (2003). Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy. Benbella Books. ISBN 1932100008. 
• Stafford, Nikki (2007). Bite Me!: The 10th Buffyversary Guide to the World of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ECW Press. ISBN 1550228072. 
• Topping, Keith (2004). Slayer, the Next Generation: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Virgin Publishing. ISBN 0753507382. 
• Wilcox, Rhonda et al (2002). Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 0742516814. 

External links [edit]

• "Welcome to the Hellmouth" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Welcome to the Hellmouth" at TV.com