Ethan Van Sciver once said of Joss Whedon that all of his characters talk like an ugly redhead who had to be funny in high school in order to be likeable.

I enjoyed Buffy when it first came out because I was young enough then to be easily swayed by emotional manipulation. If you watch it for the first time as an adult, especially without that nostalgia to fall back on, I really don't know what there is to enjoy about it. It's a teen soap opera and nothing more. Once you get past the clever dialogue, which can be genuinely funny in some places, it's not much more than a precursor to the CW, maybe with a bit more character consistency, but with the same constant refocusing away from the action and onto emotional and relationship drama. If you're not a teenager, it's really hard to relate to any of it.