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What do you get when you combine a girl with a destiny, a librarian with a British accent, a town located on a paranormal hotspot and miscellaneous oddball characters? Well, if you're Joss Whedon, you get a hit television show that ran for seven seasons and still maintains a cult following more than half-a-decade after the series ended.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired on the fledgling WB network on March 10, 1997 with "Welcome to the Hellmouth." It was clear from that episode that, although the show was inspired by the movie of the same name, this series was going to be an entirely new ballgame.

In this pilot episode, we meet Buffy Summers who has just moved to the lovely town of Sunnydale, CA. Buffy is looking for a fresh start after getting expelled from her high school in L.A. for having burnt down the gymnasium (it was full of vampires).

Unfortunately for Buffy, Sunnydale is on the Hellmouth. That means, there is no escaping her destiny as a Slayer. So much for getting to be a normal 16-year old girl.

Thankfully, she does find new friends at her new school, and, soon, they are helping her fight the forces of evil. She also has her trusty Watcher (and school librarian), Rupert Giles, to assist.

Over the span of 144 episodes, viewers got to see Buffy's on-again-off-again relationship with Angel/Angelus (the vampire with a soul, as long as he doesn't experience "true happiness"); her battles with demons, vampires, robots and miscellaneous other creatures; her friendships with demons, vampires and miscellaneous other creatures; her relationship with a "new" sister and more.

Of course, what made the series such a powerhouse was that, while "Buffy" was in the title, there was a lot more going on than just a one-character show. This was a true ensemble cast, and viewers had the opportunity to watch multiple characters grow and change over the life of the series.

Willow, for example, went from the geeky outsider in high school to an extremely powerful witch. She even went evil for a period of time after the death of her first girlfriend.

Cordelia underwent a huge change from the beginning of the series until the time when she left for L.A. (and the spin-off series "Angel"). She developed from a shallow, petty teenager to become a real fighter. Before she departed for L.A., she helped in the showdown on "Graduation Day."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of those series that was just so well-written and brought something new and exciting to television that it is still missed by fans. It was, and still is, a great show. It will live on in DVD and the sequel comic book series of the same name.

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