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Trivia
Andrew. Isn't he sweet?
Our shrine to the fluffiest geek ever. This week:
It's like Wonder Woman; Andrew and Xander can't help having a moment of geeky bonding over issues 297 to 299 of the strong-like-an-Amazon superhero comic. These three issues were published between November 1982 and January 1983, scripted by Dan Mishkin. Catacombs is the title of issue 298's story, where Wonder Woman's lover Steve Prince descends into subterranean passages on a Greek island, and thinks he's found her skeleton.
The ultimate evil: Andrew references Lex Luthor from the Superman mythos and Voldemort from Harry Potter as good names for evil on a grand scale, such as the First claims to be. Later, he compares himself to three evil geniuses from Marvel and DC's huge comics range: Dr Doom (a perennial foe of the Fantastic Four), Apocalypse (a mutant who possesses superhuman strength) and The Riddler (Batman's king of conundrums).
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Like the Mummy Hand: Xander's comparison of his endless window replacement duties to the disembodied hand of the mummy refers to the time loop in Life Serial. The Mummy hand also appears in Buffy's season six and seven title sequences.
Sacrifice or music video?: Dawn sees the blood-stained wheel and suggests the First was doing one or the other. The video in mind is probably Duran Duran's extravagant 1984 clip Wild Boys, directed by Russ Mulcahy. This featured people tied to wheel-like devices and being dunked in water. It's before Dawn's time, but we bet she's seen it on VH-1. Also made in 1984: Mulcahy's film about a vicious Outback pig, called Razorback - as in Sunnydale High's sports teams.
Red Bull and Jackass: Amongst the things "Kids of today like", Dawn suggests when a time-capsule is discussed. Popular energy drink Red Bull featured in Buffy's ad breaks often during 2002-03. Jackass is the extreme 'Don't try this at home' stunt series - a huge hit on MTV in 2001, and a number one movie at the US box-office in October 2002.
First contact. When Willow's locator spell backfires, a demonic apparition erupts from her, similar to the First's brief undisguised appearance in Amends. Giles confirms Buffy's theory that the various ghosts seen recently have been all the same thing. "It can't touch or fight on its own. It only works through those it manipulates." If true, the manifestation that Buffy sees of Joyce must be a dream, not the First: her mother handles a book.
Potentialwatch: Giles's arrival is with three surviving "potential Slayers: There's a handful (left), all on their way to Sunnydale", he explains. The girls killed in Istanbul, Frankfurt and London never made it - but from here on, the recurring cast becomes quite unlike that of any earlier season. This week's arrivals are:
- Molly - the atrocious Cockney one. Played by Clara Bryant, alias Billy Connolly's daughter in his 1992 sitcom, aged seven.
- Annabelle - the posh horsey one. Killed within the episode.
- Kennedy - the feisty one unimpressed by Buffy. Is she flirting with Willow already? Played by Mexican-born Iyari Limon, formerly of MTV's Undressed.
The idea of 'Slayers in training' being killed off in a sustained campaign featured in Christopher Golden's Spike and Dru novel, Pretty Maids All in a Row.
Manifest evil: Buffy's web search for evil, which she claims is just research about scary movies to Principal Wood, turns up 900,517 results. We did this and got 9,630,000 results. Does this mean there is over ten times more evil in the world than when this episode was made? How alarming.
Oh, I'm a Neanderthal man: Are the Turok-Han based on any known mythology? Giles's explanation: "As Neanderthals are to human beings, the Turok-Han are to vampires. Primordial, ferociously powerful killing machines... An ancient and entirely different race..." But the Neanderthals are usually held to have been wiped out by the ancestors of modern humanity, the Cro-Magnons. So Giles' analogy is seriously flawed.
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Willow