The presumed death of Buffy sent fans into a panic; immediately after the episode aired, message boards on "Buffy" chat sites started filling up with expressions of pain and anger. A rumor that the show's move from the WB to UPN next season was all a hoax and that the series was, in fact, over spread through the Internet (fueled, no doubt, by the WB's tacky insistence on calling the episode the series finale, rather than the season finale). The "Buffy" hoax theorists would have us believe that the long, bitter negotiations between 20th Century Fox (which produces "Buffy") and the WB was an elaborate set-up chummily played out by the highest-level executives at the WB, Fox and UPN, all to protect the series' surprise ending. To which I say, people, you've been watching too much damn television.

Wednesday morning, series creator Joss Whedon (who wrote and directed the finale) posted to the official WB "Buffy" board dispelling the hoax rumor. "'Buffy' will be back next season starring Sarah Michelle Gellar ... Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on UPN," Whedon wrote. "How will we bring her back? With great difficulty, of course. And pain and confusion. Will it be cheezy [sic]? I don't think so." Thursday, he further laid to rest the hoax rumor, and revealed some plans for next season, in an interview with TV Guide Online. Did you know that Giles is getting a BBC spinoff?

So how is Whedon going to bring Buffy back? "Buffy" fans have their theories. The most popular one (and the only one that Whedon dismisses outright in the TV Guide intervew, for what it's worth) is that Buffy plunged into a yawning, pulsing portal thingie when she jumped and is floating around in some other dimension or alternate universe. What if Buffy surfaces, alive, in another world -- a demon world? In this scenario, might some demon striving for redemption (that's you, Spike) sacrifice himself to bring Buffy back?

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Another theory is that Dawn gets the chance to honor Buffy's final words. ("The hardest thing about this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live in it -- for me.") Glory existed on earth by sharing a human body with a mortal named Ben, so maybe Buffy would come back sharing Dawn's body. And if Buffy is made of the same flesh and blood as Dawn, wouldn't it follow that Dawn is part Buffy, and therefore, the new substitute Slayer?

There's also the possibility that Buffy's former lover, vampire-with-a-soul Angel, might work some mojo, although that storyline might be tricky, now that "Buffy" will be on UPN and "Angel" will still be on the WB. After all the bad blood between the WB and the "Buffy" producers, we probably won't be seeing any more of those swell "Buffy"/"Angel" crossovers.

There's always Willow, who has gotten to be a pretty powerful witch lately -- did you catch her telepathically communicating with Spike during the climactic battle in the finale? She might work some hocus-pocus to bring Buffy back. And let's not forget about Riley, Buffy's genetically engineered commando ex-boyfriend, who departed halfway through the season and who everybody seems to have forgotten about. Say, didn't he have knowledge of a secret government re-animation program?

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