“We’d always been aligned on that, but this time I heard something different in her voice. I eventually agreed to go (mainly just to meet Chloé), and our 20-minute coffee quickly turned into a four-hour adventure. We laughed, we cried, but mostly we both talked about how much this show means to us.”

Gellar continues: “I have always listened to the fans and heard your desire to revisit Buffy and her world, but it was not something I could do unless I was sure we would get it right. This has been a long process, and it’s not over yet. I promise you, we will only make this show if we know we can do it right. And I will tell you that we are on the path there.”

Whether it’s Buffy guiding a new Chosen One on her journey or the OG Slayer leaning hard into her rage and using it to turn some more patriarchal monsters – ahem, I mean vampires – to dust, we need this. After all, Joss Whedon, Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s creator, director and showrunner, has faced allegations around misconduct and abuse on his sets, leaving countless long-time Buffy fans (myself included) deeply conflicted about how we now feel about the series. Whedon has denied the allegations.

Elsewhere in the real world, the kind of men who feel as if they’ve been drawn up from the blueprints of Buffy villains have been imbued with unfathomable power. Misogyny is becoming normalised and amplified, violence against women and girls has become so extreme that it’s been labelled an epidemic and we have witnessed atrocity after atrocity in the news.

“We’re in need of a hero – here’s why the Buffy The Vampire Slayer reboot has come at the most important time for women”