Supernatural Meets Buffy In The Most Underrated Fantasy Show Of The 21st Century

When it comes to hidden-world fantasy TV shows, it is undeniable that Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural sit at the top. Both helped define urban fantasy television, bringing the mundane face-to-face with the fantastical and horrifying in ways few, if any, other series have. Buffy and Supernatural both took the idea of a secret world hiding within ordinary life and turned it into two stories that remain as influential as they are iconic.

There is plenty of overlap between both fandoms, and the debate over which is better, Buffy or Supernatural, remains one of fantasy TV's most unending arguments. Still, fans have long voiced a want for a series combining the best qualities of both shows into something unique. Ironically, it's existed for several years already. Syfy’s The Magicians aired from 2015 to 2020, giving Supernatural and Buffy fans a show that occupies the space between the two classics while also having an identity of its own.

Based on Lev Grossman's novels, The Magicians follows Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph), a 17-year-old who discovers magic is real after being admitted to Brakebills, a secret school for magical education. The adventures of Quentin and his companions quickly expand beyond the classroom into other worlds, blending dangerous creatures and existential threats with personal trauma and coming-of-age drama. The result is a fantasy series that feels like a natural midway point between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural, and fans of either (and, especially, both) will find it impossible not to binge.

The Magicians Is The Show Buffy And Supernatural Fans Have Been Waiting For

For Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, the appeal of The Magicians is immediate. Like Buffy, it is a dark coming-of-age fantasy that perfectly balances supernatural concepts with teen drama themes. Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) fights vampires while dealing with typical teenage problems like education and relationships, just like Quentin, only with spells in place of stakes. The Magicians also uses its magic and fantastical concepts to explore ideas like depression, trauma, and identity in ways Buffy fans are bound to find familiar.

When it comes to Supernatural, the similarities with The Magicians are just as obvious. Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) spend years moving through an enormous supernatural mythology, encountering everything from demons and ghosts to angels and gods. The Magicians offers a similarly expansive world, with the only key difference being that the characters are students and practitioners of magic rather than hunters driving from town to town.

That combination makes The Magicians a perfect bridge between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural, and is bound to satisfy either of the two fandoms. It has the character-driven supernatural teen drama associated with Buffy, the ever-expanding mythology associated with Supernatural, and a willingness to shift between horror, comedy, tragedy, adventure, and outright absurdity like both.

The frustrating thing is that it’s easy to see just how underappreciated The Magicians truly is thanks to how often conversations about wanting a show that’s Supernatural-meets-Buffy still happen. The Syfy series ran for five seasons, concluding in 2020, yet the desire for something that combines the strengths of Buffy and Supernatural has not disappeared. If The Magicians had the reputation it deserved, that conversation would have been put to bed over a decade ago when season 1 arrived.

It May Capture The Best Of Buffy And Supernatural, But The Magicians Isn’t Derivative

While The Magicians being a perfect midway point between Buffy and Supernatural is an obvious strength, it’s important to note that it’s not simply copying either show. Its similarities are useful for explaining the appeal, but the series has a distinctive identity of its own too. There may be a lot in The Magicians that’s also to be found in Supernatural and Buffy, but there’s also a lot that isn’t anywhere in either.

One of its greatest strengths is the way it treats magic and its educational setting. Brakebills initially resembles the sort of fantasy school that viewers might expect, but The Magicians quickly rejects the idea that magical education automatically makes its characters heroic. It can almost be thought of as an inversion of Hogwarts, with the relatively black-and-white morality of Harry Potter presented in a far murkier and more grounded way. The magic school trope is used masterfully by The Magicians, and it’s one that Supernatural and Buffy never extensively touched upon.

Most importantly, The Magicians is hugely entertaining even for viewers who have no interest Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. The series has strong character development, an imaginative magical system, ambitious world-building, and enough tonal variety to remain unpredictable across five seasons.

That is why calling The Magicians an underrated fantasy series is alluding to more than comparing it to two giants of the genre. It deserves recognition on its own terms. For fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural, it may feel like the crossover they always wanted, but for everyone else, The Magicians one of the most inventive fantasy shows of the 21st century.