25 shows to watch if you like Riverdale
By Sundi Rose
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Buffy is the grandmother of teenage mystery and crime fighting, even if she solves occult crimes and fights vampires. Although Riverdale doesn’t have vamps to dust, it does rely on the characters’ sleuthing skills to propel the narrative.
The premise: A perky, blond popular girl discovers her birthright as The Slayer. She has to adjust to life on the Hellmouth and the onslaught of demons and vampires, while still trying to contend with normal adolescent problems.
Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Buffy, but she is just one of a group — a Scooby Gang, if you will. They constantly have to defend against all the evils, and things routinely get intense, and they don’t always win the battle.
Why you’ll like it: It’s intelligent well beyond its genre and time. Based on a movie of the same time, folks thought the series was going to be as silly and campy as the film. It delivers on those expectations in some respects, but it transcends it by leaps and bounds.
As much as Buffy is about good and evil, sort of like our beloved Riverdale, it’s also a meditation on the human existence. It is about how much a person can manage all the fragility of a person. It has it’s fair share of plucky humor, but it has teeth (if you’ll pardon a pun here) and grit like some of the peak TV dramas of the day.
Where you can find it: All seven seasons are on Hulu. I wish I could tell you a fave season or episode, but they are all so good — especially the Halloween ones and the musical. Check it out.