Starting positions: Sleeper picks up where Conversations With Dead People finished, on the same night - or same morning if that's what 4.30am is to you. Xander, missing from the last episode, was apparently sound asleep before Buffy knocked. Spike is calmly burying the woman he's just bitten and killed. Just a thought though - didn't Dawn's scar mend itself quickly?

Floral Robson; The Watcher called Robson (he's named by Giles who hears his last words) is played by Rob Nagle. He can also be seen as the Floral Assistant in American Wedding, the third American Pie film, starring Alyson Hannigan. Perhaps he was hired to do the flowers for Hannigan's wedding to Alexis Denisof too?

On the robe again: Istanbul, Frankfurt, London... this is the third time we've seen robed assassins at work this season. Maybe they're on a murder mystery coach tour through Europe.

A couple of carpet fibres away : Xander says they should work out Spike's actions "in a cold, impersonal, CSI-like manner". This refers to the massive hit series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, shown by CBS in America and Five TV in the UK. During Buffy's seventh season, CSI was the top-rated drama in the USA; a spin-off, CSI: Miami, also went on air alongside the main series' third season (one season faster than Buffy begat Angel). Cynthia Bergstrom, Buffy's longtime costume designer, was hired to work on CSI: Miami, rather than handling the wardrobe for the final season in Sunnydale.

Entropy increases: Anya, caught looking for incriminating evidence in Spike's bedroom, tries to seduce him by referring back to their tryst in Entropy.

First night of the Proms: Sunnydale's unusually bustling with people out promenading after dark. One theory is that the citizens are late-shopping for Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday of November, preceding one of the USA's most pivotal holiday weekends). But it must be 13th November, the evening after Conversations took place - a full two weeks before Thanksgiving 2002. Still, you can't have Buffy losing Spike in the crowd if you don't conjure up a crowd scene. These sequences were filmed at the boardwalk near Venice Beach, close to Mutant Enemy's usual sound stages.

I'm the Mann: Aimee Mann performs two songs from her 2002 Lost in Space album - This is How it Goes, and Pavlov's Bell. The latter song should seem a lot more relevant after the next episode (and was she booked because of this?). Aimee Mann's career, sustained by a cult following during the 1990s, was boosted hugely in 1999 when director P.T. Anderson - cited by Joss Whedon as one of his favourite film-makers - used her songs throughout his epic movie Magnolia. One song, Save Me, made her an Oscar nominee - a unique status among performers at the Bronze.

Billy Idol wannabe: When Buffy describes Spike to the bouncer, that's his response. Buffy half-explains "Actually, Billy Idol stole his look from � never mind..." In Fool for Love, Spike's 1977 look (when he fights the black Slayer on New York's subway) is very much like that of Idol, the Generation X frontman of that era whose early '80s solo hits included Hot in the City and White Wedding. The implication? That far from Spike borrowing his look from the punk, it was the other way round. Oh - Idol's real name is William Broad. He's not to be confused with William the Broady.