This page may contain minor spoilers for Watchers: Revamped, and definitely contains lots and lots of spoilers for the rest of Watchers.
Watchers started in 2003 as a spin-off continuing and expanding the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Its original run lasted for five seasons and a total of 123 episodes. Most of Watchers took place from 2003 to 2008. The fifth season included three episodes that took place at various points in the future, and ended in a three-part finale, “Generations,” set in the year 2041. The “Watchersverse” to date has also included a spin-off series set in the same world in the far future, Watchers: Restoration, which lasted for 9 episodes and 4 “TV movies,” and the mini-series event Watchers: Special Assignment, set in the year 2014.
The Crash Course
(the top bits of new mythology Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans need to know to jump into Watchers)
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- The Supernatural Is Out of the Closet: In the Season Three finale of Watchers, a full-scale invasion of Earth by the forces of Hell meant that it was no longer possible to hide the existence of magic, vampires, demons, etc. from the world at large. Since ‘the Crisis of 2006’, not only has the supernatural become common knowledge, the Watchers Council has become one of the most famous organizations in the world.
- Watchers and Slayers, Not so Different: Watchers are mystically Chosen in this world, just like slayers, and have a calling to defend the world from darkness. Chosen watchers include not only Giles, but his daughter Liz, Willow, Rowena, Grace and several others.
- Slaying Has an Expiration Date: After the power of the Slayer was given to thousands of girls, it was quickly discovered that slayers have an expiration date. Slayers, it turns out, lose their powers on their thirtieth birthday, meaning that those who survive to that time are left to figure out what’s next.
- Faith’s Past: Over five years of her appearing in every episode, we learned a lot more about Faith’s history, including that she had a younger sister, Hope (who eventually joined the Council and then died in the line of duty), and also that she had a son at age fifteen, Norman, who she gave up for adoption. He has since come back into her life. Also the crimes she originally went to jail for were officially pardoned.
- Kennedy’s Surprising Connection to the Scoobies: It was eventually revealed that Kennedy’s mother, who she never met, was actually the late Jenny Calendar, former Sunnydale High computer teacher, girlfriend to Giles, and member of the Romany tribe that cursed Angel with his soul. This also means that Kennedy has a latent magical potential that has manifested itself over the course of the series.
- The Original Characters: Watchers has added numerous important new characters to its universe over the years, including the Canadian watcher Rowena Allister, who served as watcher to the Turkish slayer killed in the Buffy Season Seven premiere and managed to liberate the book that allowed Willow to activate all the potential slayers from a distant Siberian Guardian temple, and would eventually marry Willow and have children. Rowena is only one of numerous new characters introduced on Watchers, as described below.
- Oh, and Dawn is Immortal (and also Bi): Back in Season 3 of Watchers, Dawn tried to rescue the soul of her lover, Skye, from Purgatory after she (yes, she) was unwillingly turned into a vampire. This was a bad idea, and Dawn was later punished by the Powers That Be with immortality. You might not think this sounds so bad, but Dawn considers watching her friends and family die, over and over, without ever being able to join them in the afterlife to be torture. Though the fact that she comes back every time she’s killed has taken some of the impetus out of saving her every Tuesday.
The Characters
Willow Rosenberg-Allister
Alyson Hannigan
High Priestess of the Council’s Covens and “Most Powerful Witch in the Western Hemisphere,” she performed the spell that made all of the potential slayers actual slayers. Somewhere deep inside, she still thinks of herself as the shy nerd who first met Buffy in high school. Before coming to Cleveland, she went through a very dark period when her lover, Tara, was murdered, after which Willow gave in to dark magic to seek revenge. She later recovered with the help of Giles and Althenea, and devoted herself to her Wiccan religion. Has been married to Rowena Allister for fifteen years at the time of Watchers: Revamped, they now have four kids. She might have thought magic was hard, but that was before she tried parenting teenagers.
Rupert Giles
Anthony Stewart Head
Former watcher to “One Girl in All the World” Buffy Summers and later Chairman of the Watchers Council, Giles is now retired, married to bookstore owner Becca, and has a couple of kids of his own. His attempts to live the life of a gentleman of leisure continue to be thwarted, however, both by the continued exploits of his headstrong teenage daughter Liz and son Martin… and the fact that the old Sunnydale cohort keeps coming to him for advice. That and he maybe can’t quite stay away from the fight against evil.
Rowena Allister-Rosenberg
Michelle Williams
From a sleepy Nova Scotian fishing village, she was a young protege of the “Old Guard” of the Watchers Council before eventually finding her place at the new Council. She even served as Chairwoman for several months before she gave it up for the woman she loved, Willow. Now they’ve been married for 15 years and have four kids, and Rowena has kept busy by becoming a best-selling author of books on vampires, as well as teaching and mentoring the next generation of watchers.
Faith Lehane
Eliza Dushku
Formerly Buffy’s arch-rival (and also a convicted murderer) Faith turned things around, serving as Head Slayer through the rebuilding of the Watchers Council and helped stave off multiple apocalypses, and entering into her first long-term relationship with Robin Wood, with whom she eventually had a daughter, Nikki (namesake of Robin’s slayer mother). Her death on live TV during the Crisis of 2006 rallied worldwide support to the cause of fighting off the demonic invaders, and her subsequent resurrection by the Archangel Gabrielle made her one of the most famous people in the world. After losing her powers, like all slayers, when she turned 30, Faith left the Watchers Council and her family under mysterious circumstances.
Xander Harris
Nicholas Brendon
Original member and “Heart” of the Scooby Gang, he lost an eye in the climactic events of the original series but eventually returned to the new Council and had his eye magically restored by Willow. Since then he has worked as the Council’s Weapons Master, where he continues to serve as general sounding board for people with superpowers. Had a long-term relationship with the slayer Vi, which ended with her murder by the psychotic slayer serial killer Heli, resulting in an extended period of grief and depression for Xander. At the time of our story, he is married to Buffy and the couple just had their first child, a daughter named Joyce.
Grace Hatherley
Caroline Dhavernas
The young, somewhat acerbic watcher and general nerd first introduced in Season 4 of Watchers has come up in the world since then, and has been promoted to “series regular” status for the return of the show. She was soon taken under Rowena’s wing as her assistant researcher. Though an American herself, Grace’s mother is English, and Grace spent part of her formative years there, still evidenced by the occasional “bloody hell.” Her relationship with her mother, a former watcher who rather thoroughly betrayed everyone during the events of Season 4, was always complicated at best. As seen in “Special Assignment,” Buffy hand-picked Grace to succeed her as Chairwoman when she stepped down in 2014. As our story begins, Grace has been Chairwoman of the Watchers Council for eight mostly-apocalypse-free years, and is married to witch Jeff Lindquist.
Kennedy Calendar
Iyari Limon
A headstrong, self-described “brat” when she was first introduced in the final season of BtVS, Kennedy came a long way on Watchers, much of it after Willow broke up with her. Kennedy eventually became one of the stickiest pieces of glue holding the Council together through some tough times. She served as Head of the Slayer Branch after Faith left the Council for good, even after losing her powers at age 30, acquired a pet dragon, Marsha, and even found love with Kadin Van Helsing. Oh, and she also found out that the mother she never knew was actually Jenny Calendar, Giles’s former love interest and member of the Kalderash romani tribe (and the Scooby Gang’s former high school computer science teacher) who was killed by Angelus. Always cagey about her actual last name to the point it became a running gag, Kennedy eventually changed her name to Calendar in honor of her mother. As our story begins, however, Kennedy is out on maternity leave with her first child, Vanessa, a generically engineered daughter of she and Kadin thanks to Dr. Tamara Goldman.
Robin Wood
D.B. Woodside
The son of a slayer who died in the line of duty, Robin was raised by her watcher. After fighting with the gang in the final battle against the First Evil, Robin was one of the founding members of the new Council in Cleveland. He lost a leg in the Council’s final battle with the Presidium, which forced him to adjust to a less actively monster-fightery role, but he has found success in the role of the Council’s Chief of Security. After being with Faith for years, she left him and their young daughter, Nikki, leaving Robin balancing his duties at the Council with being a single dad.
Liz Giles
Hailee Steinfeld
Liz is Giles’s surprise late-in-life daughter with his wife Becca, and was discovered early on to be a “Chosen Watcher” just like her dad. She has spent quite a bit of time since rebelling against her destiny, which as a teenager resulted in several run-ins with the law. Her time is also spent playing in the band she has with her brother, Martin, and the Rosenberg twins, Jen and Alex. After an adventure in New York involving near-death at the hands of a corrupted Archangel (see Season 5 “Divination”), 17-year-old Liz is now taking her calling seriously, but is being a watcher even what she really wants? One way or another, Liz Giles and the rest of the “next generation” are about to turn the Watchers Council upside down.
Buffy Summers
Sarah Michelle Gellar
After taking a break from the fight against evil after beating the First, Buffy was finally lured back by Rowena to take over as Chairwoman in Watchers Season 3, and has been around ever since. Feeling burnt out by the job of leading the Council “out of the closet,” having lost her slayer powers at age thirty, and wanting to start a family with Xander, Buffy resigned as Chairwoman in 2014 in “Special Assignment.” Asked what she wanted to do then, she told Xander she thought she could have a lot to offer as a watcher to one slayer, just like she and Giles had been.
Shannon Matthewson
Mischa Barton
After first coming to the Council as an angsty kid slayer out of Nebraska, Shannon grew up a lot over the course of Watchers, helped along by her watcher, Dawn, and her friend, Norman. She also developed a long-term arch-rivalry with her fellow young slayer Lorinda. Shannon’s skills eventually earned her a key position as the Council’s top active slayer, but she has remained in the shadow of her more famous predecessors. She also infamously lost the Slayer Scythe in the course of an operation in Thailand during “Special Assignment,” though she did succeed in preventing the apocalypse. Shannon is now 29, and only months from losing her powers, married to Norman (making her Faith’s daughter-in-law) and the mother of a toddler, Kelvin.
Dawn Summers
Michelle Trachtenberg
She is Buffy’s little sister…kind of? Dawn was created by an order of monks that needed to protect “the Key,” sent it to the slayer, and altered everyone’s memories so that she would “protect it with her life.” Dawn eventually joined up with the Council and studied to become a watcher, eventually taking on young Shannon as her slayer. She also ended up in a relationship with Skye Talisker. When Skye was turned into a vampire, Dawn went to Purgatory to try to retrieve her soul, a big no-no in the eyes of the Powers That Be, who punished Dawn with immortality. Now Dawn can’t die and remains as apparently-young as the day she was cursed. She has learned quite a bit about magic and now serves as an important member of the Coven.
Skye Talisker
Lacey Chabert
Skye was a member of the Coven and in love with Dawn when she was jumped by sinister forces looking to infiltrate the Council and turned into a vampire (though she, ever the iconoclast, refused to go along with the plan). Despite now being an evil blood-sucker who killed multiple humans, Skye was strangely still in love with Dawn, in her own, unique way, which eventually resulted in her return to the Council. There she was initially grudgingly allowed to stay due to her knowledge regarding the villains, and later so that Rowena could conduct an in-depth study on her vampire physiology, and could always be counted on to take the air out of our heroes with a snarky remark. After she and Dawn eventually restarted their relationship, to Buffy and others’ great dismay, Skye began to “regrow” her soul, which was eventually revealed to be due to her “repeatedly drinking the blood of an immortal.” We’ll leave how that happened to your imagination. In the years since, Skye’s place at the Council, and even as a member of the Coven again, has become at least somewhat less controversial with the rest of the team.
Andrew Wells
Tom Lenk
Former aspiring supervillain and inveterate nerd Andrew followed the gang to Cleveland on his “epic tale of redemption” and took up the position of “den mother.” He was in charge of the kitchen for the first several years of the new Council, while also using his magical knowledge to assist and never meeting a problem he couldn’t turn into a Star Trek metaphor. He also ended up in a surprising relationship with the girl he originally hired to help run the kitchen, Tracey. Andrew later moved on to a job leading the Coven at the Council’s Los Angeles Branch where he also acts as an executive producer on a T.V. show based on the Watchers Council.
Becca Giles
Helen Shaver
A middle-aged Cleveland bookstore owner, Becca Montague found herself falling for a local guy named Rupert Giles and soon pulled into the world of the supernatural. She thought she couldn’t have kids until she became pregnant with daughter, Liz, followed by son, Martin. Years later, she and Giles are a married couple enjoying their retirement years while also parenting two teenagers and looking after several children of the ‘next generation’ of Watchers.
Jen Rosenberg
Emilia Jones
She and her twin Alex were a surprise to Willow and Rowena after a night they both spent together with Xander (an inhibition-lowering spell was involved). Perhaps they were even more surprised to find out that their daughter was a slayer. At the time of our story, she is fifteen, one year younger than Buffy was when she and Willow first met, and has started heading out into the field for the Council.
Alex Rosenberg
Kit Connor
15-year-old twin brother to Jen and son to Willow and Rowena. Definitely the more reserved of he and his sister, but he has shown an amazing talent for magic that far surpassed Willow at the same age. He is studying under Willow as part of her Coven program along with his younger siblings brother Jake and sister Sophie.
Kadin Van Helsing
Michelle Rodriguez
The final heir to an ancient family of monster hunters (yes, those Van Helsings), she initially clashed with the Council but eventually ended up in a relationship with Kennedy. In eventually inheriting the full power of her bloodline, she became something of a monster herself, occasionally turning into an unstoppable blue rage monster. Though there was a great deal of initial angst about Kadin “turning into one of the monsters she hunted,” over the years, she’s learned to control it. Mostly. Now she and Kennedy are married and having their first child, Vanessa.
Jeff Lindquist
Elijah Wood
Possibly Willow’s most powerful former student with the Coven, he evidenced a particular talent for telling the future. The combination of knowing the future and losing his mother in the battle with the Presidium caused Jeff to grow up fast, and he has become a quiet, steady anchor for the team. He also entered the watcher program and served for a time as watcher to the slayer Lorinda Sheparton, which proved to be a very big job. He became good friends with Andrew and had a long-term crush on Dawn, then later had a whirlwind romance and engagement with Hope Lehane (Faith’s little sister). Following her death, Jeff grew closer with future Council Chair Grace Hatherley, and the two eventually married.
Lorinda Sheparton
Madelaine Petsch
The slayer everybody loves to hate, or maybe just hates. She started out as a bully who, as time went on, turned out to probably actually be a terrible person, but maybe a terrible person you might actually want around in a potential apocalypse. She and Shannon evolved over the years from teenage arch-rivals to adult frenemies. She is the spoiled scion of an ultra-rich family and happens to be the fourth separate woman from her bloodline to be called as a slayer, a very unusual situation that was eventually revealed to have to do with ghost pirates, as happens sometimes. In “Special Assignment” she was the Lead Slayer of the Council’s London Branch, where she just so happened to end up dating a Prince. When he asked her to marry him, she turned him down, realizing to her own shock that she really was a slayer and not a princess.
Nikki Wood
Laya DeLeon Hayes
Daughter of Robin and Faith, who found out she was pregnant just after the climactic events of Season 5’s “Unto the End.” Nikki is now 14 at the time of our story. Has had to deal with a lot since her mother left both her and the Council, and harbors a lot of resentment toward her mother because of it. She’s very smart and has entered the Watcher Training program at the Council and often looks to Liz Giles for advice on life and demons.
Tracey Hausser
Thora Birch
Former college student and part-time kitchen aide, now married to Andrew and working with him at the LA branch.
Jim Pollan
Gale Harold
Former Watchers Academy arch-rival of Rowena, he is now the Council’s PR head and press secretary. Buffy tried to ask him out but discovered he was gay. He is now married to Ricardo (Ric) and they have a child who is in kindergarten.
Casey Pierce
Laura Pyper
High-spirited Cockney slayer who became best friends with Grace, who was eventually assigned as her watcher. She’d been Kennedy’s second-in-command for several years at the time of our story.
Martin Giles
Dylan Llewellyn
Younger brother to Liz, son of Giles and Becca. He was born prematurely during the events of the Season 3 finale “Megiddo,” but survived. Feeling no pressure of a foretold destiny, he may turn out to be the one kid who doesn’t go into working for the Council since he has a knack for cooking and the playing drums.
Norman Hansen
Zach Braff
Faith had her son as a teenager and immediately gave him up. He was adopted by a loving family in suburban Atlanta, but eventually came back into Faith’s life when he developed childhood cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant from the slayer. While at the Council he became good friends with young slayer Shannon, and years later, it turns out they’re married. Always a talented artist, Norman now works as a police-style sketch artist for the Council and is married to Shannon, who oversees the slayers.
Althenea Dimmons
Jennifer Connelly
Having been mentioned on Buffy but never actually seen on screen, Althenea is a free-spirited English witch who helped mentor Willow after her serious brush with Dark Magic. She helped build the Council’s UK Branch and remains the Head of its Coven.
Amira Aziz
Cote de Pablo
A slayer, a Palestinian refugee and devout Muslim. Her quiet competence in command eventually caused her to be transferred from Paris to Cleveland, where she took over leadership of the Black Ops division of slayers, which deals with human threats.
Dr. Albert Miller
Robert Picardo
The doctor who has been running the Council’s in-house infirmary since the early years. He tries not to get very emotionally involved with his patients, but that has not always worked, to the point that, when the Council was closed down by the government for a while (it was a thing) they basically ran it out of his garage.
The Story So Far…
Or at least the most exciting and/or relevant bits to our new story. Note that if your favorite character or moment is not included here, it’s not because we think any less of them, it’s because they may not be as relevant to the events of our upcoming return to the story, Watchers: Revamped.
Season One (2003-04)
- After the events at the end of Buffy Season 7, Buffy and Xander both decided they needed a break, but the rest of the gang, including Willow, Giles, Faith, Robin, Andrew and newly-empowered slayers Kennedy, Vi and Rona head to Cleveland to re-establish the exploded Watchers Council on top of the “other” Hellmouth. Willow and Kennedy continue their relationship, as do Robin and Faith. Willow pays for the new Council with the old Council’s funds, after she hacks into their bank accounts.
- After buying a new headquarters for a steal (it was haunted) from a real estate agent who turned out to be evil, they ran into a problem when a surviving group of the old, less-awesome watchers, the “Old Guard,” attempted to take back control of the Council, led by James Tyrell. His young protege, Rowena Allister, soon realized she was on the wrong side of the conflict and helped the new Council defeat the Old Guard for good.
- After Faith gets pulled over at a traffic stop and arrested, Willow magically hacks her records and removes her criminal record and that she is wanted for escaping for prison.
- Rowena’s “by the book” mentality initially clashes with several members of the new Council, especially Kennedy, and the pair’s antagonist relationship lasts for several seasons.
- Willow takes on her own pre-teen slayer, who happens to be a plucky blonde named Marsha Parsons. When Buffy comes to visit, it immediately becomes apparent that she is basically mini-Buffy.
- Willow eventually locates Xander and, worried that he is suffering after losing his eye and Anya’s death, reveals she has found a spell to restore his eye, except it involves them having sex, which exacerbates tensions between Willow and Kennedy.
- The spell is a success, but later Willow breaks up with Kennedy just before Christmas, arguing they have nothing in common and she’ll only hurt Kennedy if they stay together.
- Kennedy goes through a very rough patch, which eventually results in Rowena temporarily being appointed her watcher, though she comes out the other side stronger.
- Giles meets and starts dating bookstore owner Becca.
- Xander permanently rejoins the Council as “Weapons Master.”
- Dawn visits the Council and eventually reveals that she has a girlfriend back home in San Francisco, Skye.
- Andrew hires a nerdy college student, Tracey, as his kitchen assistant, and is immediately smitten with her.
- After a slayer named Mia, who was previously living on the streets, joins the Council, Kennedy is immediately attracted to her, and the pair eventually start a relationship.
- Willow and Xander both simultaneously realize they may be developing feelings for Rowena.
- Althenea visits from the UK to raise Willow to the Wiccan rank of “High Priestess.”
- While all this has been going on, the Council has been threatened by a huge demon organization known as the Presidium. It turns out that the Presidium, represented on Earth by a powerful demon known as the Engineer, is attempting to conquer every dimension and form them into one, called Vor. After capturing Willow’s student Jeff to test the machine, they intend to use Willow to power the final version. To do this, the Presidium must use a machine on the Hellmouth, which in the season finale the gang discovers is located beneath the Council building itself.
- A somewhat crazy plan to defeat the Engineer in a pitched battle is eventually a success, though Rona and Jeff’s mother Lily are among the casualties.
- Rowena eventually seems to choose Willow, but after the final battle decides to move back to England to rebuild the Council there, frightened by her feelings.
- Tara appears to Kennedy in a series of dreams to aid the Watchers at one point in the fight with the Presidium.
- Over the course of the year, the number of slayers and other members of the Council continues to grow. Among these new slayers is a Finnish girl named Heli.
- It is revealed that the mother Kennedy didn’t know was actually Jenny Calendar, Giles’ former lover and “technopagan” who first got Willow interested in magic before being killed by Angelus. This also means that Kennedy, like Jenny, is a descendant of the Kalderash Romany tribe who initially cursed Angel with a soul.
- Having arrived with Buffy to assist in the final fight, both Dawn and Skye decide to join the Council to complete their education.
Season Two (2004-05)
- It turns out that the Engineer was only one of twelve members of the Presidium, and the others are pissed and still planning to absorb Earth into their empire.
- At Althenea’s urging, Rowena eventually returns from England, though things remain strained between her and Willow.
- Willow and Rowena are magically trapped in a chess game (as happens), and have to reveal their darkest secrets to each other. Among Rowena’s are the fact that she was sexually assaulted by an older male teacher at the Watchers Academy as a teen.
- With the possible root of some of Rowena’s intimacy issues out in the open, Willow and Rowena slowly start to try to pursue a relationship.
- Over Willow’s objections, the Council forms a “Black Ops” unit of slayers armed with guns to take on those threats of a more human than supernatural nature. Mia takes over leadership of the Black Ops team.
- In an elaborate revenge plot, the Presidium traps every sleeping slayer in the world in an arena in Vor and forces them to fight each other to the death. Though Willow is able to enter Vor and rescue the captured slayers, she is not quick enough to save her slayer Marsha, whose death shocks the Council.
- The Council finds itself protecting Willow’s visiting old flame, Oz, and his new werewolf wife, from a rogue monster hunter descended from a long line of monster hunters, Kadin Van Helsing. In the end she grudgingly lets them live and leaves town.
- Xander briefly dates a lawyer named Alex Neel, who turns out to know all about the supernatural as part of her work for Ouroboros Law Firm, described as “the opposite of Wolfram & Hart.”
- Kennedy is forced to embrace her magical heritage in order to fight a sort of super-vampire called a Kudlak, which temporarily gives her crazy superpowers and also she turns into a bear.
- Young slayer Shannon Matthewson witnesses her watcher die in front of her at the hands of a “fire eater.”
- Kadin returns to recruit Kennedy’s services in fighting a vampire out to destroy her family line in Bucharest. The pair seem drawn to each other, and Kennedy almost cheats on Mia but stops herself at the last moment.
- Giles and Becca get engaged and she later, to her shock, finds out she’s pregnant. Becca had thought she was unable to have children.
- Becca and Giles’s big Watchers Council wedding goes so far off the rails that the pair ends up just eloping to Las Vegas and being married by an Elvis impersonator.
- After an extended flirtation, Xander and Vi eventually get together after they both sleep with the same gender-bending, energy-sucking succubus.
- During a contentious field mission, Kennedy and Rowena eventually find a dragon about the size of a cat. Kennedy takes it home and names it Marsha.
- As the threat from the Presidium grows more and more dire, the Council takes the drastic step of organizing an invasion of Vor. A coalition of the Council and demon “freedom fighters” from the many dimensions Vor took over meets the forces of the Presidium in a huge Lord of the Rings-ish battle.
- Meanwhile, Willow is taken by the Presidium and subjected to extended interrogation by a member of the Presidium, the Lover. Through a series of arguments Willow eventually convinces the Lover to turn on the rest of the Presidium, resulting in its fall and the Council’s final victory.
- While most of the Council travels to Vor, Buffy, Heli, Skye and Althenea are among those left behind on Earth in case the worst happens.
- In the final battle, Robin is trapped under a Presidium war machine and Faith is forced to chop off his leg with the Slayer Scythe to allow them to escape.
- Meanwhile, back on Earth, Buffy ends up having to help deliver Giles and Becca’s baby, a daughter they name Elizabeth.
- After a series of events in which Mia feels that she’s losing herself in the role of a heartless Black Ops slayer, she tells Kennedy that she’s leaving the Council after the battle.
Season Three (2005-06)
- Now a husband and father, Giles decides to retire from running the Watchers Council. To help organize things in his absence, Giles first institutes the three-branch system the Council has kept ever since, with watchers, slayers and the Coven each with one vote on major decisions. Faith becomes head of the Slayer Branch and Willow becomes head of the Coven Branch.
- In his place as Head Watcher and Chair, Giles nominates Rowena, who reluctantly accepts and is voted in.
- Before he resigns, Giles has a visit with Alex Neel at Ouroboros Law, who introduces him to an angry Lucifer. It is implied that God is among the firm’s clients.
- Faith’s son Norman, who she had as a teenager and gave up for adoption, comes back into her life when he needs a bone marrow transplant. Though she initially wants nothing to do with him, they two eventually grow closer. Norman also becomes friends with Shannon, who now has Dawn as her watcher.
- Rowena’s career as Chair hits immediate snags when she and Willow repeatedly disagree on major issues. The biggest problem comes when a newspaper reporter, Robert Devlin, discovers incontrovertible evidence of the Council’s true nature and threatens to “out” the supernatural to the world at large. After Rowena proposes to magically erase Devlin’s memory, Willow, who has a complicated history with memory spells, absolutely refuses, even after she is outvoted. Rowena eventually recruits Kennedy to do the spell anyway.
- Skye is jumped at her college campus and goes missing for several days. Dawn’s frantic searches for her girlfriend are fruitless until Skye suddenly returns to the Council with a Dr. Wagner, who claims that Skye was struck on the head and lost her memory.
- Kadin and Kennedy finally get together, though many members of the Council remain suspicious of the former, and she has no particular interest in joining up.
- Willow and Rowena eventually reconcile at Xander’s urging. He shows them a cartoon of Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, who fight during the day but then clock out and are friends.
- It turns out that Skye is actually now a vampire, who was supposed to spy on the Council for Wagner. Skye refuses to go along with this plan and, when she realizes she is about to be discovered, kills multiple people escaping the Council.
- Having allowed Skye to live as a vampire in their midst and then lost her, Faith quits. When Kennedy refuses to let her leave, the two fight to a stalemate. In Faith’s absence, Kennedy becomes Head Slayer.
- After an encounter with her alternate evil self in another timeline, Faith returns to Cleveland, though Kennedy continues as Head Slayer for most of the season.
- Skye returns to the Council with an offer to give them information on Wagner, and is kept undead in a holding cell.
- When the Council has one hour to prevent a mystical bomb from wiping out Cleveland, many of its internal conflicts are exposed, but Kennedy eventually saves the day.
- One of said conflicts is that Willow, who has always been opposed to the idea of the Black Ops squad, can do nothing but watch as the squad accidentally massacres an office full of people. Devastated, Willow breaks up with Rowena, whose direction put everyone in that situation.
- Meanwhile, Heli and her roommate Marly get into a fistfight in front of Severance Hall, which has happened to the best of us.
- Desperate to retrieve Skye’s soul, Dawn travels to Purgatory, but fails to bring Skye back.
- Around this time, Ethan Rayne tricks the powerful vampire Cassandra of Bruges and traps her inside a magic vase, which ends up kept in the Council vault.
- Rowena decides that she has to choose between being Council Chair and Willow, and chooses Willow. She resigns and makes a surprising nomination in her place…Buffy, who she has talked out of retirement.
- The Council has its first run-in with time travel when Vi watches herself die and a slayer war from the far-future comes to town, but it all turns out to be the inside of a loop and nobody remembers any of it.
- The Council’s discovery of a massive Guardian temple in Cuyahoga Valley National Park (obviously) eventually results in Giles getting a bunch of Guardian knowledge downloaded into his brain.
- Alex Neel walks into the Council lobby and announces that the Apocalypse is coming, and they all missed it during all their internal squabbling, and the Council is supposed to stay out of it. They do not.
- Alex also says that, as punishment for violating the laws of creation by traveling to Purgatory, Dawn will never get to revisit the afterlife. She will live forever and watch all of her friends and family die.
- Faith is visited by the Archangel Gabrielle (she let the Bible take off a couple of letters, to preserve her anonymity) who tells her she is destined to lead humanity through an invasion by Lucifer, his right-hand lady Wagner, and the forces of Hell. Faith hears Gabrielle explain that she was once a slayer, the first to live to age thirty and “retire.”
- As earthquakes shake the world, the Council makes the decision that all of humanity will be needed in the coming fight. At a press conference, Rowena smashes the crystal holding Devlin’s memories.
- The forces of Hell pour out of hellmouths across the globe, destroying many famous monuments.
- In leading a group of slayers in the ensuing battle, Faith ends up being followed around by a news camera crew, becoming a worldwide hero.
- As part of the attacks, Chosen Watchers are directly targeted. Becca, pregnant with her and Giles’s child, is cornered and forced to defend Liz with a piece of broken glass, then goes into premature labor. Because of this attack, Giles realizes that Liz is a Chosen Watcher.
- The Council HQ is heavily damaged by an earthquake and mass demon attack.
- Rowena tricks Lucifer into killing Wagner, who it is revealed was once a Guardian herself who grew power-hungry and pledged herself to his service. Lucifer, impressed, offers to call off the invasion if Rowena will do the same.
- Faith is killed during the battle on live TV. Her death inspires worldwide resistance. This, along with the intervention of several archangels, led by Gabrielle, turns the tide against the demons.
- Dawn also dies during the battle, then comes back a few minutes later, confirming that she is immortal.
- Giles and Becca’s second child, Martin, is born prematurely at the hospital, and survives.
- Later in the Council morgue, Faith is miraculously resurrected by Gabrielle.
- The events of Lucifer’s invasion and the revelation of the supernatural to the world are referred to in subsequent years as “The Crisis of 2006,” or just, “The Crisis.”
Season Four (2006-07)
- The Council, now finding itself under the scrutiny of the world, opens a new headquarters in downtown Cleveland (in which it remains at the time of the new series).
- Faith in particular is now one of the most famous people in the world.
- Demons have trouble assimilating into the new world, some getting plastic surgery to appear more human.
- Rowena tells Willow that she turned down Lucifer’s offer because she believes in her and the Council, but feels guilty because she hesitated. Willow and Rowena are together seemingly for good.
- Many new recruits and transfers arrive at the new headquarters. Among the transfers from London are Jim Pollan, a former Watchers Academy arch-rival of Rowena who soon becomes Council Press Secretary, and Casey Pierce, a fierce cockney slayer.
- Another new arrival is Grace Hatherley, a Chosen Watcher and daughter of a watcher who initially rejected her calling but decided to join up after her and her father were attacked during the Crisis. She applies to be Rowena’s research assistant because she initially thinks it will be an easy job, and she would rather be left alone to watch Battlestar Galactica and play World of Warcraft.
- The Council has a series of clashes with an organization called Bureau Nine, which has a mission similar to that of the Council except it is run for a profit. In the wake of the Crisis, it begins openly recruiting slayers. Bureau Nine is run by Jason Felix, who lost both his wife and daughter to a vampire attack. His right-hand woman is Lori Carew, the former slayer for the Council.
- Faith’s sister Hope returns, and is soon discovered to be possessed by a demon. In the course of freeing her, she grows close with Jeff and agrees to move to the Council with him, to Faith’s great dismay.
- Andrew’s long-discussed screenplay about the events of BtVS Season 7 is bought and made into a Hollywood movie, with various famous actors playing the Scooby Gang.
- Rowena asks Willow to marry her, and she says yes.
- Skye agrees to be the subject of a long-term study by Rowena to learn more about how vampires work, mostly in an effort not to get staked.
- A despairing Dawn, after learning that Skye’s soul was destroyed for good, makes a series of attempts to kill herself, but nothing works. She eventually confronts Skye, who is starving and hallucinating as part of the effects of an experiment on what happens when vampires go into blood withdrawal, and the pair end up having sex, during which Skye drinks Dawn’s blood (though of course she immediately comes back from the dead).
- On Halloween, Faith, Rowena, Vi and Heli are kidnapped and trapped in a sadistic fun-house. Signs immediately point to it being an inside job. Back at the Council, Marly is initially suspected before she is killed by a bomb that had been strapped to her. While the group is eventually rescued, it is then revealed that Heli was the killer all along when she poisons Vi, who dies in her boyfriend Xander’s arms, and disappears.
- Searching for answers about her own resurrection (and how she saw nothing after she died), Faith travels to Spain, where she meets Isabel Ortiz, a slayer who suddenly lost her powers during the Crisis and now suddenly and irreversibly drains the powers of any other slayer who gets near her. Except, as it turns out, Faith.
- Though Faith is eventually able to confirm that what happened to Isabel wasn’t a side-effect of her own resurrection, the Council’s suspicions remain that her emergence may be some side-effect of Willow’s spell to activate all slayers, especially after she disappears.
- Hope is taken under Jason Felix’s wing and becomes a kind of double agent with the Council, though she’s very conflicted about it.
- With Rowena’s experiments done and Dawn and Skye clearly starting back up their relationship, Buffy decides it’s time for some staking. In defending Skye, Dawn’s slayer Shannon sort-of-accidentally shoots Buffy in the arm with a crossbow bolt. In the aftermath, Dawn and Skye are allowed to leave the Council, which leads to the first organized slayer strike. Everything eventually calms down, though not before Lorinda nearly stakes Skye in the middle of the woods in Pennsylvania.
- On New Year’s 2007, the gang agrees to return to the Giles house for a party every year so they don’t grow too far apart.
- Grace’s mother, Dianna, turns out to be working for Bureau Nine, and after a great deal of skullduggery she eventually steals what the Bureau had been looking for all along, an ancient artifact known as the Sphere.
- It turns out that it was Bureau Nine that took Isabel, though not too long after she joins with them willingly.
- The Council’s failure to recapture Heli turns out to be a continued problem in many ways. Kennedy becomes obsessed with finding her, while internal morale tanks. Heli starts releasing videos taunting the Council to the media and cuts a swath around the world, killing slayers in creative ways. Among the dead are Chao-Ahn, who had been running the Council’s Hong Kong branch.
- After saving a rich woman and her kids, the Council brass spend a weekend on a private island in the Caribbean, but soon find themselves under the influence of an inhibition dropping spell that spirals rather impressively out of control. Willow, Rowena and Xander have a threesome, and Buffy and Faith sleep together. Then the fights to the death start, though everyone survives in the end.
- In the end, the whole island fiasco turns out to be the plan of a rogue faction of Bureau Nine led by James Tyrell, who is then killed by Jason Felix. The gang, meanwhile, makes a pact that “what happened on Demented Island stays on Demented Island.”
- But not everything, because some time later Rowena discovers she’s pregnant. She and Willow agree that this is their kid, though Xander can be in their life as much as he wants.
- In order to save herself and the Council, Kadin is forced to accept an ancient demonic power that results in her turning into a scary blue rage monster. This results in her dying, then running away (in that order), then coming back to try to work on things with Kennedy.
- Kennedy, Rowena and a Council team finally follow a string of clues and gruesome deaths to Tokyo to find Heli, where, after the psychotic slayer keeps Rowena out of the way by trapping her on a rigged karaoke stage, Kennedy and Heli have a final one-on-one battle. Said battle ends with Kennedy shooting Heli until she runs out of bullets, which it turns out may somehow have been the girl’s intention all along?
- Faith takes young slayer Hadley Ramirez under her wing, though she is thrown by the latter’s insistence on walking into the spotlight and talking to the news media.
- Kennedy accidentally makes a wish to a vengeance demon and finds herself in a world without magic, demons or slayers, where her mother and Vi are still alive and she is a normal (and straight?) college student, but things went badly for pretty much everyone else. Kennedy’s desperate attempts to reverse what she did end with the reveal that it was all some sort of prophetic Slayer Dream.
- Because what’s actually going on is Bureau Nine is trying to remove all magic from the world, in an elaborate plot involving the Sphere, Isabel and a temple in the Himalayas.
- This plan comes to fruition, with all of the magic in the world being channeled into Isabel, in the midst of Rowena and Willow’s media-circus “Wedding of the Century” in Nova Scotia, causing Willow and the rest of the Coven to drop into comas and all the slayers to immediately lose their powers.
- The remaining watchers race against the clock (and work with Bureau Nine, which realizes pretty quickly how badly it screwed up) to save magic (before it kills Isabel and is gone forever), while the powerless slayers grab some machine guns to try desperately try to fight off an onslaught from every demon and vampire in the world out for revenge on a now apparently powerless Council.
- The besieged Council is temporarily relieved by Lori and a team of slayers from Bureau Nine, though the battle turns bad again and Lori is badly injured.
- Just in the nick of time, a ritual to restore magic is successful, though it’s unclear why because it called for a slayer, a watcher and a witch. It turns out that it worked because Rowena is carrying twins…a slayer and a witch…a result of her and Willows tryst with Xander on ‘Demented Island’.
- Take two on Rowena and Willow’s wedding is a success, and the surprising announcement is made that the Council will be absorbing Bureau Nine’s assets and employees, including Jason Felix, Lori and Hope.
Season Five (2007-08)
- As the former members of the Council and Bureau Nine have trouble getting along, Coven member Jocelyn O’Hara suddenly goes super dark magic, complete with the veins and black hair, and cuts a swath across Cleveland. Willow has to fully let loose to stop her and save everyone, though not before much of Public Square is destroyed.
- In the battle, three-year-old Liz gets thrown off the top of the Terminal Tower by Jocelyn. She survives due to Willow’s magic, and Buffy and Faith’s quick thinking, but is understandably left with a life-long fear of heights.
- Unbeknownst to the Council, Jocelyn’s fall is caused by the “Loathestone,” a mysterious “living” black rock that seems to have affected many of the darker chapters of both history and the lives of those connected to the Council. Those under its sway often repeat some version of the phrase “nothing is real except suffering.”
- Tracey leaves town to study video game design at UCLA, though she and Andrew keep up a long-distance relationship.
- Among those arriving from Bureau Nine is Bureau Nine’s lead British slayer, Siobhan Hartley, who is good friends with Lori.
- The Council inherits Bureau Nine’s relationship with the “Oversight Committee,” a shadowy organization that has been bankrolling and overseeing the fight against evil for centuries.
- Though publicly they seem to intensely dislike each other, Xander and Lori are secretly having sex. He still seems to be suffering from the loss of Vi and she is struggling to deal with pain from her injuries, which have left her having to walk with a cane for the rest of her life. Eventually they break things off, their friends none the wiser.
- Increasingly frustrated by her love life, Buffy kisses Xander in an attempt to prove there’s no sexual tension between them. This does not succeed. She then asks Jim Pollan out, only to discover that he’s gay and everyone except her already seems to have known.
- Mostly as a publicity stunt, the Council holds the first “World Slayer Games,” among slayers who are too young to be in the field. Shannon captains the Cleveland team to third place. The team’s top scorer is its youngest and smallest member, Cindy “Lou Who” Loomis, who tames Marsha during an event in which the dragon has been temporarily made enormous with magic.
- Jeff and Hope get engaged, leaving everyone to wonder if they’re moving too fast.
- Among those in attendance at the Games is local Congresswoman Autumn O’Mara, whose presidential ambitions are widely rumored.
- After she reveals unexplained impulses, both good and bad, to Rowena, the watcher determines that Skye is “growing” a new soul, jokingly referred to by the gang as Skye’s “Chia Soul.” It turns out this is something that can happen when one repeatedly drinks the blood of an immortal…that is, Dawn.
- Lorinda discovers the truth of her family history during an adventure involving ghost pirates and successfully saves the day, though she is so amoral in the process that she horrifies her own ghost ancestor.
- The Council starts to clash with an emerging organization of “demon terrorists,” the “Voice of Hell,” named after their leader.
- Autumn O’Mara steps up a campaign of criticism of the Council’s efforts against the Voice of Hell. The Council is confused by the Congresswoman’s about-face and believes her to be opportunistically trying to gain publicity for a presidential run, when in fact she is under the influence of the Loathestone.
- Jocelyn dies during a “Persephone’s Knot” ritual, led by Althenea, to try to separate her from her powers.
- Rowena gives birth to twins, Alexander and Jennifer.
- Tensions between Council and Bureau Nine loyalists hit a fever pitch, with members on both sides worried about guarding against conspiracies and assassinations.
- While attempting to rid their old Boston catholic high school of an ancient, possibly world-destroying demon, Hope sacrifices herself to destroy the monster and save Willow, Faith and Jeff. This quickly defuses tensions between the two factions.
- Still reeling from her sister’s death, Faith is confronted with a tell-all book about her murderous past, which O’Mara immediately jumps on to attack the Council.
- Attacks from the Voice of Hell escalate, including a suicide bombing by aquatic creatures of a major southwestern dam, resulting in mass flooding and loss of electricity and water to several major cities.
- It is revealed that Congresswoman O’Mara and the leader of the Voice of Hell are actually the same person, a demon with the power to change forms.
- After looking in a magical mirror confiscated from Bureau Nine, Robin starts switching places with a version of himself from a different, much darker universe. The issue quickly escalates into a full-scale battle between those from our universe and their evil doubles, though of course “our” universe wins, sealing off the other world again and leaving an alternate Kennedy and her “rebels” in charge there.
- Events involving Faith come to a head, and she confesses to her past crimes and is eventually taken into custody. Soon after, she is pardoned by the governor of California, but then, partly due to the behind-the-scenes machinations of Congresswoman O’Mara, Willow is arrested by the FBI for her hacking crimes and alteration of Faith’s records.
- Willow is held in a magic-proof cell at a new “special federal prison” in West Virginia without any hearing or trial.
- Much of the Council is rendered useless by an engineered virus, which turns out to have been a plot by O’Mara. Buffy’s secretary Joan, Dr. Miller and Norman (who was protected by the steroids he took as part of his post-cancer treatments) helps save the day and is publicly revealed as Faith’s son.
- At one point during this episode a somewhat delirious Buffy agrees to go on a date with Xander, if they survive. She stays true to her word and it seems like it goes pretty good.
- Grace and Jeff grow closer during the events of an adventurous night involving demon fights and terrible college Shakespeare productions, and he tells her that he has seen the future and knows that some time several years later he will have a daughter named Mercy.
- Kadin gains greater control over her monster side and agrees to marry Kennedy. You know, someday.
- With the Council under a two-pronged assault from the Voice of Hell and the Congresswoman, and with Willow in prison, internal tensions start to spiral out of control, especially between Rowena and Faith, the former blaming the latter for Willow’s imprisonment.
- The rest of the group tries, with little success, to keep everything the Council has built from falling apart, while they find themselves unable to prevent Voice of Hell attacks such as a coordinated nationwide blood heist from public blood banks and an assault on a military convoy on the Ohio Turnpike that the Council learns was carrying nuclear weapons codes.
- Shortly thereafter, O’Mara successfully pushes a bill through Congress shutting down the Council, at least while an investigation is pending. Many of the members go home, though most of our central heroes pile into Giles and Becca’s house and try to keep up the fight.
- Faith leads a successful prison break for Willow, who goes on the run to Canada with Rowena and the kids who spent the last three months living in a motel near the prison.
- Skye, who has gone undercover with the Voice of Hell, successfully gets the information that the Voice of Hell is planning to take over a nuclear submarine, which combined with the stolen codes seems, um, bad.
- With some strings pulled by the Oversight Committee, Buffy, Xander and Kennedy lead an expedition onto the submarine, where they engage in a desperate battle with a combo of submariners turned into vampires and underwater demons. Casey loses an eye in the course of the battle.
- The Council finally uncovers the link between O’Mara and the Voice of Hell: She is a Th’ndi demon, normally harmless, known to change between two forms and for its exceptional charisma.
- Moments later, Faith has to go before a Congressional Committee to try to save the Council. She eventually proves O’Mara is the Voice of Hell, leading a desperate O’Mara to steal a security officer’s gun and start taking hostages. Faith is forced to fatally wound O’Mara, but while trying to save O’Mara’s life accidentally touches the Loathestone around her neck.
- The day apparently saved, the Council reopens, and everybody’s various alleged crimes are forgiven.
- While getting blood-tested at the hospital after her fight with O’Mara, Faith finds out that she’s pregnant with her and Robin’s child.
- Andrew transfers to the Council’s Los Angeles branch to be closer to Tracey.
- Siobhan and Hadley accept positions at the Council’s new New Orleans Branch.
- Jason Felix leaves the Council for a position on the Oversight Committee. Lori steps into his position as a leading Council member.
Watchers: Special Assignment (2014)
- Most of the gang is still around, though Faith at some point left the Watchers Council and there are a lot of remaining hard feelings.
- Kennedy has recently turned 30 and lost her powers and is adjusting, in Faith’s absence, to being Lead Slayer from behind a desk. Shannon, in her early 20s, is now the top slayer in the field.
- Lorinda, meanwhile, has risen to Lead Slayer at the London Branch, where her harsh regime leads to clashes with Althenea.
- Lorinda is also dating a Prince of England, who she met when she saved him from a bunch of vampires, and the press is speculating about when he’s going to pop the question.
- When Norman asks Shannon to marry him, she runs away instead of answering.
- Robin is a single dad to a young daughter, Nikki.
- Buffy has also lost her powers, but is still Chairwoman and married to Xander. She is feeling burnt out by the job and wants to start a family with Xander.
- In addition to the twins, Willow and Rowena have two younger kids, Jake and Sophie.
- Grace and Jeff are also now married. She is a successful watcher, but is considering an offer from a private corporation to jump ship from the Council for a salary of $1 million a year.
- Casey remains a high-ranking slayer at the Council, sporting a fashionable eye-patch.
- Buffy decides to step down as Chairwoman and starts looking for a replacement. Rowena and Willow both refuse, leading her to interview candidates such as Andrew, Lori and Amira.
- Buffy also finds herself not always able to understand the current generation of slayers, at one point berating a slayer for tweeting and then being told by Lori that the Council actually encourages it as good publicity.
- As part of stepping down, Buffy hands down the Slayer Scythe to Shannon, saying it should be in use in the field by a slayer.
- The Council becomes aware of the “Uncreation,” a prophesied event that will destroy the world “as if it never existed.”
- Shannon, Rowena and Jeff go on “Special Assignment,” leading an expedition to the jungles of Thailand to stop the Uncreation, on which they are unexpectedly joined by Lorinda, who has decided to spend some time away from the UK as part of her, um, complicated relationship with the Prince.
- The Council expedition goes very, very badly, including the group’s helicopter getting shot down by bad guys in the middle of the back country.
- Shannon and Lorinda spend a lot of time on their own and clash repeatedly, but eventually come to something of an understanding while in a cage in the middle of a demon rebel encampment.
- Desperate to find her wife and the others, Willow astral projects without eating or drinking for so long that she passes out. While the rest of the group advocates for Willow to stop, Grace successfully convinces Buffy that Willow should be allowed to continue the projection under controlled conditions.
- Willow eventually does find the team, though they only have minutes to stop the end of the world by this point.
- Shannon leads an attack (using Lorinda’s strategy) to stop the Uncreation Machine (it’s all very steampunk) but loses a fight with the bad guy. As a result of this, she and everyone else believe the Slayer Scythe to have been destroyed, though in reality it has been teleported away into the forest.
- Rowena is left to try and stop a runaway Uncreation Machine from destroying the world. Back at Council Command, Grace is the only one to keep her cool and talks everyone through figuring out how to stop the machine. Rowena succeeds at the very last second.
- Shannon goes over a waterfall on a small boat with the bad guy, but her life is saved by Lorinda.
- On her return to Cleveland, Shannon proposes to Norman and he accepts.
- On her return to London, Lorinda is proposed to by the Prince, but she decides that he is not “the guy” and that he will never really accept her for being a slayer, and breaks up with him.
- Grace goes to Buffy’s office to tell her she’s leaving the Council, but before she can say anything Buffy offers her the Chair job (though both Willow and Rowena seem skeptical of this idea). Grace accepts and is sworn in during a big public event.
- Shannon and Norman get married, an event to which Faith finally shows up.
- During all these events, it is mentioned that Faith’s old protege Hadley parlayed her slaying fame into pop stardom, with her megahit “Stake to My Heart” playing everywhere. She shows up to sing at Shannon and Norman’s wedding.
And In the Future…
These are stories which have already been released but take place after Watchers: Revamped in the timeline. So while they may include context some long-time Watchers readers will bring to the table, new readers might consider them spoilers. Read on at your own risk.
“Divination” (2022)
- Watchers Season Five included three episodes set at various points along the future timeline, in 2022, 2031, and 2036, along with a three-part finale, “Generations,” set in 2041. The first of these, “Divination,” takes place several months prior to the story of Watchers; Revamped.
- A teenage Liz Giles is rebelling against her destiny and has become something of a delinquent. We first meet her when Rowena has to bail her out of jail.
- Rowena and Willow are a middle-aged married couple with four kids, including teenage slayer Jen and her twin Alex, who is studying magic. Jake and Sofia, 8 and 7 years old respectively, were conceived by Willow.
- Jen is seen training as a slayer and there are discussions that she may soon be going into the field.
- Shannon will soon turn 30, and she and Norman have a toddler-age son, Kelvin.
- Willow is feeling aimless in her middle-age and finds herself not quite sure how to react when she is the subject of amorous advances by a much younger Coven student, Emma Wilton.
- Liz is studying to be a watcher, but she gets in a fight in Rowena’s class with another girl, Trina, who believes that Liz is favored solely because she’s Giles’s daughter.
- Willow and Wilton kiss, which Liz sees. She and Willow then get into a fight, but Willow does convince Liz not to tell Rowena.
- Rowena takes Liz along with her, Shannon and Dawn to investigate events in New York City, which turn out to be the result of the Archangel Gabrielle having been corrupted (by the Loathestone, though the Council does not know this).
- As part of their investigation, Rowena scans a photo of Gabrielle and sends it to someone for confirmation of her identity (this is later revealed to be Faith).
- Willow has a more intense private moment with Wilton, though she pulls back and decides not to go through with things at the last minute.
- Liz finds herself in her element in the fight against the corrupted Gabrielle, formulating a plan that saves the day and involves her ordering around a bunch of Gabrielle’s fellow archangels.
- Finding that she actually liked the feeling of saving the world, Liz agrees to redouble her efforts to learn how to be a watcher under Rowena’s tutelage.
“Cone of Power” (2031)
- Liz has been left in charge for the first time with the current Chairwoman, Grace, overseas.
- She is left with a crisis involving a terrorist attempting to use magic to blow up a volcano in the Canary Islands to destroy the east coast of North America with a huge tidal wave.
- She also has a young son, Nathan. At one point when things look bad, she takes her younger brother Martin aside and asks him to take care of Nathan if anything happens to her, including not letting his father, identified as “Darryl,” take him.
- Nikki Wood is grown up and a talented watcher, who looks at Liz as something of a hero.
- Kennedy is now a member of the Coven and is fairly adept at magic, enough to get into a magical battle with the bad guy.
- Jen Rosenberg and Liz Giles are described as being long-time best friends. The former is now a high-ranking slayer. As kids they played an elaborate game they invented called “CSI.”
- Xander is seen with a young daughter of his own, Joyce, though the episode is coy about the identity of her mother (it’s Buffy).
- Willow and Rowena are not only still together, they now have two more kids, Ira and Joe named after birth mother Willow and birth mother Rowena’s fathers respectively, bringing their offspring total to 6 with them having 3 each.
- As part of a ritual to stop the bad guy, Althenea sacrifices herself to save the world.
“Contingency” (2036)
- Teen slayer Joyce Harris starts having slayer dreams about monsters attacking her friends at the same time that she is finally assigned a watcher…Liz Giles, who Grace wants to get field experience so she can finally resign and support Liz for her position.
- Joyce’s best friend and fellow slayer is Vanessa Calendar, who usually just goes by “Calendar.”
- Shannon, now the Council’s Head Slayer, is also on the verge of retirement, and is about to hand her position over to Jen Rosenberg.
- Jake Allister is also a witch and has moved away with his family to take over a coven in Detroit.
- Jen’s brother Alex has a daughter, Trisha, and wife, Maddie, though they seem to always be fighting. Jen tells him she always thought he should have gotten together with Liz.
- Due to Joyce’s premonitions and working with Liz, disaster is averted and the Council eventually defeats a bunch of demons that can shapeshift at will.
- In “Generations” it will be revealed that, immediately after the final battle of “Contingency,” Rowena will be killed by a demon the group had missed. Her last words are to tell Liz to “stop and smell the flowers.”
“Generations” (2041)
- Liz Giles is the chairperson of the Watchers Council when the Loathestone re-emerges. She is given it by Brell’s distraught son Belizet, who tells her not to touch it. She unknowingly brings it to the Council and sets in motion a series of events.
- In the interim since we last saw them, both Rowena and Kadin have died in the line of duty, and Willow and Kennedy have finally gotten back together.
- Liz is now finally together with Alex, in a blended family with their kids Nathan and Trisha, though she asks him not to get married because she doesn’t want to mess with what they have.
- It is confirmed that Vanessa Calendar is the daughter of Kennedy and Kadin, who combined their DNA so they were both her parents though a process called SFC, or “Synthetic Female Conception.”
- An elderly Giles dies, leading to a reunion of everyone who has scattered over the years. Even Faith appears. Buffy (who we now see is married to Xander) bitterly describes Faith as having lost her powers at 30 and freaked out, though Robin says the freak-out started before that, after she had Nikki and they got married.
- Faith later tells Nikki that she left because she was so angry all the time and didn’t want to inflict that on anyone. She also tells Nikki she has four ex-husbands, though “none of them were serious.”
- Puzzled by a series of strange fights among the group, Liz and Faith realize that they must be caused by the Loathestone. The Stone “speaks” to Faith and she realizes that her rage over the years has been caused by the Loathestone after she touched it during her fight with O’Mara.
- One of the random arguments involves Grace and Shannon getting mad at their husbands, Jeff and Norman, when they discover they still have a copy of “the Lorinda issue of Playboy.”
- The Council discovers that the Loathestone is made from the concentrated, suffering souls of those murdered by the Old Ones, and has been in existence as long as humanity.
- Magical attempts to destroy the Loathestone instead exacerbate its effects, with much of the Council falling under its influence. Among the tragic events that ensue is that Shannon “sees red” during an argument with Skye and stakes the vampire.
- This tragedy leads the Council to move forward with Willow’s drastic plan to open the doors between life and death to allow the souls forming the Loathestone to cross over.
- The spell works “too well,” as everyone’s loved ones come back from the dead. There are many tearful reunions, but it is soon discovered that all the bad guys are coming back from the dead, too, and they can’t let the Council destroy the Loathestone if they don’t want to go back to Hell or wherever they were.
- When Rowena comes back from the dead, she expresses her approval that Liz and Alex are together, noting that she believed his ex-wife Maddie to be “a total bitch from day one.”
- A massive battle in Africa ensues, with the Council eventually coming out on top after Liz outwits Heli, Wagner, and other returned Council antagonists.
- Our heroes then pass a series of tests and eventually use the combined power of the generations to allow the souls to cross over, after which Faith crushes the now-powerless Stone.
- All the loved ones say their final goodbyes and fade away. To everyone’s shock, Andrew also fades away. It turns out that he was killed during the battle and kept it a secret.
- Faith and Robin get back together.
“Generations” Epilogue (2064)
- Dawn, still apparently the same age, wanders through the Council and remembers various quick flashes of the events over the years.
- It is revealed that Willow, the “last one” of her original friends and family, died recently of old age.
- Dawn tells Liz, who is still the Chair but considering retirement, that she can’t watch everyone die again and again and that she wants to disappear. Liz alters the records so that, while the Council may be able to trace her if it absolutely needs to, no one will know who she is or where to find her.
- Dawn says goodbye to Joyce, who is older now with a family of her own, and moves to a rural house on Puget Sound where she intends to live out “the next hundred or two hundred years.”
Watchers: Restoration (2130)
- Restoration started with a one-off Season One episode of Watchers about possibly reincarnated versions of various Council members “restoring” the Council after it goes through a dark period in a science-fictiony far future. This was then expanded into a spin-off with two seasons over thirteen episodes. Most of the details of Restoration are not relevant to our story here, but a few items are worth mentioning.
- Needing to find a member of the apparently-died-out Summers female family line for a spell, the heroes contact a woman named Aurora, who they find at a rural estate on Puget Sound. She is heavily implied at the time (and later confirmed) to be an immortal Dawn Summers.
- Aurora saves the day and seems at the end to have reverted into her “Key” form, though what exactly happens is left somewhat ambiguous.
- An archaeological dig discovers the Slayer Scythe, which one Council member comments that they believed to have been “lost by Matthewson in Thailand.” This was later dramatized in the events of “Special Assignment.”
- An accident in the Council Archives breaks Cassandra of Bruges’s vase, causing the vampire to re-emerge, and the future Council has a huge battle with her.
- The last chronological story of the Watchersverse to date, “World’s End,” includes our heroes unleashing the power of the slayer line with the Scythe, bringing the spirits of every past slayer to fight in a battle for them. Buffy, Faith, Shannon and Lorinda all make cameos, among others.
If you made it this far, congrats, and enjoy the story continuation in Watchers: Revamped. We’re sending you a virtual cookie.
CLICK HERE to read “WATCHERS: REVAMPED”