Nick Henderson's thoughts on Sarah Michelle Gellar's casting in the Dexter prequel!
Somebody pinch me because my worlds are colliding! It was announced this week that Sarah Michelle Gellar would be stepping into an apparent “guest star” role as CSI Chief, Tanya Martin (AKA Dexter’s boss) in season 1 of Original Sin. Not only is this a huge win for the show given Gellar’s status as a pop-culture icon, it is also a deeply personal development for me. Before Dexter, it was Buffy the Vampire Slayer that first fueled my love of visual storytelling and showed me what it meant to be part of a fandom.
Sarah Michelle Gellar was my first on-screen crush but it was her mesmerizing performance at the heart of Buffy that stayed with me well into adulthood. I watched the show week-to-week all the way from 1997 until the end of its Angel spin-off in 2004 and it has never stopped feeling important or impactful. The themes explored throughout that show are timeless and they had such a positive impact on myself and many others growing up. On a less serious note, it was also endlessly charming and oftentimes hilarious.
Needless to say, the significance of Sarah Michelle Gellar stepping into a role on the OTHER show that stole my heart is impossible to overstate. Like Dexter, Buffy blended genres effortlessly and constantly walked a fine line between horror and comedy and while the writers deserve a lot of that credit, Gellar was the reason it worked as well as it did. In fact, as I write this, I am seeing so many parallels between Buffy’s legacy and Dexter’s; Michael C. Hall is obviously largely responsible for making Dexter the success that it is and hopefully for laying the foundation for Patrick Gibson’s success stepping into the role.
While the Venn Diagram of Buffy and Dexter fandoms is not a perfect circle, I am confident that the overlap is significant enough to be noteworthy. Recasting an entire show of this magnitude for the sake of a prequel is a daunting task but I continue to be impressed with each new announcement. For me, Sarah’s involvement means the world and I can’t wait to see what she brings to the table. Forgive the obvious pun but… I am confident that she’s going to slay!