Does Buffy deserve the praise it gets? I honestly don't know.

This show is another victim of time. In its time there was nothing quite like it. Sort of a proto-feminist show with both elements of high school drama and well written female characters (who honestly are 90% of the time the front line fighters, with the men acting as support). To this day it still manages to feel more "subtle" in its femininity.

However, all of the things that are ground breaking have been used to death. Buffy herself is an excellent character, and I would argue one of the greats. She feels like a real person, with real aspirations and real dreams constantly thwarted by her own destiny. But in the modern age how often do you see that? Walter White is someone we understand at that level, Jessie Pinkman, and heck even Jimmy McGill are all characters at least as well written as Buffy, and that's just one show.

Looking for a supernatural high school drama often about the end of the world? Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Stranger Things, and the entire arrowverse hear your call (to different degrees of success). Heck take out a dart board and you'll hit some Monster of the Week type show.

I do think Buffy is at least the middle of the pack as far as it goes, but there have been so many imitators, both more and less successful that it feels tropey, cheesy and sometimes a bit overdone. I think it was still a triumph of television of the time, but the whole Joss Whedon bit really doesn't help...