Buffy And Angel In The Hollywood Hellmouth

I would love to have been around for the pitch meetings where producers were discussing hypothetical presenters. It’s late June, early July maybe – plans are still relatively casual and not in full panic mode just yet, but someone complains “It’s going to be the same old same old people! I wish there was someone to get excited about!” 

Someone else asks who they would get excited about, if all the biggest celebrities in TV aren’t good enough. Debates about who’s watching the Emmys, what their demo is… gradually the idea of reuniting old (“old”) TV couples comes up, and before you know it, there’s an only-slightly-tweaked 30th anniversary* in as a reason to get David Boreanaz and Emmy-Awards-Winning Sarah Michelle Gellar together on the Emmy Stage!

If you never cared about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m actually so sorry for what you missed out on, because it was and is a magical language between those of us who got to be there. Even though we know now how hard it was on set and how many women felt unsafe, the love between the fans and the cast has remained. And though hearts were broken earlier this year when the reimagined Sunnydale sequel series was ripped out from under us, the cast and fans continue to love each other.

Which is why it was so utterly baller when Sarah Michelle Gellar, now, as then, looking deceptively unthreatening in her pink Versace dress and blonde hair (and let me be the millionth to point out how neither she nor Boreanaz has aged at all), popped out with this:

YES. You may be able to kill the series, you may say it wasn’t what your network wanted and nobody can argue – I mean, I did, for many words, back in March, so I guess I mean nobody can change the decision. But you can’t keep us from commiserating about how shitty it was that you treated devoted fans this way, and if the moment should generate a wee bit of noise, well, it’s a fitting tribute to the fallen comrades they were also there to pay tribute to – Michelle Trachtenberg passed in February 2025, Nicholas Brendon in March 2026, and Anthony Stewart Head in June of this year, making the reunion appearance that much more bittersweet.

Unlike many former onscreen couples, Boreanaz and Gellar neither dated nor hated each other. But I’m fairly sure that after this moment, where she lands the zinger and he pauses before he lets himself smile, eventually causing laughter and raised eyebrows around the room ( honestly, was that Michelle Pfeiffer reaction from something else, or…?), that they went backstage and high fived at a thankless, but important, job well done.

As we remember, she saved the world. A lot.

* The 30th anniversary thing – the show was supposed to premiere in the fall of 1996 but ultimately was pushed until Fall 1997. So it both is and isn’t a 30th anniversary, but we’ll take what we can get.