This Is the 1 ‘Buffy’ Character the Reboot Just Doesn't Need Anymore

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Greer Riddell (pronounced Gre-er Rid-dell) is a very tired Londoner who is fuelled by tea and rarely looks up from her laptop. Before joining Collider in March 2024, Greer spent over a decade making social, content and video for UK media brands and freelance clients including the BBC, Bauer Media and Glastonbury Festivals. Greer is first and foremost the Social Media Coordinator at Collider, looking after Social Video and TikTok but is an occasional Features Writer.

Rupert Giles, Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) Watcher, played by Anthony Head, provided warmth, wisdom, and stability in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. We first meet him in “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” where he is employed as the librarian at Sunnydale High. However, we soon realize his bookishness extends to demon texts and that he has taken the job to mentor the Slayer rather than get familiar with the Dewey Decimal System.

Starting as a tweed-wearing, dutiful member of the Watchers’ Council, Giles soon turned into a father figure essential to Buffy’s growth and survival. Even so, his Watcher role is no longer needed in the upcoming Buffy revival. The sequel series, currently in development for Hulu, will see the return of Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy, alongside a new, younger Slayer named Nova, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong.

Watchers No Longer Exist In The Buffyverse In The Same Way

Giles’ role made sense when the Slayer line rested on a single girl at a time, but Buffy Summers ended up defying that model because she was never fully isolated. Her friends Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) knew about her calling, helped her battle vampires, and Giles’ familial presence allowed her to survive longer than the system ever thought possible.

We see in Season 4’s dream-like finale, “Restless,” just how long Slayer traditions have been established by meeting the first in the line, Sineya (Sharon Ferguson) — a prehistoric Slayer infused with the spirit of a demon over 5,000 years ago. Later in Season 7, Willow, under Buffy’s instruction, permanently dismantles that system. In order to fight the First Evil, she activates all potential Slayers worldwide so they no longer wait to be chosen, can immediately access their powers, and the mythology built around one girl and her Watcher collapses. Around the same time, the Watchers’ Council’s physical headquarters were destroyed in England, so Giles’ profession became effectively defunct in its original form.

As the only traditionally trained, active Watcher left, his responsibility undoubtedly expanded after “Chosen.” With thousands of new Slayers activated, his duty would have led him to preserve Watcher knowledge, rebuild training infrastructure, and help organize this new global era. That role is far larger than mentoring any single Slayer such as Nova, making his presence in a new ground-level story set in Sunnydale not only unnecessary, but illogical within the new world that Season 7 creates.

James Marsters and David Boreanaz as Spike and Angel looking off-screen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Chloé Zhao’s Revival Is Buffy’s Chance To Be A Mentor Herself

Buffy is now in her forties, and at this point in her life, she has learned everything she needs to from Giles. If a mentor figure or guide is needed, then it should be Buffy’s time to lead. She understands the emotional, physical, and moral cost of the calling better than anyone. Mentoring a younger Slayer is also a natural progression of Buffy Summers’ character. It allows her to step into a leadership role that is earned rather than assigned, adds a maternal dimension to her arc similar to what she had with Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), and reinforces the show’s central theme of female empowerment.

If Giles was also age-accurate in the revival, he would now be 72 years old. While he would undoubtedly still enjoy researching demons and remaining intellectually engaged with the supernatural world, it is reasonable to assume that he has taken a back seat in active Slayer duties. Times have also changed in Sunnydale. He struggled to adapt to “surfing the net” back in Season 1, so his head might genuinely explode if the new Slayer is doing graveside TikTok dances or contracting witches through Etsy! As early as Season 6, Giles wanted to return to England to allow Buffy the space to grow independently. It makes sense that he may now be living in the UK again, checking in on Buffy in a fatherly way from afar rather than operating on the front line.

Considering he was knocked unconscious continually in the original series, had his girlfriend murdered by Buffy’s “cradle-robbing creature of the night boyfriend” Angel (David Boreanaz), and had to put up with the Scooby Gang’s incessant slang, no one deserves the joy of retirement more. Giles’ retirement has previously been explored in Slayers: A Buffyverse Story (Audible, 2023), where he is living in a bookshop with his partner Olivia (Phina Oruche) from the original series. The drama is set ten years after the original finale and introduces a new Slayer, Indira (Laya DeLeon Hayes), paralleling what audiences can expect with Nova.

While Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans will always love Giles and feel a deep affection for his guidance and devotion to Buffy, his presence in the revival risks overshadowing her own accomplishments. Buffy at 40 should be stronger and more confident than ever, capable of leading on her own terms. Giles’ role, if any, should remain nurturing, not authoritative. A simple mention that they still meet up for Thanksgiving every year, and that Giles still doesn’t own a ricer, would be enough to honor their relationship!