Joss Whedon rebooted his Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie as a TV series. The TV series premiered as a 2 hour movie event on March 10, 1997. For later packaging it would be broken up into the two episodes "Welcome to Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Buffy was recast from Kristy Swanson to Sarah Michelle Geller. Buffy's mom was recast from Candy Clark to Kristine Sutherland. Merrick Jameson-Smythe was recast from Donald Sutherland to Richard Riehle (season 2 finale). Feeling the movie didn't really capture what he was going for, Whedon created a whole new cast of characters for the series (with the above excluded). Buffy's mentor was now Rupert Giles (Anthony Head) and her friends Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), and later on Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), Angel (David Boreanaz), Daniel Osbourne (Seth Green), Faith Lehane (Eliza Dushku), Anya Jenkins (Emma Caulfield), Spike (James Marsters), Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), Dawn Summers (Michelle Trachtenberg), and Andrew Wells (Tom Lenk). X-Files regular Brian Thompson appeared as Luke and Ken Lerner protrayed principal Bob Flutie. While still fun, Whedon sought to give a darker, more serious, and dangerous tone to the series compared to the movie. ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Event", "Welcome to the Hellmouth", "The Harvest", Buffy the Vampire Slayer, TV Event)
