TV critics do too—Entertainment Weekly recently called Buffy "the best show on television"—but Buffy's core audience is obviously the junior high-to-college female demographic around which the WB network has built its mini-empire. Those Buffy true believers may not even be able to articulate why the show is so good; they may say they like it 'cause Sarah Michelle Gellar is cool or David Boreanaz is hot or just because they wish they could go around kicking butt and putting stakes through the heart of evil.

But I'm guessing that what they really dig is the way Buffy's world mirrors their own; the way her fears about the future, uncertainties about love, and rocky relationships with her friends and her mom resonate with adolescent reality. The difference is, Buffy also offers a catharsis. Whenever the (sometimes surprisingly weighty) dramatic themes threaten to turn the whole show gloomy, some demon or vampire lord or satanic cult will turn up in desperate need of a whuppin', and Buffy and pals get to forget their problems for a little while.

Despite the prominence of its moody heroine, Buffy is really an ensemble show packed with great characters: the adorably mousy Willow (Alyson Hannigan), Buffy's best friend and an aspiring witch; the clueless Xander (Nicholas Brendon), the would-be boy hero lost in a world of strong women; Giles (the oh-so-British Anthony Stewart Head, from those Taster's Choice commercials), Buffy's stuffy mentor; the snobby Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), Xander's one-time flame, who's more bothered by the nerdiness of Buffy's clique than by their frequent encounters with evil incarnate; Oz (Seth Green), Willow's boyfriend, who plays in a rock band and also happens to be a werewolf; and of course Angel (Boreanaz), Buffy's star-crossed paramour, a vampire whose love for Buffy literally threatens to take away his soul.

Buffy creator Joss Whedon doesn't pull any punches with his storylines. When Angel turned evil last season, he brutally murdered Giles' girlfriend; earlier this year, the normally comic-relief Cordelia was impaled on a spike and nearly died; Buffy's mother, under the influence of demon children, recently tried to burn her daughter at the stake; and, most dramatically, Buffy had to kill Angel to save the earth (he eventually came back to undead life, but things have never been quite the same between them). Along with the thrills and chills come the looniest social satire this side of The Simpsons, winsome teen romance, and the sharpest sardonic dialogue around.