which Whedon developed to invert the Hollywood formula of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie." Whedon wanted "to subvert that idea and create someone who was a hero." He explained, "The very first mission statement of the show was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it." The season was shot throughout 1996, with the idea first visiting through Whedon's script for the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which featured Kristy Swanson in the title role. The director, Fran Rubel Kuzui, saw it as a "pop culture comedy about what people think about vampires." Whedon disagreed: "I had written this scary film about an empowered woman, and they turned it into a broad comedy. It was crushing." The script was praised within the industry, but the movie was not. Several years later, Gail Berman, a Fox executive, approached Whedon to develop his Buffy concept into a television series. Whedon explained that "They said, 'Do you want to do a show?' And I thought, 'High school as a horror movie.' And so the metaphor became the central concept behind Buffy, and that's how I sold it." The supernatural elements in the series stood as metaphors for personal anxieties associated with adolescence and young adulthood. Whedon went on to write and partly fund a 25-minute non-broadcast pilot that was shown to networks and eventually sold to The WB Television Network. The latter promoted the premiere with a series of History of the Slayer clips, and the first episode aired on March 10, 1997. Whedon declared in June 2003 that the non-broadcast pilot would not be included with DVDs of the series, stating that it "sucks on ass." Episodes Reception On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the first season scored 80 out of 100, based on 15 reviews, indicating "Generally favorable reviews". Rotten Tomatoes gave season one a score of 92% with an average rating of 8 out of 10 based on 26 reviews with a critics' consensus stating, "Buffy slays her way into the pop-culture lexicon in a debut season that lays the groundwork for one of TV's greatest supernatural teen dramas." The pilot episode, "Welcome to the Hellmouth", was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Makeup for a Series. DVD release Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete First Season was released on DVD in