Michelle Trachtenberg Made The Best Supernatural Show Even Better
The child star breathed new life into a beloved television series and sparked a fan debate.
The world of great fantasy has lost a legend. Variety has reported that actress Michelle Trachtenberg has passed away at the age of 39. A former child star, she starred in projects like Harriet the Spy, Ice Princess, and Gossip Girl. But among genre TV fans, she’s known as Dawn Summers, the little sister of Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And it’s in that role that she helped shaped the best supernatural show of all time.
Here’s why her contribution was so amazing and why her performance in Buffy changed everything.
Dawn breathed new life into Buffy the Vampire Slayer — and introduced a new mystery.
When TV shows reach, say, Season 5 or so, the biggest problem is often not waning fan interest or executive pressure but time itself. If you’re making a series set in a high school, you can logically only get four years’ worth of story out of that before the characters have to graduate. If you’re making a show focused on children, you have to cope with the actors growing up and changing, especially with the extended production timelines we see today — looking at you, Stranger Things.
There are a number of ways to get around this. You could try to write around it, stretching the in-universe time. You could attempt a soft reboot and revitalize the narrative. You could even cut your losses and end your show on a high note. But 25 years ago, Buffy the Vampire Slayer tried something else entirely — and it ended up being the show’s best decision.
Even though she’s a core member of the Summers family, Dawn was actually a late addition to the series. By Season 5, Buffy’s signature monster-of-the-week formula was wearing thin: the characters had graduated high school and fully started adulthood. So showrunner Joss Whedon had a wild idea: introduce a sister for Buffy and insist that she had been there the entire time.
Dawn lent the series some well-needed teenage energy and gave Buffy someone to take care of now she had moved out of her mother’s home. In the role, Michelle Trachtenberg’s delicate and precocious performance paired well with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sheer power as Buffy, something that’s especially on display in the hallmark episode “The Body,” as the Summers sisters deal with the tragic loss of their mother.
Dawn transformed into a crucial part of Buffy’s life thanks to Trachtenberg’s performance.
But Dawn had a greater purpose: the gaslighting of the audience into thinking Dawn has always existed wasn’t just Whedon’s attempt to brute-force a youth angle. In fact, Dawn’s existence was a key plot point. She herself as a character served as the central mystery for Season 5. Her character may have faced derision from fans, but by the Season 5 finale, it’s hard not to feel for her.
In that episode, Buffy is about to sacrifice herself to save the world but has a final moment with her little sister. “Dawn, listen to me, listen. I love you. I will always love you, this is the work I have to do,” she says. “You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world, is to live in it.”
Dawn may have started as a rug pull for fans to get upset at, but in that moment, she was just a scared little sister losing all that was left of her family. It’s thanks to Michelle Trachtenberg’s masterful performance that such a risk actually paid off.
