SPOILER ALERT! Please don't read this story if you don't want to know what happened during the "Buffy" season premiere! Okay...you're still reading. We gave you fair warning so NO complaining.

On Tuesday night, the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" creative team set the scene for a "Buffy" season full of angst.

With Buffy gone for the first hour of the two-hour season premiere, the formerly quirky Willow (Alyson Hannigan) became the leader.

Looking 100% spooky standing in a graveyard and sending her friends telepathic messages, Willow is the one to watch this season. That girl has gone crazy.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is Buffy

Need proof?

1. The freaky telepathic ability she's apparently grown over the summer combined with the fact that she has no qualms about jumping into her friends' minds at any time.

2. Oh look, there's Willow in flowing, pastel clothes, sitting in a picturesque field, looking every bit like a princess from a shampoo commercial. And look there, a cute little fawn's approaching her. Oh, that's so serene ... Wait a minute! What are you doing, Willow? Umm ... what's the knife for? Okay, she slaughtered a baby deer. So it was for a spell she needed to revive Buffy. Still, that was pretty harsh. No remorse, either.

3. It's time to revive Buffy! Yay! One problem, though: Willow's spell causes large gashes to appear on her arms, and an enormous snake to crawl out of her mouth. (And she wasn't surprised by either event). That does not look like a happy, good-magic-inspired spell to me.

But even Willow's wacky powers and snake spells aren't enough to protect Sunnydale from a demon biker gang that knows Buffy is deceased. Led straight to Willow by the Buffy-bot introduced last season that the gang has been using as a Buffy decoy, the demons interrupt the spell and cause the Scoobies to scatter and run.

Now for the creepiest part of the episode. There's a close-up of Buffy's decomposing body in her coffin, and then poof! The spell revives her. Alas, the newly alive Buffy finds herself buried alive. Not. Good.

The Buffy who finally claws her way out of her wooden box and up through the dirt, is a shaken and severely traumatized shadow of the former slayer who finds life above ground isn't much better then under.

Her town is ravaged by a the demon gang who also, in another rather disturbing scene, chain the Buffy-bot to several different motorcycles and tear her apart.

When the Scoobies cross paths with Buffy, she barely recognizes them and cowers in a dark alley. (Acting Note: Sarah's Buffy-bot acting was funny and silly, while her portrayal of the "cowering Buffy" had a Shatner sort of flair.)

Eventually, when she hears her friends getting beaten up by the demons, Buffy springs into slayer mode and flattens the villains rather quickly.

Now it's time for emotional moment number two, the first being the departure of Giles, Buffy's Watcher, which happened early on in the episode and featured some sniffling, some very "Buffy"-eque quips, and some pretty decent acting.

The second emotional moment comes when Buffy's sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), realizes Buffy's alive again. Buffy has returned to the scene of her death and looks ready to take the jump off the tower yet again. There's some crying and pleading for Buffy not to jump, especially when Buffy asks Dawn if Sunnydale is "hell". When the tower begins to creak and tumble, Buffy jumps into action again and saves Dawn and herself.

The episode ends with Dawn throwing her arms around her revived sister, but a close-up of Buffy's face shows a troubled, blank stare. Again, quite creepy.

Other emotional moments?

1. Dawn climbing into bed with the Buffy-bot (even though it was shut off and being recharged).

2. Dawn looking heartbroken when she finds the remains of the shattered Buffy-bot.

3. Spike doing his best to protect Dawn and trying to cover up his guilt over Buffy's death.

4. Willow losing it when she thinks her spell didn't work and that Buffy is gone forever.

So old Joss Whedon and his crew have already got more than enough sombre material to fill up this season. There's Willow's possible turn to the dark side, Buffy's emotional problems, and the absence of Giles, as well as Spike's continuing, unrequited love for the slayer. But that doesn't mean they've completely forgotten about the funny side.

Just for kicks, Joss threw in Anya's (Emma Caulfield) obsession with announcing her engagement to Xander (Nicholas Brendon), a hilarious sequence involving the Buffy-bot at Dawn's parent-teacher conference, and a healthy dose of Buffy-isms, such as "You've got your sombre on, Willow". Funny stuff.

The episode earned about 3 out of five stakes, losing points for excessive length and lame villains with bad make-up jobs. Although there were no crazy surprises, the writers have started to hint at so many potential problems and deliciously dark story-lines that the sheer anticipation for more episodes makes the premiere worth watching.

SPOILER ALERT! Read no further if you don't want to know anything about the new season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Still there?

Buffy comes back from the dead.

Ok, so maybe it wasn't that big of a spoiler.

"It is called Buffy The Vampire Slayer," producer Marti Noxon notes dryly from the show's Los Angeles production offices.

As fans know, the blond bombshell (Sarah Michelle Gellar) who battles demons and bloodsuckers in her spare time, died at the end of last season while saving her sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) -- and, oh yeah, all of existence -- from an evil god named Glory. (Really, it's no more ridiculous than The Practice.)

Tonight's sixth-season opener -- which debuts on UPN tonight at 6 p.m. -- finds Buffy still six feet under.

By the end of the episode, she's alive -- if not quite herself. "I think our fans will be happy with it," says Noxon, who wrote the episode. "From our end, we just want to earn it. We didn't want to bring her back and brush it off. There will be serious repercussions from it.

"It'll be believable -- you know, despite the metaphysical impossibility of it."

Buffy's other big change -- beyond the whole return from the dead thingee -- is the series' move in the U.S. from The WB network to rival UPN, which is doling out an eye-popping fee of $2M per episode for the show.

The change worried fans, since UPN, home of Star Trek and The WWF, has a predominantly male audience. Would Buffy be butched up to fit in?

"Basically, it's exactly the same. And the network has been very supportive. They obviously believed in the show, and they have pledged not to fix something that isn't broken."

In fact, Noxon says Buffy isn't the only one feeling re-energized these days. "We all feel revitalized."

The network switch does, though, mean that the off-again, on-again romance between Buffy and brooding vampire do-gooder Angel -- who has his own show on The WB -- is definitely off.

"I still get three to four letters a week, asking for Angel and Buffy to get back together. I had one fan burn their poster of Angel and Buffy and send me the ashes," Noxon says. "They're in a whole hooting bucket of denial. I tell them, they're not even on the same channel anymore; they must move on.

"Look at Spike. He's a nice vampire and he's even on the same network."

If that's a hint there's romance in the cards for Buffy and Spike (James Marsters), the acid-tongued vampire who has long nursed a crush on the slayer, Noxon says the two's love-hate rapport isn't changing soon. "There will still be that tension, with Spike mooning over her."

There's also plenty of time to get together -- both Gellar and Marsters are committed to the show for the duration of the show's contract with UPN, which runs through the end of next season. "We're all pretty happy here."

Despite that, the series does lose one of its original cast members this year. Anthony Stewart Head, who plays Buffy's mentor Giles, is headed home to London to be closer to his family, and to star in a proposed Giles spinoff, Watcher, for the BBC.

Of course none of this will surprise anyone who frequents spoiler-heavy Web sites, like Ain't It Cool News, which post Buffy plotlines months before the episodes air.

"Yeah, it bothers me. We all work so hard to surprise the audience and keep it a fresh experience. It's like people ruining a movie for you, but on a much grander scale.

"They've been better lately, but they have a leak and we've been trying to find it, but we haven't been able to."

Could that be the basis of a new reality-TV series. "Yeah," Noxon laughs, "the hunt for the Buffy mole."

Only one week until Buffy returns to Sunnydale, and more information about the two-hour premiere is coming to light.

According to E Online!'s TV gossip column Watch With Wanda, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" will open the new season with the deceased Buffy's best witchy friend Willow (Alyson Hannigan) taking charge of the Scoobies.

When the episode "Bargaining" begins, fans will find Willow "conjuring up spells right and left, speaking through telepathy and looking after Dawn".

In Dawn news, the character will no longer be a non-human, mystical "key". This season, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) is a real teenage girl who isn't the missing link to some mysterious dimension.

As far as Buffy herself is concerned, the blond slayer (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar) comes back to life through one of Willow's spells, as AllPop previously reported.

"She's not quite the Buffy who once was," warns Wanda.

As far as the romance between Buffy and her former vampire nemesis Spike, E Online's Wanda hints that the characters won't become a steady couple but will have a few more romantic scenes in upcoming episodes.

-- AllPop

The season premiere of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", which will include the rebirth of Buffy herself, is only two weeks away.

On Oct. 2 on UPN, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) will return to the land of the living after jumping to her death at the end of last season in an effort to save the world and her sister Dawn.

Die-hard fans who feared that "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon would torture them by withholding the Buffy-birth past the season premiere can be reassured by simply visiting upn.com, where they can view a short teaser of the season premiere.

"Without Buffy, Sunnydale is going to hell," intones the melodramatic voice-over. "Without Buffy, her friends are fighting a losing battle. Without Buffy, life just sucks. But Oct. 2, on UPN, Buffy lives."

Although UPN has not launched an official "Buffy" website yet, they have posted a small taste of future web adventures to come. In addition to the trailer for the new season, the network's official website also hosts a link to a "candles" page and a message that reads:

"At the end of last season Buffy died, or did she? Nine candles hide nine burning questions."

Clicking on the message leads you to a web page that features dozens of images of burning candles. There are nine hidden messages on the page that can be accessed by clicking on the correct candles. AllPop has saved you the trouble of searching for the right wax mediums. Here are the messages and the characters who leave them for the fans:

Xander: We live on a hellmouth and we're down one slayer. If my calculations are correct, we're in big-ass trouble.

Xander: The slayer is dead, everybody else? We're next.

Spike: Knew this girl once, not like me at all. They say the good die young, they weren't lying.

Spike: It hurts when I think about her, but soon I'm not going to be the only one, 'cause without her, all hell is going to break loose.

Dawn: My sister died saving the world, saving me. Who's going to save us now?

Dawn: All my life, one person has kept me safe in Sunnydale. She's gone. Now, it's up to me to stay alive.

Willow: Even in high school she warned me, she told me she'd die young. I never believed her, until now.

Anya: Death is stupid. You plummet off a tower, and that's it. It's shocking and I don't like it.

Anya: If she was here right now, I know she'd tell us how proud she is of us. She'd say "Yay, you guys, fighting evil without me," that's what she'd say. You know ... if her vocal chords aren't all decomposed and stuff.

Meanwhile, "Buffy" fans seem to be adjusting to life without The Bronze, the official "Buffy" posting board that was hosted by The WB network. Now that The WB has lost "Buffy" to UPN, they've pulled the plug on buffy.com. But, other "Buffy" related chat sites are popping up all over the internet. People longing to discuss all things "Buffy" can try The Bronze Beta website at: http://www.pbparty.com/Bronze/Bronze.shtml.

-- AllPop

Buffy's little sister could be getting a boyfriend this season.

Michelle Trachtenberg, who plays Dawn on "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", hinted that her character might get some romantic plot lines during the sixth season, scifi.com reports.

"Dawn will be doing regular teen-age things," she told the site. "I don't know that I'm allowed to say this, but Dawn might be getting some interests in the crush field."

Michelle wouldn't give away any other details, except that shooting on the show began last week.

Another "Buffy" star, Alyson Hannigan, told scifi.com that so far, this "Buffy" season has already proven to be a lot of hard work.

"We've only been working for a week and a half, and so far, it's been a bitch," she said. "I've had to do some stuff that I just really had trouble with."

The two-hour season premiere of "Buffy" will air on the UPN on Oct. 2, a week earlier than originally planned.

--AllPop

"Buffy" fanatics aren't content to wait until the supernatural show premieres on UPN this fall to find out how their beloved slayer makes her way back from the dead.

****WARNING: SPOILER**********

The Ain't It Cool News website is claiming it has all the details of the season premiere of "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer".

When the show ended last season, "Buffy" fans were left shell-shocked when their hero, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, was killed in the final moments of the show's season-ender.

After the episode aired, series creator Joss Whedon went online to assure fans that Buffy and Sarah would be returning to TV in the fall. Since then, desperate fans have been frantically posting plot possibilities to bring back Buffy to the land of the living.

Now, a poster on www.aintitcool.com who calls himself Hercules, says he's got all the answers.

According to Hercules, the Buffybot -- a robot made in Buffy's image -- takes over as her sister Dawn's guardian for a time as her friends try to hide the fact that Buffy has died.

"We need the world -- and the underworld -- to believe Buffy is alive and well," says Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) during the two-hour season premiere set to air on Oct. 9.

In the wake of Buffy's death, Giles decides to return home to England, since he has no slayer to "watch" over. Willow, whose magical powers are increasing, then becomes the leader of the scooby gang.

Meanwhile, Willow and her girlfriend Tara move into Buffy's home to look after Dawn.

At the start of the second hour of the two-hour episode, Buffy comes back to life thanks to a little help from Willow and Anya.

Willow performs a spell that revives Buffy, who then has to claw her way out of her grave because Willow becomes distracted by a demon biker gang.

"A vampire injures Buffybot and discovers she's full of wires and computer chips," writes Hercules. "The vamp escapes and lets a bunch of demon bikers know that Sunnydale is now slayer-free. The bikers head into town to plunder."

The episode's chilly twist reportedly comes in when Buffy makes her way back to the tower where she originally died.

"It's strongly implied that Buffy was happier in the afterlife and intends to kill herself to get back," says Hercules.

In more "Buffy" news, the popular message board that used to feature hundreds of fans exchanging thoughts about the TV show is no more.

Now that "Buffy" has moved from The WB to UPN, The WB network has shut down buffy.com.

"Thanks for being part of one of the web's most extraordinary communities. We're pleased to have made it possible, and look forward to seeing you again soon," reads a message on what was once a busy, interactive website.

The UPN has not set up a new "Buffy" site yet.

--AllPop