Buffy’s test

David Fury’s original idea for the episode Helpless was to have Buffy made to hallucinate that her friends and family were vampires. It was felt though, that this would be too close to the events of The Wish.

Eighteen

The episode Helpless was originally titled “Eighteen” as it features Buffy’s 18th birthday.

Inspiration for Kralik

Zachary Kralik is actually the name of writer David Fury’s young nephew. He thought it was a good name for a vampire.

On the plus side

This exchange between Buffy and Willow was deleted from the episode Helpless:

Quentin origins

Quentin Travers’s name was created as a hybrid of author Quentin Crisp and P.L Travers, who wrote the Mary Poppins books.

Dominic Keating

Dominic Keating played Blair in the episode Helpless. He later went on to star in Star Trek: Enterprise as Lt. Reed. British fans may also remember him from the comedy Desmonds.

Harris Yulin

Harris Yulin played Quentin Travers, the head of the Watcher’s Council in Helpless, Checkpoint and Never Leave Me. Harris is actually Californian, not English. He also played Roger Stanton in 24, and has been in The X Files, Frasier, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, How the West Was Won, Wonder Woman and Little House on the Prairie. Harris has also had parts in several movies, including Bean, Clear and Present Danger, Ghostbusters II, Multiplicity and Scarface.

Jeff Kober

Jeff played Zachary Kralik in Helpless and the warlock Rack in season six. Jeff appeared in a series of adverts for Bacardi, playing a much more laid back character. He also played Dadelus, head of the Nosferatu clan of vampires, in the 1996 TV series Kindred: The Embraced. Montana-born Jeff has also been in ER, Star Trek: Enterprise, NYPD Blue, Star Trek: Voyager, Charmed, The X-Files (he played Bear in the episode called ‘Ice’) and Falcon Crest. Jeff appeared as an FBI agent in Jennifer Lopez’s movie Enough.

Blair

Blair was a member of the Watcher’s Council who helped prepare the Sunnydale Arms for Buffy’s test in Helpless. He was killed and sired by vampire Zachary Kralik, who he then helped to escape. The two of them murdered Blair’s partner, Hobson.

Hobson

Hobson was a member of the Watcher’s Council who went to Sunnydale Arms to prepare Buffy’s cruciamentum. He was murdered there by Zachary Kralik and Blair in Helpless.

Quentin Travers

Head of the Watcher’s Council in England. Quentin attempted to impose an age-old a secret test on Buffy where her Slayer powers were removed and she was left to fight an insane vampire without them. The test went wrong, as Giles eventually told Buffy why her powers had gone. Buffy fought the vampire and passed the test but Quentin fired Giles, saying his fatherly feelings towards Buffy made him an unsuitable Watcher. Annoyed that Buffy had quit the Watcher’s Council, he later brought a team of Watchers to Sunnydale to observe - and intimidate - the Slayer in Checkpoint. After worrying about the tests, Buffy eventually realised that Quentin was actually on a power trip and forced him to give her the information she needed on Glory, as well as give Giles his job back. The last we saw of Quentin, he was blown to smithereens along with the rest of the Council in a bomb blast, initiated by Caleb in Never Leave Me.

Zachary Kralik

Kralik was an insane vampire held captive by the Watcher’s Council to be used as a test against the Slayer. As a human, Kralik was abused by his mother, whom he later killed. He went on to torture and murder more than twelve women, and was committed to an asylum before he became a vampire. Kralik escaped the Watcher’s Council and kidnapped Joyce Summers, forcing Buffy to save her without her superpowers. Buffy eventually killed him by tricking the vampire into drinking holy water with his prescribed pills.

Bad birthdays

Buffy celebrates her 20th birthday in Blood Ties. Her party comes to a staggering halt when Dawn discovers she’s the Key and freaks out. This isn’t the first (nor last) time that Buffy’s birthday has gone wrong. In Surprise, Buffy slept with Angel on her 17th birthday which prompted him to turn evil and start killing her friends. In Helpless, the Watcher’s Council forced a test on Buffy on her 18th birthday by removing her powers and seeing how she coped with a crazed vampire. In Older and Far Away, Dawn unwittingly made a wish with a vengeance demon that none can leave her, forcing the Scoobies to be stranded in Buffy’s house at her birthday party.

Holding your heart

Angel reveals to Buffy in Helpless that he saw her before they first met in Welcome to the Hellmouth. We saw this as a flashback in Becoming (Part 1).

Ice Capades

In Helpless, we discovered that Buffy’s father Hank took Buffy to the ice capades every year on her birthday (”Look, I know you guys think it’s just a big, dumb, girlie thing, but it’s not. I mean, a lot of those skaters are Olympic medal winners. And every year my dad buys me cotton candy and one of those souvenir programs that has all the pictures, and okay, it’s a big, dumb, girlie thing, but I love it”). Buffy is upset as her father can’t make the date in Helpless because of work commitments, though she didn’t go with him the year before (Surprise) either. After this, Buffy is busy every year on her birthday, either hunting down the Giles-demon (A New Man), protecting her sister Dawn (Blood Ties) or being trapped in a house by Halfrek (Older and Far Away).
In The Initiative, Willow tells Riley that Buffy “likes the ice capades without the irony”. Willow admitted she was sick on Woodstock at Snoopy on Ice when she was little in Helpless.
Buffy’s love of ice skating is also seen in the episodes Angel, What’s My Line, Part One and The Replacement (when Riley says he loves her bad ice skating movies obsession).

Little bell

Amy is mentioned in Helpless. She is still a rat, from when she turned herself into one in Gingerbread and Willow is keeping her. She has bought her a wheel and “the cutest little bell”.

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”.

Parties for Buffy

In Helpless, Buffy says that parties in her honour tend to go badly (”monsters crash, people die”), referring to her surprise party in Surprise and her welcome-home party in Dead Man’s Party. Angel also references Surprise when he says “Then why’d you seem more excited last year when you got a severed arm in a box?”

Sad overalls

There seems to be a continuing theme that Buffy wears dungarees (overalls) when she’s sad. She wears them in Ted after she thinks she killed Ted; in Becoming (Part 2) before boarding the bus to run away; in Helpless when arriving, sans her power, to save her mother; and in Inca Mummy Girl when she wears them to hunt Ampata instead of going to the dance.

Spinning the Bottle

In the Angel episode ‘Spin the Bottle‘, Wesley references the Slayer test shown in Helpless. He says, “There are stories at the Watcher’s Academy of a test. A secret gauntlet which only the most cunning can survive. You’re locked in a house with a vicious, deadly vampire, and you have to kill him before he kills you. It’s been done in the past with Slayers.”

Sunnydale Arms

Sunnydale Arms was an abandoned boarding house in Prescott Lane in Sunnydale. The Watchers’ Council bricked up the windows to use it as the site for Buffy’s cruciamentum on her eighteenth birthday in Helpless.

Unannounced walkabout

Faith is noted in the episode Helpless, but does not appear. She is on one of her “unannounced walkabouts”. She has barely been in any episodes since Revelations, except for making a brief appearance in Amends.

Cruciamentum

This was a test demanded by the Watcher’s Council to be performed on Slayers on their eighteenth birthday. The Slayer’s powers are secretly taken from her by her Watcher using a muscle relaxant. She is then imprisoned with an insane vampire in a boarded up house, with only her wits to help her. The vampire to attack Buffy was called Zachary Kralik, who escaped and held Joyce Summers prisoner until Buffy rescued her. Giles was fired by the Watchers’ Council for telling Buffy about the test, and for his fatherly feelings towards the Slayer. These events occurred in Helpless.
Cruciamentum is Latin for torment.

Grounding crystal

The grounding crystal has a hypnotic effect, when a person stares into it’s core. Giles used it’s power on Buffy so he could administer her with an organic compound of muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressants. This removed her Slayer powers, ready for her Watcher’s Council test in Helpless.

Holy Water

Holy Water is water that has been blessed by a member of the clergy. Like other religious symbols (such as the crucifix) it burns vampires, and can even kill them if it touches them in large amounts. Holy Water has been used as a weapon occasionally in the Buffyverse. In The Harvest, Willow threw holy water on Darla. In What’s My Line? (Part 2), Drusilla tortured Angel by dripping holy water on him. Buffy tricked Zachary Kralik into drinking holy water in Helpless. In Lover’s Walk, Buffy, Angel and Spike warded off attacking vampires by throwing holy water at them.

Vamps on tape

Seeing as they have no reflection, one might assume that vampires would be a bit tricky to capture on film (or video). Yet, it appears to be perfectly possible. We first discovered this in Halloween when Spike watched Buffy’s fighting technique via video tape, and Andrew later videos Spike in Storyteller. Likewise, in Helpless, Zachary Kralik was able to photograph himself.

Watcher’s Council

The Watcher’s Council is a powerful and ancient organization who train Slayers, and whose aim is to rid the world of evil. Their history is unclear. The Council is based in England and all Watchers on screen have been English, of the stuffy old variety. The Council has access to a great many texts and sources related to demons and they provide a supporting system to the current Watcher and Slayer. They also hold great power, for example, it is suggested that they could have Giles deported from America very quickly if they wanted to. The Watcher’s Council Headquarters was blown up in Never Leave Me, though some Council members survived, including Wesley’s father Roger Wyndham-Pryce.

Brian Boitano doing Carmen

Buffy’s line in Helpless, “Brian Boitano doing Carmen is a life changer” refers to the American 1988 Olympic gold medallist skater. Boitano has a song devoted to him in South Park Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Carmen is an opera composed by George Bizet in 1875, based on a novel by Prosper Mérimée written in 1845. Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn) stars in the Disney movie Ice Princess (2004) in which she plays an ice skater. She practiced ice-skating for three months before filming the movie. Brian Boitano plays a commentator in the movie.

Cuernavaca

In Helpless, Buffy said, “My game’s left the country. It’s in Cuernavaca”. Cuernavaca is the capital of the state of Morelos in Mexico.

Sonnets from the Portuguese

In The Witch, Amy said about cheerleading tryouts, “How do I hate this? Let me count the ways.” This is a misquote from a love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning titled Sonnets from the Portuguese. The real quote is, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
In Helpless, Angel bought Buffy an edition of Sonnets From the Portuguese for her eighteenth birthday.

Superman

Comicbook hero Superman has been epitomised in many comics (by DC Comics), movies (starring the late Christopher Reeve), TV shows (eg. Lois and Clarke, Smallville), cartoons (eg. The Adventures of Superman) and even a musical. He and the world he lives in have been referenced many times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel:

• In Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, Buffy says, “even Clark Kent has a job”, alluding to Superman’s alter-ego.
• In Reptile Boy, Xander’s chances of ever belonging to a fraternity of rich and powerful men are rubbished by Cordy as likely only “in the Bizarro world.” The Bizarro world is a weird, back-to-front version of the real world in Superman.
• In the episode Ted, Cordelia says of Buffy, “But she’s like this Superman.”
• In The Wish, Cordelia says to vamps Willow and Xander, “No. No! No way! I wish us into Bizarro Land, and you guys are still together?! I cannot win!”
• In Helpless, Oz and Xander discuss which colour Kryptonite hurts Superman. Writer David Fury said in his DVD commentary for the episode that he wasn’t sure which Kryptonite was which so wrote this scene as such.
• In The Zeppo, there area few references to Superman: Xander’s line, “But, gee, Mr White, if Clark and Lois get all the good stories I’ll never be a good reporter”, which he acknowledges as a “Jimmy Olsen joke”. He also name-checks the Daily Planet’s editor Perry White, Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent, and his colleague Lois Lane. Cordelia’s jibe “You must feel like Jimmy Olsen” is another reference to the Daily Planet’s youngest photographer.
• In Doomed, Forrest says to Riley, “Granted they’re a little rarer than the one’s you grew up with on that little farm in Smallville.” Smallville, Kansas, was the small town where Clark Kent (Superman) grew up.
• In Superstar, Xander mentions Kryptonite again.
• In Real Me, Xander says, “She can turn this place into the fortress of solitude again”. Superman built the Fortress of Solitude in the North Pole as a place where he could relax and keep his souvenirs.
• In Gone, Andrew mentions Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor. Buffy also mentions Bizarro World again.
• In Two To Go, Andrew says, “Lex Luthor had a false epidermis escape kit in Superman Versus the Amazing Spider-Man Treasury edition”.
• In Bring on the Night, Andrew says, “An evil name should be something like Lex” He’s referring to Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor.
• In the Angel episode Blind Date, Wesley says, “The human eye is only capable of registering a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. But if Brewer were somehow equipped to see outside that range…” to which Cordelia replies, “She’d be Superman.”
• In You’re Welcome, Cordelia ends her seeming obsession with the Bizarro world when she says, “What Bizarro-world did I wake up in?”

Woodstock

In Helpless, Willow said, “I went to Snoopy On Ice when I was little. My dad took me backstage and I got so scared I threw up on Woodstock.” Woodstock is the tiny yellow bird in Charles Shultz’s Peanuts cartoon strip.

Seen at 05.03 minutes:

Buffy states that she and her dad go to the ice show every year for her birthday. They didn’t go last year (in the episode Surprise), and she didn’t even mention the tradition then.

Seen at 15.00 minutes:

Buffy places a book on a table and stands up, as she does the book begins to slide towards the floor. In the next shot the book is laid flat on the table on top of another book.

Seen at 29.03 minutes:

After Buffy sees the photo of her mother in danger, she gets changed and does her hair before going to rescue her.

Seen at 30.20 minutes:

Why doesn’t Buffy ask Angel for help against Kralik?