The hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of the most successful teen dramas on television in the late ’90s and early 2000s. The show’s seven-season run set a new, much higher bar for the genre and demographic. It’s crazy to think that this show almost never made it to air.
Creator Joss Whedon ran into a lot of roadblocks leading up to the pilot, and the show ended up being a mid-season replacement, meaning the odds were already stacked against it. Joss’s pilot had to be perfect to catch an audience’s attention, and it was, but did you know there was a less perfect pilot out there that never made it onto our television screens?
Same: The Opening
Both the aired and unaired pilots, begin with one of our favorite big-bads, Darla. Played by Julie Benz, Darla leads an unsuspecting boy into Sunnydale high school after hours. This poor boy thinks he’s about to get lucky, but it actually ends up being a very unlucky encounter when Darla reveals her true self and eats her date.
There are a few differences between the scene that aired and the scene that didn’t. In the aired pilot, Darla kills her date in a science lab, and in the un-aired, it’s in the high school theater.
Different: Run Time
The original Buffy pilot was only about twenty-four minutes long. The aired pilot we all know and love, entitled, “Welcome to the Hellmouth” is about forty-one minutes long, which is standard for an hour-long television drama because back then, before Netflix and Apple TV, they had to factor commercial breaks into their run time.
If the twenty-four-minute pilot had aired, chances are Buffy would have been a half-hour show every week. Can you imagine trying to fit the average Buffy episode’s plot into twenty-four minutes?
Same: The Plot
The basic premise of the aired and unaired pilots is the same. Buffy Summers comes to town looking to start fresh after being expelled from her old school for “troublesome” behavior.
It’s her first day at Sunnydale High School and she is just trying to be a normal teenager, but instead of finding a way in with the cool kids, Buffy ends up dodging her new watcher, a dead body, and a lot of questions about the stake her new friend Xander finds when it falls out of her school bag.
Different: Principal Flutie
In the aired pilot, Principal Flutie is played by Ken Lerner, who sticks around for about four episodes before he meets his untimely demise. In the unaired pilot, Principal Flutie is played by Stephen Tobolowsky, another great character actor you may recognize from shows like Glee or Silicon Valley.
Tobolowsky is the quintessential high school teacher/administrator, as is evident by his IMDb pages, which boasts over two hundred credits, with a large majority of those being “teacher” roles.
Same: The Bronze
The Bronze is still the only place in Sunnydale teens can go dancing and drink fruit punch, no matter which pilot you’re watching. The Bronze we all know and love looks a little different on the outside in the pilot that never made it to air.
Also, in the unaired pilot, there’s a line outside of The Bronze. Xander goes to meet Buffy there and finds her standing in line, which makes no sense. In a town riddled with vampires and teens showing up dead in lockers, who in their right mind would wait outside, at night, in a long line to get into a club that’s never really that busy?
Different: Willow
This is probably the biggest difference and the most shocking fact when comparing the two pilots. Alyson Hannigan didn’t play Willow in the original pilot. Riff Regan is the actress who originally played Willow and was later recast when the show was ordered to series by the network.
Casting Director, Marcia Shulman, admitted that casting Willow was one of the most difficult things she had to do for this pilot because of the way Willow is written. When Alyson Hannigan finally got her shot at the part, it was clear the role was meant for her.
Same: Jonathan
The most die-hard Buffy fans will be pleased to know that Jonathan has been a part of this world from the very beginning. Actor Danny Strong, who went on to play Jonathan for six seasons, appears in this unaired pilot. His part in this version is much smaller than what it actually becomes.
In this episode, Jonathan is one of the dumb teenagers standing outside of The Bronze, waiting to get in. He has a brief exchange with Buffy before Xander enters and steals her attention. Just knowing this actor and this role has been part of the Buffyverse from its inception, warms fans’ hearts.
Different: The Library
The library looks very, very different in the first pilot, and it’s definitely a good thing that they changed in. In the unaired pilot, the library is massive with a lot of very large pillars on the first floor and multiple rows of large bookshelves on the second floor.
Choreographing and filming fight scenes in this library would have been a nightmare. It was too spread out and full of stuff and it would have been too easy for a vamp or demon to hide or getaway. The library they actually used was a smaller, better choice
Same: Cordelia
Charisma Carpenter shines as Cordelia Chase regardless of which pilot you’re watching. She still has some of the best burns like, “Nice dress, Willow, it’s good to know you’ve seen the softer side of Sears”. And she still tries to befriend Buffy, after spotting Buffy’s cute designer shoes and assuming she’ll fit in perfectly with Cordelia and her girl gang.
Cordelia is also proven to be very wrong about Buffy in both pilots and eventually decides that Buffy isn’t cool enough for her companionship.
Different: The Dusting
The changes made in the vampire dusting department between this episode and the aired pilot probably saved the show. In this unaired version, when a vamp dies, he still turns to dust, but it takes an uncomfortable amount of time for the vampire to dissolve, and the camera holds on the process until it’s complete.
The dusting we all recognize and are convinced is factually accurate, is quick, almost instant. The dusting in the other version takes ten full seconds, and it’s frankly, pretty cheesy.
