REVIEW: Slayers: A Buffyverse Story

Television Reviews

It’s been twenty years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended its run (read my retrospective here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and to commemorate the anniversary, a brand new tale in the show’s universe has arrived as an Audible exclusive. Titled Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, the audio series brings back some of the Buffy cast members to lend their voices to their characters again, including Amber Benson, who co-wrote the story with Christopher Golden. But is it any good? Parts of it are, but as a whole, Slayers: A Buffyverse Story is glorified fanfiction.

Set ten years after Buffy’s finale, Slayers: A Buffyverse Story finds Spike (James Marsters) working undercover in Los Angeles to battle evil forces until he encounters a newly activated Slayer, Indira (Laya DeLeon Hayes), who needs a Watcher. As he uses his contacts to get in touch with Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), Spike is approached by Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), the Slayer of an alternate universe who needs his help battling a vampire queen with whom he has a history: Drusilla (Juliette Landau).

That’s not even scratching the surface, which is one of the series’ biggest problems. Slayers: A Buffyverse Story is jam-packed with plot, subplots, characters, and tons of filler. Characters repeat the same information over and over, and conversations go on forever. It’s eight hours long and easily could’ve been half that. There was a concerted effort to fit in as many Buffy characters as possible, and while I appreciate it on a certain level, it’s too much, and some of them are extraneous. I don’t want to spoil anything, but one dead character comes back as a ghost, and the entire sequence adds nothing to the story but time. And there’s a ridiculous subplot involving Anya (Emma Caulfield Ford) that could have been cut. It makes the story drag, and after a while, it wears out its welcome, and no matter how excited you were, you just want it to end.

The likely reason you were excited for Slayers: A Buffyverse Story was to hear the original actors play their characters again, and in that department, the series is a mixed bag. Some of the actors are great, but some are hard to recognize. Juliette Landau is the best of them; she sounds like she’s recording for her initial run on Buffy, and in every scene she’s in, Drusilla comes alive again. Charisma Carpenter is also great, and like Landau, she hasn’t missed a beat as Cordelia. James Marsters is mostly good, but it’s sometimes evident that he’s older now, especially when he’s trying to be evil (or pretend to be). The same goes for Anthony Stewart Head, although to a lesser extent. Emma Caulfield Ford, on the other hand, is hard to discern as Anya. Part of that is because Anya never had a particularly distinctive voice (which isn’t a criticism of the character, whom I love), but Anya’s a big part of the series, so it’s a problem that you occasionally can’t tell it’s her talking.

The other reason for Anya’s lack of distinction is the writing. Some of the characters are well-drawn, with Slayers: A Buffyverse Story feeling like it’s resurrected the Buffy supporting cast, but others don’t feel anything like they’re supposed to. Anya is the biggest offender, so bland and without any of the charm, fun, or blunt observations that made her who she was on Buffy. This is an alternate-universe version of Anya, but if she’s going to be so vastly different, why bother? Cordelia hits the right note on this score, being a different version of herself while still feeling like Cordy. Giles is much the same as he always was, and while Tara is very different, she’s fun and interesting, so it’s an acceptable change. As for Spike, he’s a mixed bag, too; in some ways, he’s very much like the Spike of old, but the series does things to his character I really don’t like.

In fact, Slayers: A Buffyverse Story does a few things that mess with the lore of the show and the characters’ arcs and personalities, which is a big part of why it feels like fanfiction. For example, it changes the lore surrounding vengeance demons to such an extent that I had to re-watch some relevant Buffy scenes to make sure I wasn’t forgetting something. That it’s in service of that useless Anya subplot doesn’t help. And Spike is in a place he shouldn’t be in terms of how he feels about Buffy, which leads to some maddening developments as the story progresses. And remember how Sunnydale collapsed into a crater at the end of Buffy? Well, after all that and ten years, the Magic Box is somehow still intact so that it can be used as a location and plot device. These are lazy changes used for convenience, and they take you out of the story.

But it’s not all bad. I liked hearing these characters interact again, especially Spike and Drusilla. Drusilla and anyone is fantastic, come to think of it, even when she’s just talking to herself (or her dollies). And seeing Cordelia as the Slayer is more than just the gimmick it sounds like; she’s a real character, and not just one dependent on her history. Her interactions with Indira are an effective way to demonstrate the pain being the Slayer brings with it. To that end, it was a good idea to make Indira a fan of the Slayers (she grew up in a world where there were a lot of them); she’s our stand-in, and through her journey with Cordelia, she realizes that being the Slayer is not the romanticized adventure she thought, but a painful commitment that will probably end in your death. I also like some of the new monsters they face, particularly Miranda, a demon who feeds on misery and is on Spike’s hit list.

But was it worthwhile? I don’t know. It was fun hearing the characters again, but given the number of things Slayers: A Buffyverse Story gets wrong and how it drags and gets boring when the tension should be rising, I think it’s ultimately a miss. It’s a fine lark, but I’d never listen to it again, and I don’t imagine anyone but the thirstiest fans will lap it up or demand the sequel it sets up in its final chapter.