Line cut from Becoming

Whistler had a great line in the script of Becoming (Part 1) which never made it to the show: “There are three kinds of people that no one understands: geniuses, madmen and guys that mumble.”

Max not David

When Becoming (Part 1) was repeated on September 15, 1998, it was presented with a different first scene. There were several differences, but the most notable was that Max Perlich (Whistler) provides the voice-over for that scene, rather than David Boreanaz.

Ginger Williams

Ginger Williams, who played “Girl” in Becoming (Part 1), appeared in Cruel Intentions with Sarah Michelle Gellar. She has also been in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Felicity.

Jack McGee

Jack McGee, who played Doug Perren (the curator at the museum in Becoming (Part 1)), has also appeared in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, Malevolent, Man Who Wasn’t There, The, Coyote Ugly, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, The Out-of-Towners, Showgirls, Basic Instinct, Backdraft, The Doors, Born on the Fourth of July, Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 3, Scrooged, Malcolm in the Middle, Carnivale, Charmed, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NYPD Blue, The Huntress, Spin City, The X Files, Chicago Hope, ER, Seinfeld and Diagnosis Murder.

Max Perlich

Max played the badly dressed Whistler in Becoming. Max was Johnny Hardin in Maverick, and played James Brodie in Homicide: Life on the Streets. Max was in the movie House on Haunted Hill with James Marsters. The character of Whistler was originally intended to be in the spin-off show Angel (Joss Whedon said at the Posting Board “About Angel, Charisma WILL be joining the cast, that’s officially going into the works. The other regular will be Whistler or a Whistler-type character — that has yet to be cast.”) Max wasn’t able to commit to the series so the character of Doyle was created. Whistler was Angel’s first connection with the Powers That Be.

Richard Riehle

Richard Riehle, who played Buffy’s first watcher in Becoming (Part 1), has had a long career. He was in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Casino and The Fugitive. He has been TV shows such as in ER, The West Wing, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Star Trek: Voyager, Diagnosis Murder, Home Improvement, Columbo, Chicago Hope, Murder, She Wrote, Ally McBeal, L.A. Law, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roseanne, The Golden Girls and Quantum Leap.

Zitto Kazann

Zitto Kazann, who played the Gypsy man who told Angel about his curse in Becoming (Part 1), played the same part in the Angel episode ‘Darla’. He was in Waterworld, a movie which was script-doctored by Joss Whedon.

Doug Perron

Doug Perron was the curator of Sunnydale Museum who asked Giles for help in researching Acathla’s tomb, but was killed by Drusilla when the vampires stole Acathla in Becoming (Part 1).

Merrick

Buffy’s first watcher, shown in a flashback in Becoming (Part 1), was played by Richard Riehle. His name isn’t mentioned, but the Season Two Script Book clarifies that his name is Merrick. In the Buffy movie, Buffy’s first watcher was called Merrick, played (hammily) by Donald Sutherland.

Whistler

Whistler was a half demon, who worked for the Powers That Be by redressing the balance between good and evil. He went to Angel in Manhattan in 1996, where the vampire was living rough and feeding from rats. He offered Angel a choice - to continue living in such a manner or to become someone important, and somehow repay for his sins as a vampire (Becoming (Part 1)). Whistler took Angel to L.A. to secretly see Buffy being chosen as a vampire slayer. Angel said he wanted to help Buffy, and agreed to let Whistler help him. Whistler turned up in Sunnydale to try and help sort out the problem with Angelus and Acathla, by advising Buffy that the sword she had wasn’t enough (Becoming (Part 2)).

Age of Angel

Angel revealed to Buffy that he was 241 years old in Some Assembly Required. He also said this in Reptile Boy. This means he would have been born in 1755 or 1756. In Halloween, Willow states that Angel was eighteen in 1775. But in Becoming (Part 1) we see that he was made into a vampire in 1753, even though by previous reckonings he wouldn’t have been born yet. It’s all very confusing, but Joss Whedon has admitted that he’s terrible at maths, so I’ll leave it at that.

Angel’s restoration

In the episode Angel, it appeared to be established that the restoration of Angel’s soul took place sixty years ago, or sometime in the 1920s. However, in Becoming (Part 1) it’s revealed to have taken place in 1898.

Buffy’s Claddagh ring

A few people have written to me saying they thought the Claddagh ring was gold in Becoming (Part 1), not silver as it was in Surprise. I’ve checked it out, and I think it’s just the way the light falls on the ring, rather than the fact that the ring is a different colour.

Close your eyes

Angel should really learn not to trust women when they tell him to close his eyes. When he first met Darla (in the episode Angel), she told him to close his eyes and she then sired him as a vampire. In Becoming (Part 2), Buffy told him the same thing and then stabbed him, sending him to hell.

Give me a reason

In Becoming (Part 1), Principal Snyder chaleenges Buffy to give him a reason to kick her out of school - he expels her in the very next episode.

Jenny’s disk

Jenny’s computer disk containing the spell to restore Angel’s soul falls between two desks at the end of the episode Passion. This proves crucial in Becoming (Part 1), when Buffy and Willow find it and realise they can cure Angel.

Knocked out

In Buffy vs Dracula, Giles falls into Dracula’s basement, where he is surrounded by the sisters. After he falls he says, “Good show, Giles. At least you didn’t get knocked out for a change.” In A New Man, Giles says he has a “tendency to get knocked on the head”. He’s not kidding. Giles has been knocked unconscious in the episodes:

• The Witch (by vampires who want to raise the Master again)
• Never Kill a Boy on the First Date (by Andrew Vorba in the crematorium)
• Prophecy Girl (by Buffy, to stop him from trying to help her)
• When She Was Bad (by the vampires attempting to raise the Master)
• Passion (by Angelus, after Giles attacks him for killing Jenny)
• Becoming (Part 1) (by a group of vampires who take him to Angelus)
• Beauty and the Beasts (shot with a tranquilizer gun)
• Homecoming (by Lyle Gorch and Candy).
• Revelations (by Gwendolyn Post, in his office)
• Gingerbread (by the MOO mob as they come to take Buffy away. When Cordy wakes him up shes says, “I came over here to tell Buffy to stop this craziness and found you all unconscious… again. How many times have you been knocked out, anyway? I swear, one of these times, you’re going to wake up in a coma.”)
• Earshot (he doesn’t get knocked out in this episode - but he does walk into a tree in a very amusing manner)
• Flooded (by the Mfashnik demon as it breaks ino Buffy’s house. Giles later says, “Well, I know I’m back in America now. I’ve been knocked unconscious”).

Lipstick larceny

In Becoming (Part 1), Buffy is seen in a flashback saying to her new Watcher, “I meant to pay for that lipstick.” In All the Way, Dawn says to the vampire Justin, “I haven’t paid for lipstick since forever.”

Missed the heart

In Becoming (Part 1), we see Buffy kill her first vampire in a flashback to when she was in L.A. Buffy misses the heart on her first try. She tells this story to Dawn in Lessons.

Mr. Pointy

In Becoming (Part 1), Kendra gave Buffy Mr. Pointy, her favourite stake. Mr Pointy was mentioned in several other episodes: In Helpless, Buffy said, “Or what if I just become pathetic? Hanging out at the old Slayer’s home, talking people’s ears off about my glory days, showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed.” Buffy used Mr. Pointy to interrogate the vampire in the limo in Choices. In The Freshman, Buffy mentioned that Mr. Pointy was her “security blanket”.

Same old trick

Buffy fights Angel in the cemetery in Becoming (Part 1), then realises that she was distracted away from the library so that Drusilla could hurt her friends. In When She Was Bad, the Master’s lackeys used the same trick on Buffy to capture Willow for the resurrection ritual. Angelus says to her when she runs to the library, “And you fall for it every time!”

Something to fall back on

Willow taught Jenny’s computer science after she died in Passion and continued to do so in I Only Have Eyes For You, Go Fish and Becoming (Part 1).

Sunnydale Press

Sunnydale’s local newspaper was called the Sunnydale Press. It can be seen in the episodes Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, Reptile Boy, Becoming (Part 1), Bad Girls, Consequences, Graduation Day (Part 1), Hush and Once More, With Feeling.

The museum

Buffy’s class go on a school trip to the museum in Inca Mummy Girl. The scenes were shot at the Natural History Museum, at 900 Exposition Boulevard (very apt) near the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Sunnydale Museum is also seen in Becoming (Part 1) (where Acathla was examined), Doomed (where the gang studied the Word of ) and Smashed (when the nerds stole the Illuminata diamond).

Acathla

Acathla was a demon entombed in rock with a sword sticking out of his chest. Buried deep underneath Sunnydale and unearthed by some construction workers before being stolen by Angelus. He removed the sword from Acathla’s chest which created a vortex which began to suck the world into a hell dimension (Becoming (Part 2)).

Al Franken

Al Franken is an actor and ’self-helpist’ on Saturday Night Live, whose name on the show was Stuart Smally. In Becoming (Part 1), Buffy mistakenly called Acathla ‘Al Franken’.

Alfalfa

Alfalfa was the name of a cheeky child character in a long-running series of movies, called The Little Rascals. In Becoming (Part 1), Buffy mispronounced the demon Acathla as ‘Alfalfa’.

Back to the Future

Andrew says “Think McFly” in Conversations with Dead People. He’s referring to the movie trilogy Back to the Future, made in the 1980s in which McFly is the last name of the main character, Marty (Michael J. Fox). More specifically, he’s using the phrase Biff (the thug/bully) used to use to intimidate Marty’s father, the hapless George McFly (played, memorably, by Crispin Glover in the first movie).
The building used as Buffy’s old school Hemery High (in Becoming (Part 1)) was the clocktower from the Back to the Future trilogy.
The demon who pretends to be Future Xander visiting his younger self in Hell’s Bells is reminiscent of Back to the Future II in which Biff time-travels back to visit himself when he was young to tip him about betting.

Nazis

Nazis have been referenced a few times in Buffy:

• In The Witch, Buffy says Amy’s mother is, “Nazi-like”.
• In I Robot, You Jane, a student’s essay has been changed by Moloch the Corrupter, “This isn’t my report! Nazi Germany was a model of a well ordered society’? I didn’t write that! Who’s been in my files?”
• In Nightmares, Xander says, “I’m sorry, I’m unruffled by spiders. Now, if a bunch of Nazis crawled all over my face…”
• In Becoming (Part 1), Cordelia says of Principal Snyder, “How about because you’re a tiny impotent Nazi with a bug up his butt the size of an emu?”
• In Gingerbread, Xander says, “Aw, man it’s Nazi Germany and I’ve got Playboys in my locker!”
• In The Freshman, Buffy mentions the Nuremberg rallies, where the Nazi’s held their anti-Semitic rallies from the early 1920s to 1938.
• In the episode The Initiative, Spike is in his containment cell talking to another vampire about who could have captured him, Spike says, “And they are? The government? Nazis? A major cosmetics company?” In the Angel episode ‘Why We Fight‘, we see in a flashback that Spike was captured by Nazis in 1943, who were experimenting on vampires as a means of controlling them for their war effort.

Seen at 02.29 minutes:

After Darla bites Angel, she runs a nail across her chest, creating a bleeding cut so he can drink from it and become a vampire. If you look closely, she actually just runs her finger across her chest, not her nail.

Seen at 14.10 minutes:

When Buffy first drops her pencil down by the side of the desk, the eraser is facing the camera, but when she picks it up it’s the other way around.

Seen at 29.14 minutes:

Why is it that from New York to California, Angel didn’t get pulled over for driving a car with it’s windows blacked out?

Seen at 34.15 minutes:

The vampire that comes to the school tells Buffy to meet Angel at the cemetery, but we find out next season that Sunnydale has 12 cemeteries - so which one?

Seen at 37.28 minutes:

As the Scoobies are attacked by the gang of vampires, Willow gets caught under a book shelf. As she falls you see her hair is clearly covering her face but in the close up shot it’s not.