YouTube now has the four-minute pilot footage, and it's pretty awesome. We see Buffy killing a vampire and jumping onto fire escapes, then a lot of clever banter between her, Willow, Xander and Giles -- all of them voiced by the original actors except for Buffy, who is voiced by SMG sound-alike Giselle Loren. (She also did the Buffy video games. However, I have no idea who does the vampire's voice, so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be funny when he says, "There are things in the dark. Dark things.") The trial footage ends on a cliffhanger, with Buffy punching a dragon miles above Sunnydale -- something the live-action show could never, ever have afforded, and yet another reason to read the Season 8 comic books from Dark Horse, where Willow flies a lot and Dawn is a giant.

If you're really sad that there's no animated Buffy series, at least take pleasure in the fact that they're still making awesome animated-style statues of Buffy and company, although they're based on the awesome designs of ex-Disney artist Tracy Mark Lee and not the nixed cartoon. It certainly helps me hold out hope that one day, somehow, animated Buffy will return, especially now that I have a daughter on the way. Oh well, I guess she'll have to wait until she's old enough to watch the live-action series. So when she's -- what, six?