I've got friends like that too. And I mean, when you compare it to the other seasons, yes, Season 1 does seem to pale a little in comparison. But the basics of what the show runs on are still there. You've got the Core Four (Buffy, Giles, Xander, and Willow), you've got the demons, you've got the struggle to deal with real life issues on top of the Demon hunting/slaying, and you've got a setting that works really well
Everything that came later had to start somewhere