Buffy's reboot having a female-led creative team is essential – here's why

She was the pretty blonde high school student who didn't die in the opening credits but lived to be the hero, the once-in-a-generation girl picked by fate to be the vampire slayer.

That was the simple genius of Buffy. It made a young female character central in a way not seen before – at least not done with such thought and such care.

For all its horror, it felt homey. For all its surrealism, it felt grounded. The show was about a group of teens trying to find their way through: different Willow (Alyson Hannigan), uncool but trying Xander (Nicholas Brendon), cool Oz (Seth Green), and ex-demon Anya (Emma Caulfield) – and Buffy's love interest and very-much-not-a-teen vampire-with-a-soul, Angel (David Boreanaz).

For all its serialism, you could feel the care in the detail. Its interest in, and respect for, what it is to be a teenager. It's an almost painfully, fully detailed account of trying to grow up.

Over its seven seasons, we watched Buffy and her friends grow up through experiencing grief, heartbreak and the human and inhuman imperfections of the world around them. They leave school and go off to college and do more. Buffy develops into her slayer role, learning to cope with the new intricacies, resenting the new responsibilities and ultimately accepting having to bear them.

I have been a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since I was a little girl. I didn't fully grasp what it was to be a teenage girl – the aches of growing pains. But as the years passed, I returned to it as I headed toward the milestones Buffy had once hit. I didn't know what I was doing; neither did she. I'm now older than the Buffy on my screen, but I have often wondered what happened to her, as if she were an old friend whose life you once knew so intimately.

That's why news of the Buffy reboot, with a female-led creative team, has thrilled me. Because I am not the same teenage girl I once was. Buffy, too, will have lived more life. She will feel more lived in, battle-hardened – we've all been knocked about a bit by the world.

On Tuesday (4th February), Deadline said sources close to the project confirmed that the streaming service Hulu is "near a pilot order", with lifelong Buffy fan Zhao attached to direct the episode, penned by Poker Face writers Nora and Lilla Zuckerman.

To have women so in control of telling the story is incredible. It brings something more and ensures even more care will be taken, especially as they know the value of being brought up around Buffy; it feels like it will be ever more nuanced and ever more complex, that up-close touch of experience – a modern Buffy who feels warmer and more familiar.

It's also been reported that the Buffy creator Joss Whedon would not be participating in the reboot, years after he was accused of misconduct on the sets of some of his projects. Whedon has denied all allegations made by several actors, including the Buffy actor Charisma Carpenter. Given what the show has meant to so many women, Whedon's involvement would have been difficult to stomach.

Yes, Buffy is the pretty blonde high school student who didn't die in the opening credits and whose story was carefully told.

But we're all a little older and wiser now, and it's right that a female-led creative team is in control.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is available to stream on Disney Plus.

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