It started life as the spin-off of a largely terrible teenage horror film released in the early Nineties and surpassed its source material in every way possible. Since it first began on US network The WB, 20 years ago today, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been adored, obsessed over, even studied in university. It pit a teenage girl with superpowers against an entire hell dimension's worth of vampires, monsters, a god, and even the very essence of evil itself.

In celebration of the anniversary of the show that launched grand-scale teenage fantasy drama, we look back on five landmark episodes, each completely different in style.

The stories behind the other four episodes can be found here:

The Body

Season 5, episode 16

Broadcast: February 27, 2001