Easter at the White House

The following Kathy-rant of Buffy’s was deleted from Living Conditions:

Other scenes and lines deleted from Living Conditions include:

a conversation between Buffy and Kathy:

and a scene outside Buffy’s room:

Roomies

Joss Whedon spoke about Living Conditions at the Posting Board, saying it was a “totally accurate portrayal of roomies - I almost hired a man to kill him when he straightened his rug one time. And he hated me even more.”

UC Santa Cruz

Buffy writer Marti Noxon attended UC Santa Cruz. Three colleges from Santa Cruz are named in season four of Buffy: Stevenson, Kresge and Porter. In Living Conditions, Buffy tells Parker her dorm is in Stevenson Hall (number 214). There’s a party at Porter in Doomed and in The I in Team, Buffy mentions Kresge Hall.
In Life of the Party, Eve says, “Angel, it’s not like this is the first time I’ve had sex under a mystical influence. I went to U.C. Santa Cruz.”

Adam Kaufman

Adam Kaufman played the slimy Parker Abrams in season four. Adam has also starred in Steven Spielberg’s Taken as Charlie Keys (alongside Julie Benz, who plays Darla). He played Ethan in several episodes of Dawson’s Creek. Adam has appeared in CSI:Miami, Dead Last, Law & Order and Metropolis.

Clayton Barber

Clayton Barber, who played a demon in Living Conditions, has been Angel’s stunt double in the past. He was another vampire’s stunt double in the 1998 movie Blade. He also did stunts for the movies 8 Mile, The Time Machine, Zoolander, American Pie 2, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Charlie’s Angels and Batman & Robin.

Dagney Kerr

Dagney Kerr played Buffy’s college room mate Kathy Newman in The Freshman and Living Conditions. She has also been in Two Weeks Later, One Man’s Trash, Six Feet Under and George Lopez. Her real name is Michelle Kear. Dagney is an instructor in the Windor Pilates videos.

Heath Castor

Heath Castor played various characters in the episodes Dead Man’s Party, I Only Have Eyes For You, The Freshman, Living Conditions and Beer Bad. He was in the Angel episode ‘Untouched‘.

Roger Morrissey

Roger Morrissey played the demon in Gingerbread and Tapparich in Living Conditions. He has also played Mr. Vompatatat in The Cat in the Hat and Grindl in Xena: Warrior Princess.

Walt Borchert

Walt Borchert, who played the newly-turned vampire in The Freshman, also played a demon in Living Conditions. He appeared as Jeff in the Buffy episode Crush.

Kathy Newman

Kathy was Buffy’s new and annoying room mate who listened to Cher and Celine Dion, and enjoyed ironing and devising new phone-logging systems. Kathy and Buffy were initially polite to each other but they got on each other’s nerves easily. Kathy seemed human but turned out to be a Mok’tagar demon, much to Buffy’s relief. Forced back to her demon clan by her father, not before she attempted to steal Buffy’s soul in Living Conditions.

Taparrich

Taparrich was a Mok’tagar demon and the father of Buffy’s roommate Kathy Newman. He forced his daughter to go home in Living Conditions.

Dingoes Ate My Baby

Dingoes Ate My Baby were a rock band, fronted by Devon with vocals, and Oz, who played lead guitar. They played on various occasions at venues including the Bronze (Inca Mummy Girl, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and Doppelgängland) and Buffy’s house (Dead Man’s Party - where they played ‘Never Mind’, ‘Sway’ and ‘Pain’). The band were mentioned in the unaired pilot, when Xander said, “They don’t know any actual chords yet, but they have really big amps”.
In Earshot, Freddy Iverson writes a bad review of the band in the school paper (”Dingoes Ate My Baby play their instruments as if they have plump polish sausages taped to their fingers”) but Oz thought it was fair. Cordelia briefly dated Devon (Inca Mummy Girl).
The band’s name comes from a famous Australian outback incident, in which Lindy Chamberlain was accused of killing her baby, which had actually been taken by dingoes. The Dingoes’ music was provided by real-life band Four Star Mary, with whom James Marsters has occasionally performed. Four Star Mary themselves appeared in the season four finale Restless.
The Four Star Mary song “Pain” became one of the signature tunes for Dingoes Ate My Baby. It was heard in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (performed in the Bronze), Dead Man’s Party (performed at Buffy’s house) and Living Conditions - on the stereo in the dorm when Willow moves in suggesting that the Dingoes had recorded a CD.

Dingoes fan

In Living Conditions, Willow hangs a Dingoes Ate My Baby poster on her wall, a reference to her boyfriend Oz’s band.

Dorm phone

Buffy and Willow’s phone in their dorm room keeps changing. In Living Conditions it was a white one with an answering machine, then it changed to a different design in Hush, and in The Yoko Factor, it’s a small, blue phone.

Giles’s number

Willow dials the numbers 11783 when she calls Giles in Living Conditions.

Jeans with little patches

In Living Conditions, Buffy wears her jeans with the little patches again, last seen in The Freshman.

Motorcycle and Scooter

Buffy discovers in Living Conditions that Giles gets Motorcycle and Scooter Magazine, probably an offshoot from his Ripper days.

Recapturing Giles’s youth

In Living Conditions, Buffy jokes about the last time Giles tried to recapture his youth, referring to the events of the episode Band Candy: “‘Cause I’m still going ‘ick’ from the last time you tried to recapture your youth.”

Remembering Cordy

In Living Conditions, Willow describes Buffy as being “bordering on Cordelia-esque”, the first mention of Cordy since she left Sunnydale.

Rocket Cafe

UC Sunnydale’s campus cafe was called the Rocket Cafe. Buffy met Parker Abrams there in Living Conditions.

Slayer power

The theme of ‘Slayer power’ is explored deeply in the episode Ted. Buffy feels that there is something wrong with Ted, but we’re never sure whether this is down to her Slayer intuition or whether she’s just jealous of Ted’s relationship with her mother. A similar theme is explored in season four’s Living Conditions when Buffy accuses her annoying roommate of being a demon, though, in fairness, she eventually turns out to be right! It’s an interesting conundrum for her friends - is Buffy simply using her Slayerness/Spidey-sense (see below) as an excuse for her personal dislikes, or does she really feel that something is wrong?
Another of the episode’s important developments is Buffy’s realisation of her strength, and how to use it. She accidentally kills Ted and is instantly horrified by her actions. She realises that she wasn’t chosen to kill humans, no matter how bad they are, or may seem to be. This is something which Buffy strongly believes in throughout the series. In Bad Girls, Faith accidentally kills a man and the differences between her reaction and Buffy’s are marked. Buffy, and possibly more noticeably its spin-off Angel, also explores how power shouldn’t be used indiscriminately when it comes to demons. Buffy realises that there are many different types of demons, and they’re not all evil so she shows mercy to helpless or harmless demons. For a different slant check out Riley’s reaction to this ‘multi-culturalism’ in New Moon Rising. Of course Joss was in no way influenced by Stan Lee’s famous Spider-Man motto: “With great power comes great responsibility”.

The Grotto

In Living Conditions, Buffy refers to The Grotto, where she is going for coffee, which is probably on campus.

Cher

In Living Conditions, Kathy plays Cher’s ‘Believe’ over and over:

Kathy: “This song is super fun. Isn’t it?”
Buffy: “You bet. It just gets funner and funner every time you play it.”

In the original script the song was Mariah Carey’s ‘Butterfly’.

Four Star Mary

The music for Oz’s band Dingoes Ate My Baby was provided by real-life band Four Star Mary. James Marsters has performed with them on stage (off screen) a few times. The band themselves appeared in the season four finale Restless, as the band who play with Giles during the Exposition Song.

Four Star Mary songs can be heard in the following Buffy episodes:

• Inca Mummy Girl - The songs ‘Shadows’ and ‘Fate’ at the Cultural party in The Bronze.
• Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - ‘Pain’ is heard in The Bronze.
• Dead Man’s Party - The Dingoes mime to ‘Pain’, ‘Nevermind’ and ‘Sway’ at Buffy’s party.
• Homecoming - we hear the song ‘She Knows’ at the Homecoming Dance - it’s the song Oz wrote for Willow.
• Living Conditions - ‘Pain is heard when Buffy and Willow move into their dorm room.
• Band Candy - the Dingoes mime onstage at The Bronze to ‘Violent’, when the adults are acting weirdly.
• Revelations - Dingoes Ate My Baby perform ‘Run’ in The Bronze at the start of the episode.
• The Harsh Light of Day - ‘Dilate’ is played at the Bronze at the start of the episode.
• The Initiative - Riley gets the song ‘Fate’ turned off at the party as it upsets Willow.

Mok’tagar

Mok’tagar demons have the ability to move from one dimension to another. They can also disguise themselves as other beings, but their fellow demons can recognize them by their lack of a soul. Buffy’s roommate Kathy Newman was a Mok’tagar demon who used the Ritual of Mok’tagar is used to try and steal Buffy’s soul. The ritual involves the forced ingestion of animal blood while the victim is asleep, seen in Living Conditions.

Red Wings

In Living Conditions, Parker mentions the Red Wings, who are Detroit’s NHL hockey team.

The Exorcist

The 1973 movie The Exorcist starred Linda Blair as a child named Regan who becomes possessed by a demon. The film was adapted from the horror novel by William Peter Blatty, and banned in the UK for more than fifteen years. It is referenced a few times in Buffy and Angel:

• In Teacher’s Pet, Buffy says that Miss French’s head did a “full-on Exorcist twist”, referring to a famous scene in the movie.
• In I Only Have Eyes For You, When Willow suggests an exorcism, Cordelia replies “Are you crazy? I saw that movie: even the priests died!”
• In Lover’s Walk, Buffy says of her mother, “her head spun round and exploded” (to which Giles replies, “I’ve been on the Hellmouth too long. That was metaphorical, yes?”).
• In Living Conditions, Xander says, “Are you saying that Buffy’s been doing a Linda Blair on us because Kathy’s been sucking her soul?” At the beginning of her possession in The Exorcist, Regan showed dramatic changes in her behaviour, just as Buffy did in Living Conditions.
• Buffy name-checks The Excorcist in Bring on the Night.
• In the Angel episode I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Cordelia says, “I’m wondering if I should put plastic down. Angel, are you expecting any big vomiting here? Because I saw the movie.” Large parts of this episode are a nod to The Exorcist - in the book and movie, a Catholic priest dies in much the same way as Angel’s Father Fredricks.

The Terminator

The conversation in Living Conditions about Parker’s interest in Buffy, (Xander says “Hasta” and “Buffinator” and Oz says “He’ll be back”) is a reference to The Terminator movies, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Jame Cameron.
In This Year’s Girl, Buffy called Adam “the Terminator without the bashful charm” and in When She Was Bad, Willow and Xander referenced the movie when playing “Guess the Movie”. In Primeval, Adam has an arm-gun (”I’ve been upgrading”). This is reminiscent of the gun the Terminator has in the movie trilogy. In All the Way, Janice calls her mother “The Mominator”.
In Billy, Cordelia says, “You can’t barge into a police precinct and go all Terminator.” At one point in the original Terminator movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character drives into a police station and shoots up the place killing most of the police inside.

VH1

Buffy says in Living Conditions, “Listening to the Best of VH1 all day sort of put me on edge.” She’s referring to the cable music channel.

Seen at 01.05 minutes:

In The Freshman, Buffy mentions she lives in Fischer Hall. In Living Conditions her dorm changes to Stevenson Hall, as seen on the sign above the entrance.

Seen at 02.05 minutes:

When Kathy shows Buffy her system for logging phone calls, she points at a pad of paper. In one shot, the uncapped end of the pen is pointing at the paper, but in the next shot the capped end is pointing at the paper.

Seen at 04.21 minutes:

As Buffy and Willow are walking away from Buffy’s dorm, Willow is carrying a bag, the straps of which are solid color on one side and camouflage print on the other. As they stop and talk, the straps flip back and forth between shots.

Seen at 05.59 minutes:

When Kathy joins Buffy on patrol, watch Buffy’s ponytail. In the shots from behind Buffy, her ponytail rests on her back. In shots from in front of her, her ponytail rests in front of her shoulder.

Seen at 06.34 minutes:

Sarah Michelle Gellar’s stunt double can clearly be seen in the fight after Buffy pushes Kathy into the bush.

Seen at 08.49 minutes:

When Giles and Buffy are outside, he tosses a towel over his shoulder when he sits down. When he stands up a bit later, he is shown with the towel in his hand and gone from his shoulder; it then returns to his shoulder.

Seen at 25.55 minutes:

In Living Conditions, in the scene where Buffy is watching Kathy cut her toenails, her hair is in a different position in different shots. Sometimes Buffy’s hair is flicked back towards her ears, and sometimes it is forward on her cheek. There is also an error with where Buffy’s hair is in relation to her black earmuffs later in the same scene.

Seen at 33.29 minutes:

When Oz and Xander walk carefully toward the tied-up Buffy, Oz in on Xander’s right. Buffy then knocks their heads together and they fall down, but in the shot of them on the floor, Oz is on Xander’s left.

Seen at 38.06 minutes:

When Buffy and Kathy are fighting, the phone falls in front of their nightstands. Later, when the portal is opened, the phone is nowhere to be seen.

Seen at 39.49 minutes:

At the end of Living Conditions, when Willow and Buffy are moving in together, Willow puts a Dingoes Ate My Baby poster on the wall. After she smoothes down the bottom of the poster, the bottom right corner comes loose. When we see Willow in long shots, it’s stuck to the wall, but in close up shots it’s not.