Merrick is Buffy's first Watcher who appears in the Buffy movie, played by Donald Sutherland. He arrives in Los Angeles to inform Buffy Summers of her destiny, and train her in using her Slayer abilities. In the movie, he is a pseudo-immortal: born to train Slayers, ultimately dying, and reborn again with the memories of his previous life. He is initially tough and stern with his charge, but eventually comes to respect her methods. In the film, Merrick is murdered by the vampire Lothos, and dies telling Buffy to do things her own way rather than live by others' rules. Although the film is not canonical in the fictional universe of the series, Merrick does appear briefly in a flashback to Buffy's calling in the Season Two finale "Becoming, Part One", and is played by Richard Riehle.
Merrick also appears in the Dark Horse Comics limited series The Origin, an adaptation of the original script for the movie. In this version of the story, Merrick (based on Riehle rather than Sutherland) is a normal man and member of the Watcher's Council and not the pseudo-immortal from the film. He is also not killed directly by Lothos, but instead shoots himself rather than be turned into a vampire and risk harming his Slayer.