25 Years Later, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 Is Still Teen TV Perfection

“Guys, take a moment to deal with this. We survived.”
“It was a hell of a battle.”
“Not the battle. High school.”

On this day in 1998, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s third season premiered on The WB. The series, which had risen to meteoric success over its previous two seasons, found Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) entering Sunnydale High for the last time and cemented itself as quintessential high school years Buffy. And even if the series became more poignant and irreverent as it evolved from focusing on supernatural teen drama to adulthood in its later seasons, its third outing will always remain the best of Buffy’s examination of being a teenager and the horrors of trying to survive high school (oh yeah, and living on a Hellmouth, too). 

After returning from a sabbatical in LA on the heels of killing Angel (David Boreanaz) and watching fellow Slayer Kendra (Bianca Lawson) die, Buffy finds herself buckling more than ever under the weight of being the Chosen One. Her friends, her mother, and even her Watcher struggle to understand the burden that she alone must carry. It’s this central idea that grounds Season 3, sending Buffy’s teenage years off with a string of truly iconic episodes, all culminating around the idea that being the one girl in all the world is a lonely and difficult path. 

It would be an understatement to say that Buffy’s third season feels like a greatest hits run of the show’s high school years. Featuring everything from the introduction of rough and tumble Slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) and the iconic Wishverse to classic moments like Slayerfest and Buffy’s crowning as Class Protector, many of the Buffyverse’s most memorable sequences and characters originated in this stretch. While Season 2 was a masterclass in capturing the gravity of teenage romance and the life-and-death emotions that arise during high school, its follow-up expands on that idea and brings it to all aspects of Buffy’s life. 

Through its supernatural shenanigans, Buffy’s third season builds on typical teenage problems and heightens them, crafting episodic stories that understand the gravity of being both a teenager and the Chosen One. Before Buffy goes off to college and finds her voice, the circumstances that forced her to grow up too fast and the tough decisions she is forced to make are given tangible weight. While this through-line runs through most teen dramas (seriously, how many teen dramas can you think of where the kids are leagues smarter than the always-clueless adults?), Season 3’s examination of the weight and unbearable responsibility of Slayerdom allows the series to embrace the severity of teenage stress by giving it a supernatural cause that mirrors the real world. While some would argue that Buffy lost her childhood innocence in Season 1 after she is forced to sacrifice herself to save Sunnydale from the Master, she truly loses all trust in authority in Season 3’s “Helpless.” When Buffy finds out that Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) has taken her powers away, she realizes that the adults in her life may not always have her best interest at heart, and that she must shoulder this weight alone. While Giles’ betrayal led to a showdown between Buffy and a serial killer-turned-vampire, Buffy’s disillusionment with authority finds a touchstone in a harsh reality that most teenagers face: the adults they admire are not perfect and may not always be trustworthy, even if they truly care. 

Even outside of Buffy’s personal bubble, she finds a way to make a difference in the lives of those around her, all anchored by the real teenage angst pulsing through every episode. Like in Episode 18, titled “Earshot,” Buffy is afflicted with the demonic power to hear others’ thoughts, which leads to her overhearing a plan to “kill them all” at Sunnydale High. While this supernatural through-line reveals that Buffy is crumbling under the weight of the voices in her head, the emotional center of the episode lies with Buffy’s interaction with Jonathan (Danny Strong) in the Sunnydale High clocktower; Buffy believes that Jonathan is about to carry out a mass shooting at the school, and as she attempts to talk him down, Jonathan reveals he was actually going to commit suicide. Buffy’s ability to hear the thoughts of her classmates gives her an insight into the true pain each and every one of them is going through, allowing her to express to Jonathan that he isn’t alone in his feelings. She’s able to reach him by offering a lifeline in a brilliant plea for the teenage viewers of this series to understand that they aren’t alone, either. It’s kooky, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer always is, but it’s grounded in human emotion and heart, and that’s what makes this episode (and the season at large) so special. 

While Season 3 is still largely episodic in its structure (Buffy the Vampire Slayer wouldn’t become truly, unequivocally serialized until Season 5), the threads that run through this outing are just as compelling as its more monster-of-the-week hijinks. The introduction of Faith rattles Buffy’s world in the best way, offering her a glimpse of what she could have become without the loving support of the Scoobies along the way (as well as potentially offering Buffy an out of her reluctant Chosen One position). As Faith spirals after accidentally killing a man while out on the town with Buffy, the series examines the impact of Faith’s tumultuous upbringing, the outsized discipline and responsibility Buffy feels, and the importance of support and guidance in any teenager’s life (let alone one with superpowers). And in the wake of the second season, the return of Angel also gives Buffy a new perspective; she is forced to reckon with Angel’s immortal status, the state of their relationship, and how far she is willing to go to save him when Faith puts his life in jeopardy. 

Buffy spends the majority of the season attempting to separate herself from the darkness that lives within Faith and from reality slowly creeping into her relationship with Angel, but the two-part finale sees her throw away her morals and reservations as she decides she has to kill Faith in order to save Angel. Much like “Earshot,” the extended opera between Buffy, Faith, and Angel may live in the supernatural realm, but it is firmly grounded in the heightened reality of teenage angst; without their powers or fangs, the fractured relationships at the heart of Season 3 all come down to choices made by deeply different individuals, forcing Buffy to choose who is worth saving. 

But even amidst its earth-shattering drama and high-stakes situations, this season of Buffy  finds plenty of time to be both heartfelt and hilarious as well. Between Giles and Joyce getting mentally reverted to teenagers in “Band Candy,” Willow’s vampiric doppelganger wreaking havoc in “Doppelgangland,” and the Cordelia funeral fake-out in “Lover’s Walk,” Buffy’s self-aware humor and undeniable fun adds much-needed levity to the season, smoothing out the severity of its more grounded drama. While series creator Joss Whedon’s memorable quote (“Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke”) has had an undeniable (and maybe even negative) impact on our current media climate, the method works perfectly here, allowing moments of levity amidst slowly growing darkness. 

More than anything, while Season 3 of Buffy may not be the series’ universally-lauded best outing, it might be its most important. While Season 5 truly masters the balance between severity, heart, and levity, and between supernatural and deeply human storylines, its third season laid the groundwork needed for its later, more adult seasons to build on. It wraps up the tumultuous years Buffy spent surviving high school and gives us the most well-rounded picture of who each of these characters are as teenagers before they grow and change as young adults over the rest of the series. The latter years’ most memorable moments find their roots here (everything from Willow’s future lesbian revelation to Xander’s relationship insecurities to Buffy’s evolution into a more world-hardened, cynical Slayer), elevated by the heartachingly teenage emotion that courses through every heightened moment. 

25 years later, Buffy’s third season still stands out as some of the best teen television to ever grace our screens. This season just understood what it’s like to be a teenager, what it’s like to carry a burden, and what it’s like to make tough choices and grow up too fast. Buffy the Vampire Slayer deals in Hellmouths and demons, but it grounds itself in real, human emotion and heart, and Season 3 perfects this balance before the series graduates to adulthood. 

Anna Govert is the TV Editor of Paste Magazine. For any and all thoughts about TV, film, and her unshakable love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you can follow her @annagovert.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.