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This 4-Part Supernatural Western Is Still the Best ‘Buffy’ Replacement 10 Years Later

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As far as supernatural TV shows go, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the most beloved and well-known. Premiering in the late ’90s, the show brought powerful female protagonist Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) to the forefront of mainstream television and allowed her to take the reins of her own story. To this day, Buffy remains one of the most influential characters ever created. Her strength, style, and sense of humor blend to create an unforgettable heroine. While many shows have tried to replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle effect that Buffy the Vampire Slayer captured during its run, none have come quite as close as the supernatural Western series Wynonna Earp. In fact, if you find yourself missing Buffy and the rest of the Scooby Gang’s shenanigans, Wynonna Earp is your next ideal binge-watch.

‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Wynonna Earp’ Follow Similar Plots

It’s easy to compare Buffy the Vampire Slayer to any supernatural series with a prominent female main character, but Wynonna Earp actually shares enough plot similarities with Buffy to make it a fitting modern-day companion piece. Buffy the Vampire Slayer follows Buffy, a teenage girl who is deemed “the chosen one,” or, more fittingly, “the Slayer.” It’s explained that in every generation, one girl is chosen by fate to battle demons, vampires, and other dark entities in an effort to keep the world safe from evil.

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Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz
Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving?
Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky

Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.

🏕️Jason

🔪Michael

💤Freddy

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🎈Pennywise

🪆Chucky

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01

Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do?
First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.





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02

Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong?
Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.





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03

What is your most reliable survival asset?
Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?





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04

What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through?
Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.





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05

You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role?
Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.





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06

What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make?
Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.





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07

What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means?
Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.





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08

It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it?
The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?





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Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated
Your Best Chance Is Against…

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.

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Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th

Jason Voorhees

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

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  • He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
  • Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
  • The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
  • You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.


Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween

Michael Myers

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

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  • But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
  • Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
  • Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
  • You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.


Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street

Freddy Krueger

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

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  • You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
  • The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
  • Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
  • Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.


Derry, Maine · It

Pennywise

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

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  • The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
  • You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
  • That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
  • It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.


Chicago · Child’s Play

Chucky

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

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  • You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
  • Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
  • Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
  • Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.

Wynonna Earp follows the titular Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano), the great-great-granddaughter of the legendary Wyatt Earp. On her 27th birthday, she returns to her hometown and inherits a power that has been passed down through generations of Earps. Her role is to return revenants – the reincarnated outlaws killed by Wyatt Earp – to Hell. Accompanied by her sister and her great-great-grandfather’s immortal best friend, Doc Holliday, Wynonna attempts to keep the revenants from taking over the world.

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‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Wynonna Earp’ Have Similar Structures

Both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wynonna Earp follow “monster-of-the-week” arcs, meaning each episode focuses on a different villain. However, there is usually a larger storyline that unfolds throughout each season before being wrapped up in the finale. This format is common in television, especially in supernatural shows. Popular series like Charmed, The X-Files, and Supernatural have all embraced the format, delivering eerie villains who appear for a single episode to wreak havoc on the main characters. Given that Buffy is the Slayer, this format was a no-brainer for the show, and Wynonna Earp adapts it just as well, introducing creative demons ready to be taken down all over again.

But don’t worry about needing to know the Wyatt Earp lore to understand and enjoy Wynonna Earp. Much like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the setting is practically a character in itself, helping to fill in many of the narrative blanks. In Buffy, the town of Sunnydale sits on the Hellmouth, making it a hotspot for supernatural activity. This is a major plot point from the beginning to the end of the show, since there is quite literally no escaping it. Similarly, Wynonna Earp’s setting of Purgatory has a deep-rooted history that goes all the way back to Wynonna’s great-great-grandfather. Because of this, the show frequently reveals details about the past and explores Wynonna’s struggle with the feeling that her family’s legacy is haunting her, making the story accessible even to viewers who aren’t well versed in the history of Wyatt Earp.

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‘Wynonna Earp’ Is the Modern-Day ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’

Melanie Scrofano as Wynonna Earp in ‘Wynonna Earp: Vengeance’
Image via Tubi

The shows’ biggest difference is the ages of their protagonists: Buffy is a teenager when her series begins, while Wynonna is already an adult. Despite this age gap, they share many of the same struggles and apprehensions. Throughout Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s run, Buffy struggles with her fate as the Slayer while still trying to find herself as a young woman and make the most of her youth. Meanwhile, despite being older than Buffy, Wynonna finds it difficult to accept the fate handed down to her by her ancestors. Both struggle to make personal sacrifices and accept their “chosen one” status, and throughout their respective series, they grapple with their roles before slowly learning to embrace them.

There is also the obvious difference in genres: Wynonna Earp is a supernatural Western, whereas Buffy the Vampire Slayer is more of a supernatural coming-of-age series with a much more comedic tone. But those differences are part of what makes the shows such great companion pieces. So, if you’re a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan who has been looking for a series that captures the same feeling, Wynonna Earp may be exactly what you’ve been craving.

Wynonna Earp is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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Release Date

2016 – 2021-00-00

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Network

SyFy, Space, CTV Sci-Fi Channel

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Showrunner

emily andras

Directors
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Ron Murphy, April Mullen, Brett Sullivan, Grant Harvey, Peter Stebbings, Jem Garrard

Writers

Caitlin D. Fryers

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