Hey - long time lurker.
I’ve just gone through the local copies I have of Buffy - I was interested in Buffy back in the day, so I acquired various scene releases of the US broadcasts (#buffy-unlimited on EFNet), some of these were C-band satellite feed captures of the masters as they were fed to TV stations. I got busy with other stuff during the later seasons, and I made the mistake of lending my only copy of some of the material to someone who was more than a little flake-y. Lesson learned, but as a result: there are some pretty big holes.
I’ve compiled the following spreadsheet of openings over the past few days (csv format): https://pastebin.com/sKi7TGbt
Regarding the data in the sheet: Where I’m less than 100% sure I’ve put a “?” in the “Intro” column. The material I’ve checked to draw the conclusion is in the “Notes” column. I use the term “Cold open” to describe no opening - it’s not technically the right term - but you get the idea. “US Master” refers to a scene release that ripped the C-band TV station upload and includes master header, these would be the same as the station subsequently aired, so the relationship between the master and the broadcast should be 100%.
Key things:
- The PAL DVDs are not necessarily 100% reliable at determining how an episode opened. For example: S01E06 “The Pack” has a cold open on the DVDs - but I have a copy of the original US broadcast which has the boiler plate “In every generation…” at the start.
- Double episodes that were broadcast on a single night may be tricky: i.e. S06E01-S06E02 and S06E21-S06E22 skip the “previously on…” on the second episode - but streaming includes it. S01E01-S01E02 were broadcast on a single night, and I’m not clear if they had a “In every generation” intro on S01E02, but the US DVD includes it.
- “Last week on…” vs “Previously on…” on S02E10 Streaming says one thing - but the original UK broadcast says something different
- S06E01 “US master” also has a different ‘previously on…’ to streaming - with an entire series recap similar to the one on S05E22
- S01E01 had some WB specific intro bits that might be worth preserving - copy available here (is it canon?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvDbvHsqiOc
- I haven’t gone frame-by-frame comparing the “previously on…” between Streaming, broadcast and DVD, so it’s possible there are further differences, but I’ve called out where they are obvious to me.
- Later seasons seemed to have a “previously on…” for every episode - the last episode with no recap (excluding part two of double episodes) was S05E16, 50 episodes before the end of the series.
The WB specific bumper “Tonight’s WB presentation is intended for our adult and teen viewers, and is not recommended for younger viewers.” is kinda fun and it would throw it into the ring consideration for inclusion.
Would welcome feedback - it’s very possible I’m wrong in places. I may make some edits over the next few days - I’m trying to review the PAL DVDs, but it’s slow going.
The original OP is no longer working on this project, so I’ve taken over. That’s awesome to hear that you’ve put alot of research into it and if you’d like to help out, I’d love to get a PM from you!