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The Complete Slayer: An Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Every Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
An episode-by-episode look at the series, covering every show in each of the seven seasons with each episode broken down into recurring categories to analyze the themes of the show, unearth pop culture and soundtrack information, serve up the best lines of dialogue, expose continuity errors, analyze the show's subtext and serious issues - all in a style that captures the unique humor of the show.
702 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
20 people are currently reading
299 people want to read
About the author
Keith Topping
69 books10 followersKeith Andrew Topping is an author, journalist and broadcaster most closely associated with his work relating to the BBC Television series Doctor Who and for writing numerous official and unofficial guide books to a wide variety of television and film series, specifically Buffy the Vampire Slayer.He is also the author of two books of rock music critique. To date, Topping has written over 40 books.
One of the leading players in British Doctor Who fandom's fan-fiction movement during the 1980s, Topping's first published fiction was the BBC Books "Past Doctor Adventure" The Devil Goblins from Neptune in 1997. The novel was co-written with his friend and frequent collaborator Martin Day.
The pair quickly followed this up with the acclaimed novel The Hollow Men in 1998. Following Day's move into TV scripting, Topping wrote the novels The King of Terror (2000) and Byzantium! (2001) solo. The latter novel is the only BBC Books Past Doctor Adventure to be set entirely within one episode of the television series Doctor Who — 1965's The Romans by Dennis Spooner. Topping also wrote the Telos Doctor Who novella Ghost Ship which was published in 2002 and proved so popular that it was one of only two novellas reissued as a paperback edition in 2003.
As well as writing fiction, Topping has also authored numerous programme guides to television series as diverse as The X Files, The Avengers, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Sweeney and The Professionals. These were all published by Virgin Books, and co-written with Martin Day and Paul Cornell. Cornell, Day and Topping also collaborated on the popular Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide, published by Virgin Books in 1995 and re-issued, in the US, by MonkeyBrain Books in 2004, a lighthearted guide to the mistakes and incongruities of the television series. The trio had first worked together co-writing two editions of The Guinness Book of Classic British Television (1993 and 1996 respectively).
Subsequently, Topping wrote The Complete Slayer: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Every Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a number of related texts on this popular series as well as guide books to The West Wing (Inside Bartlet's White House), Angel (Hollywood Vampire), 24 (A Day in the Life) and Stargate SG-1 (Beyond the Gate), amongst others. According to the 2003 book Slayer Slang by Michael Adams (Oxford University Press), Topping was the originator of the word 'vampiry' (adj. "exhibiting features of a vampire") in the January 2000 edition of his book Slayer (pg. 26). In addition, Topping is a regular contributor of articles and reviews to several TV and genre titles including TV Zone, Xposé and Shivers and is a former Contributing Editor of Dreamwatch. He also worked as Project Consultant on Charmed: The Complete DVD Collection.
On radio, Topping was the Producer/Presenter of the monthly Book Club (2005-2007) and currently co-presents a daily television review slot, Monday to Friday, on The Simon Logan Show for BBC Newcastle. He has also contributed to the BBC television series' I Love the '70s, Call The Cops and The Perfect Detective and has written for Sounds, the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times Culture Supplement and many other magazines and periodicals.
Topping writes, and occasionally performs, stand-up comedy and has written radio comedy sketches, an (unproduced) stage play and a TV pilot (with Martin Day) that is, currently, stuck in “Development Hell.”
Topping continues to live and work on Tyneside. He achieved a lifetimes ambition in 2005 when his book on The Beatles, Do You Want to Know a Secret was published by Virgin Books.
One of the leading players in British Doctor Who fandom's fan-fiction movement during the 1980s, Topping's first published fiction was the BBC Books "Past Doctor Adventure" The Devil Goblins from Neptune in 1997. The novel was co-written with his friend and frequent collaborator Martin Day.
The pair quickly followed this up with the acclaimed novel The Hollow Men in 1998. Following Day's move into TV scripting, Topping wrote the novels The King of Terror (2000) and Byzantium! (2001) solo. The latter novel is the only BBC Books Past Doctor Adventure to be set entirely within one episode of the television series Doctor Who — 1965's The Romans by Dennis Spooner. Topping also wrote the Telos Doctor Who novella Ghost Ship which was published in 2002 and proved so popular that it was one of only two novellas reissued as a paperback edition in 2003.
As well as writing fiction, Topping has also authored numerous programme guides to television series as diverse as The X Files, The Avengers, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Sweeney and The Professionals. These were all published by Virgin Books, and co-written with Martin Day and Paul Cornell. Cornell, Day and Topping also collaborated on the popular Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide, published by Virgin Books in 1995 and re-issued, in the US, by MonkeyBrain Books in 2004, a lighthearted guide to the mistakes and incongruities of the television series. The trio had first worked together co-writing two editions of The Guinness Book of Classic British Television (1993 and 1996 respectively).
Subsequently, Topping wrote The Complete Slayer: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Every Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a number of related texts on this popular series as well as guide books to The West Wing (Inside Bartlet's White House), Angel (Hollywood Vampire), 24 (A Day in the Life) and Stargate SG-1 (Beyond the Gate), amongst others. According to the 2003 book Slayer Slang by Michael Adams (Oxford University Press), Topping was the originator of the word 'vampiry' (adj. "exhibiting features of a vampire") in the January 2000 edition of his book Slayer (pg. 26). In addition, Topping is a regular contributor of articles and reviews to several TV and genre titles including TV Zone, Xposé and Shivers and is a former Contributing Editor of Dreamwatch. He also worked as Project Consultant on Charmed: The Complete DVD Collection.
On radio, Topping was the Producer/Presenter of the monthly Book Club (2005-2007) and currently co-presents a daily television review slot, Monday to Friday, on The Simon Logan Show for BBC Newcastle. He has also contributed to the BBC television series' I Love the '70s, Call The Cops and The Perfect Detective and has written for Sounds, the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times Culture Supplement and many other magazines and periodicals.
Topping writes, and occasionally performs, stand-up comedy and has written radio comedy sketches, an (unproduced) stage play and a TV pilot (with Martin Day) that is, currently, stuck in “Development Hell.”
Topping continues to live and work on Tyneside. He achieved a lifetimes ambition in 2005 when his book on The Beatles, Do You Want to Know a Secret was published by Virgin Books.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 24, 2022
An in depth, detailed, insightful and often humorous, highly accurate companion guide to all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the first reading of which resulted in me watching the entire and highly impressive Buffy the Vampire and Angel serials for the first time. Once you go Buffyverse, you can't go back! Topping captures all the angst, pathos, humour, foreshadowing and more for each episode. In addition he shares any censorship disputes that arose, production issues, top quotes, best fashion(!), cultural references, character development and more!
This, my second reading, took over three years as I proceeded to watch each individual episode before reading the book's episode summary. This series is simply one of the best TV shows ever made and this book details exactly why so, from its continual theme of non-male dependent female empowerment and women and girls fighting 'the system' to be heard, through to the refusal for the show to stick to a formula and the incredible scripts and plotting. 'The Body' will always remain as one of the greatest TV episodes of any show ever aired for me:
I should also make it very clear that this book is the reason why I started watching and now love the show. A show that definitely made a significant Western cultural impact on female empowerment, on the LGBT+ community, on entering the adult world and on young peoples' sexual relationships but with using the power of allegory, satire and dark comedy! The genius of this show, as this book underlines, is how it managed to craft all it did under the façade of being about a teenage monster killer! Amazing series, amazing book. 10 out of 12, I believe the highest rated non-fiction book I've ever read!
2022 read; 2009 read
This, my second reading, took over three years as I proceeded to watch each individual episode before reading the book's episode summary. This series is simply one of the best TV shows ever made and this book details exactly why so, from its continual theme of non-male dependent female empowerment and women and girls fighting 'the system' to be heard, through to the refusal for the show to stick to a formula and the incredible scripts and plotting. 'The Body' will always remain as one of the greatest TV episodes of any show ever aired for me:
I should also make it very clear that this book is the reason why I started watching and now love the show. A show that definitely made a significant Western cultural impact on female empowerment, on the LGBT+ community, on entering the adult world and on young peoples' sexual relationships but with using the power of allegory, satire and dark comedy! The genius of this show, as this book underlines, is how it managed to craft all it did under the façade of being about a teenage monster killer! Amazing series, amazing book. 10 out of 12, I believe the highest rated non-fiction book I've ever read!
2022 read; 2009 read
November 4, 2009
I'm probably one of the only people on the planet who read this book at least 5 times. I've been a Buffy fan from the very beginning and I just can't get enough of it.
January 3, 2014
Lists, lists, lists. Lord, but this author loves lists! As such, he does provide a rather unique viewpoint amongst Buffy guidebooks - albeit one that provides more recitation than insight, and to a degree farther than most fans might desire. Still, that does mean that there is often at least one factoid per story that the casual fan might have missed. Downsides are the author's frighteningly obsessive listing of every single violation of cinematic continuity (i.e., in this camera angle Buffy's hair is swept to the left; in the other camera angle it's swept to the right) - something which takes up far too much space for too little depth - and the author's belief that every single episode title or line of dialogue must be a reference to pop culture (like the baffling assertion that "Conversations with Dead People" is an homage to The X-Files because it similarly opens with a time & date caption). Not my preferred style of guidebooks - by the end you'll find yourself skimming past most of the list-obsessed minutia (in other words, most of the book) - but worth owning, possibly, as a supplement to others.
October 5, 2021
This book has a lot of good information. It goes through each episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series in detail. For each episode we are given the following: Title, Date aired, writer, plot, references and quotes and a bunch of other bits and pieces. The real strength of this book though is at the end where it gives an overview of the behind the scenes struggles to keep the show on the air. Buffy was wildly influential for its time but did not have the network ratings to back this up.
The other thing the book does well is give an overview of the Buffy fandom in the late 90s and early 2000s. It takes you back to newsgroups and mailing lists and websites that have mostly vanished now. Its a glimpse into a fandom that was very prominent on the internet at the time and spread all over the world. Finding a summary like this might be worth its weight in gold in the future.
What lets this book down and stopped me giving it 5 stars was its navigability. It has no index. It lacks even a simple list at the start of each season with episode names so you can find a specific episode. If you don't know Buffy inside and out you need to go somewhere else online to find this information so you can then find it in the book. As a result this is a very hard to book to actually use or find anything about a specific episode.
The other thing the book does well is give an overview of the Buffy fandom in the late 90s and early 2000s. It takes you back to newsgroups and mailing lists and websites that have mostly vanished now. Its a glimpse into a fandom that was very prominent on the internet at the time and spread all over the world. Finding a summary like this might be worth its weight in gold in the future.
What lets this book down and stopped me giving it 5 stars was its navigability. It has no index. It lacks even a simple list at the start of each season with episode names so you can find a specific episode. If you don't know Buffy inside and out you need to go somewhere else online to find this information so you can then find it in the book. As a result this is a very hard to book to actually use or find anything about a specific episode.
January 21, 2025
In depth and revealing breakdown of every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, along with select essays by the author. Some of it hasn't aged particularly well but overall good stuff if you're a fan.
July 8, 2015
Almost as good as the large Guides to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is a much smaller issue so you can cram more reading information in quickly and still feel like you have useful information with time well spent. Any new information for someone stuck in Buffverse like I am, will truly enjoy this pleasant and informative read.
January 29, 2011
Perhaps the most comprehensive, analytical, critical, hilarious TV program guide ever compiled. Even if you're not a fan of Buffy (and if you aren't...what's WRONG with you?) then you will appreciate the sheer scope that went into the creation of this book.
March 17, 2009
Truly th holy grail of episode guides for Buffy maniacs...
May 26, 2009
Another guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer series that was fairly good. Not quite in depth and not quite as easy a read.
July 13, 2011
I've just finished watching this a couple of weeks ago, i thought it was good but not as good as the watcher's guide.
November 26, 2014
Excellent review of all seven seasons of Buffy. I would love to have this as an e-book so I can quickly find some of the references he makes. Remarkably complete.
May 19, 2016
Detailed, occasionally snarky and always useful.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews