Since the next Buffy The Vampire Slayer installment will be a reboot, it should explore the history of the Slayers. Buffy The Vampire Slayer ran for seven successful seasons under Joss Whedon's helm. The stellar cast, led by Sarah Michelle Gellar as the titular vampire slayer Buffy Summers, left a mark in the heart of fans and TV history as a whole. This was further asserted by the show's expansion into comic books and its short-lived Angel spinoff. As the interest in the Buffyverse is still high, a reboot is coming closer to fruition.
The idea of a reboot has been received with mixed reactions. On one hand, the Buffy franchise promises to live on. On the other, there's a high chance that the reboot won't capture the essence of the original. Joss Whedon still has enough faith in a Buffy reincarnation to serve as executive producer, and Monica Owusu-Breen will be writing it. Owusu-Breen intends to approach the reboot with as much fidelity to Joss Whedon's Buffy as possible, but with a more updated take on the show's themes and context. Hence why the new Buffy The Vampire Slayer will be led by a woman of color and a more diverse cast.
A great way to innovate the show would be to take a historical look at the Slayer line, which was teased during the original show and fleshed out in the comics. There have been dozens of diverse Slayers throughout history, so this is where the reboot can get creative. From a modern-day Buffy who sets out to explore the Slayers' history to an anthology that focuses on a different Slayer each season with the new Buffy as the connective tissue, the reboot could be loyal to Whedon's show without repeating its plot. By making use of the Slayers and their extensive history, the new Buffy The Vampire Slayer can tap into the historical horror of a show like Lovecraft Country and the character-building of The Queen's Gambit - all with Buffy's idiosyncratic style.
Breaking the established continuity is actually a good idea. Some fans have argued that characters like Kendra or Sineya (the very first Slayer) deserved a spinoff show instead, but the absence of Buffy and other supporting characters would be felt eventually. Shows that base their premise in peripheral characters and storylines, such as Smallville and Supergirl, end up needing to address the elephant in the room (Clark's iconic enemies in Smallville and Supeman in Supergirl) sooner or later. As good as those shows can be, the absence of the most popular characters still needs to be justified. The Buffy reboot can easily avoid this issue by starting from scratch.
Being a reboot, the new Buffy The Vampire Slayer has all the creative freedom to break and reshape canon in order to serve its themes of responsibility and empowerment, but also establish newer themes like knowing one's origins and understanding how history shapes us. The story of a regular teenage girl who faces an ever-present evil lurking in today's world can take many forms with each new generation, after all. The relationship of past and present Slayers would be faithful to the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer while updating the title to a younger generation — one who still identifies with the butt-kicking, vampire-slaying coolness of Buffy and her friends.
