Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Check out our favorite moments from the network that brought us "Buffy", "Everwood", "Felicity", and more

1 - Buffy Kills Angel

Buffy was The WB’s first double hitter - a breakout and a cult hit, teen-centric and adult-oriented. Crucial Buffy-mythos events occurred in this 1998 episode, ’’Becoming, Part 2,’’ as Sarah Michelle Gellar’s vamp killer was compelled to slay her great love, Angel, to save the world. At that point, Angel (David Boreanaz) was switching in and out of his evil alter ego, Angelus, representing death and destruction as much as he did allure and romance. At the operatic climax, Buffy and Angel kissed, and then she stabbed him in the chest. Also in this Joss Whedon-written masterwork: Buffy’s mother first discovered her daughter is a slayer, and Xander told a pre-gay Willow that he loves her. This season ender concluded with Buffy leaving Sunnydale on a bus. You know you’re in bad shape when you’re a supernatural hero using the most depressing form of cross-continental transportation.

2 - Felicity Gets a Haircut

Nothing could prepare fans of the collegiate drama for its season 2 shocker: Felicity (Keri Russell) - the coed with the luxuriant, curly tresses - was shorn within mere inches of a cue ball. Suddenly, the question that had seemed so important - Ben or Noel? - took a backseat to What on earth can we do to get her hair back? Ratings for the 1999-2000 season took a hit - though time-slot changes likely had more to do with them than Russell’s new ’do. But the negative reaction was so strong, The WB’s then entertainment president Susanne Daniels (half) jokingly told reporters: ’’Nobody is cutting their hair again on our network.’’

3 - Dawson Hearts Katie

On Jan. 20, 1998, Katie Couric became an unlikely object of desire when Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek) admitted his crush in the pilot episode of Dawson’s Creek. That declaration from his second-floor bedroom - prompted when his pal Joey (Katie Holmes) asked who starred in his onanistic daydreams - foreshadowed the blunt discussions about sex and pop culture that fueled Creek over its six-season run.

4 - Shannen Doherty Quits Charmed

Doherty’s telekinetic Prue bit the dust in the 2001 season finale. But the better action was occurring off screen in The WB’s juiciest scandal to date. Rumors brewed that Doherty was booted because she and costar Alyssa Milano didn’t have a very sisterly bond. Just as he had with Charlie’s Angels 24 years earlier, producer Aaron Spelling quickly found another PYT for the show: Rose McGowan joined the following fall as long-lost sis Paige. The new troika cast a spell on viewers for five more seasons, and McGowan proved that Tiffani Thiessen isn’t the only actress who can fill Doherty’s shoes.

5 - Chad Michael Murray Is a Star, Dammit!

Like the movie studios of the ’40s, The WB had its own celeb-making system: casting cute boys in project after project until one stuck. Murray is The WB’s most successful farm teamer - he harassed Rory on Gilmore Girls and toyed with Joey on Dawson’s Creek before landing at One Tree Hill. Other cute crops: Milo Ventimiglia (from Gilmore to a lead on The Bedford Diaries), and Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, who appeared on Smallville and Gilmore, respectively, before teaming up to fight ghosts.

Ken Tucker Jessica Shaw Lynette Rice Jeff Jensen Nicholas Fonseca

6 ’Roswell’ Fans Are Saucy When Roswell fans sent The WB thousands of bottles of Tabasco sauce-the preferred condiment of the drama’s alien teenagers-to voice their support for the fledgling sci-fi series, they proved how fiercely loyal the network’s teen viewers could be. A second Roswell rally resulted in the show being picked up by UPN in 2001, and other SOS (’’save our show’’) movements have had similar success. After frantic Veronica Mars fans flew a banner over L.A., The CW picked up the drama.

7 Jamie Foxx’s Sitcom Long before Foxx channeled Ray Charles or joined ’Miami Vice,’ he headlined his own series on The WB: ’The Jamie Foxx Show,’ which premiered in 1996 and ran for five seasons. After previous stints on Fox’s ’In Living Color’ and ’Roc,’ the comedian charmed viewers as a struggling actor working in his aunt and uncle’s hotel. The show was The WB’s highest-rated comedy in the ’96-97 season. Unfortunately, Foxx also gave us ’Booty Call’ in 1997-but we think enough time has passed to forgive him.

8 Two Words: ’’Dubba, Dubba’’ The WB didn’t start out as TV’s premier location for gorgeous teen cheekbones-first it had to go through a gawky phase as the home of ’’quirky’’ comedies (Kirk Cameron as a ladies’ man!) and ’’urban’’ sitcoms (The Parent ’Hood) . In keeping with that fun-lovin’ image, The WB launched in ’95 with a truly ill-conceived slogan: ’’Dubba-dubba-dubba-WB.’’ Worse yet, receptionists at the network’s Burbank office had to answer the phone using the silly moniker. The indignity was short-lived: ’’Dubba’’ was retired in 1997.

9 ’Gilmore Girls’ Watch ’Pippi’ In a show treasured for obscure literary and pop-culture references, the 2004 episode dubbed ’’We Got Us a Pippi Virgin!’’ was an especially esoteric achievement: Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) exposed their boyfriends to the camp pleasures of the badly dubbed 1969 Swedish Pippi Longstocking movie. ’’Virgin’’ also included a typically meta Gilmore aside, as Lorelai’s highfalutin dad, Richard, confessed to watching TV and being appalled by ’’the horrors to be discovered there!’’

10 Michigan J. Frog Is Laid to Rest In July 2005, the jaunty frog was sent to that big lily pad in the sky after 10 years, amid concerns he skewed too young. (The WB hoped to woo older fans with stars like Don Johnson.) Six months later, the network croaked.

11 ’Smallville’ Institutes a No-Fly Zone When you tell a Superman story, you’re supposed to look up in the sky and see him fly. But Smallville’s savvy revision of the Man of Steel’s adolescence kept the budding hero firmly grounded. ’’No flights, no tights’’ was its mantra; emotionally resonant drama was its mission. Not that the show skimped on spectacle: In the 2001 pilot’s opening sequence, a radioactive meteor shower gave the series enough freak-of-the-week complications to keep Clark Kent (Tom Welling) busy for years. By sprucing up the soap with mythic grandeur, The WB scored a durable hit, and bequeaths to The CW a steely cornerstone.