Graham’s name

Writer Doug Petrie had a football friend at college named Graham Miller. He decided to make a character in the show named Graham, and he became a friend of Riley and member of the Initiative.

Initiative lab

The Initiative lab (in which Spike is kept caged in The Initiative) is actually a very small set, made to look bigger using mirrors. You can see at the beginning of the episode that the corridor is very long, but when Spike escapes, it’s only very short.

Initiative set

The Initiative set is at a place called “Skunk Works” which is about an hour south of L.A. The building used to be the location where stealth bombers were built. The big white balls on the main Initiative set are both an homage to 60s cult TV show The Prisoner and used as a way of lighting the set.

James in the credits

James Marsters was added to the opening credit montage from the episode The Initiative.

Secret Agent

The original title of the episode The Initiative was ‘Secret Agent Man’, but it was felt that this would give away Riley’s secret identity too easily.

Staff list

Spike looks at a list of Stevenson Hall residents in The Initiative. The names are those of people who worked for Buffy, including Jeff Pruitt (stunt co-ordinator), David Solomon (co-producer), J. D. Peralta (assistant to Marti Noxon), Cindy Rosenthal (Costumer), Victoria Rushkin (set designer) and Lisa Rosenberg (hair stylist).

The young people

The following line was cut from the episode The Initiative after Buffy says, “Giles I live in a dorm now”:

Bailey Chase

Bailey played Riley’s friend Graham Millar. Bailey was born in Chicago. He went to Duke University with a full athletic scholarship, and graduated with a degree in Psychology. He spent some time in London, acting on stage in plays including ‘The Comedy of Errors’ and ‘Death of a Salesman’. He moved to Los Angeles, where he won the lead role in the film Cosmo’s Tale, which was screened at Cannes and Sundance in 1999. The film was directed by Adam Shankman, who later did the choreography for the Buffy musical episode Once More, With Feeling. Bailey has also appeared in Charmed, MTV’s Undressed, VIP and USA High, and has appeared in films such as Billboard Dad and The Stray. He is sometimes credited as Bailey Luetgert.

Leonard Roberts

Leonard played Riley’s friend Forrest Gates. He grew up in St. Louis, and attended Chicago’s DePaul University Theatre School. He appeared on stage in Chicago, appearing in numerous productions with several of the city’s theatre companies. Leonard has also been in He Got Game, The 60s, Providence, JAG and Due South. Leonard played Blake in Eliza Dushku’s show Tru Calling in the episode ‘Past Tense’.

Forrest Gates

Forrest Gates was a friend of Riley Finn and a fellow member of the Initiative. He didn’t approve of Buffy’s relationship with Riley. Forrest was killed by Adam in The Yoko Factor and reanimated to work for Adam in Primeval. He fought Riley, who blew him up.

Graham Miller

Along with Forrest Gates, Graham was one of Riley’s closest friends. He was also a member Commando team of the Government scheme the Initiative, in which demons were caught and tested. Unlike Forrest, Graham liked Buffy and supported Riley’s relationship with her. When the Initiative was destroyed, Graham survived and continued to work on Government projects. In Restless, we discovered that he defended Riley at a debriefing about the failure of the project. Graham’s last appearance in the show was in Into the Woods when he showed up and persuaded Riley to leave Sunnydale and come to Belize to fight demons.

Riley Finn

Riley was a cheerful teaching assistant at UC Sunnydale, and also a secret Government Agent who worked for the Initiative, which trapped and tested vampires and demons. He met Buffy and realised he liked her (The Initiative). When the two eventually kissed, they discovered each other’s secrets - his involvement in the Initiative, and her a Vampire Slayer (Hush). They started dating properly and worked together killing vampires. Buffy discovered that the Initiative wasn’t entirely good and Riley’s mentor Maggie Walsh tried to kill her (The I in Team). Riley left the Initiative eventually, and then realised that they had been feeding him drugs to make him more powerful. Once Riley had rid himself entirely of the Initiative he felt useless, which wasn’t helped by having a girlfriend with superpowers. Riley realised that Buffy didn’t really love or need him and he began visiting vampire brothels where he paid female vampires to bite him, to make him feel needed. Buffy saw him at the brothel and was disgusted (Into the Woods). On the same day, the Government asked Riley to go to the jungle with them as a demon hunter and he confronted Buffy, saying he would leave unless she could give him a reason not to. By the time Buffy came to her senses, Riley had left. He returned briefly a year later to kill a demon he’d been tracking. He met with Buffy and introduced her to his new wife. The two headed off together James Bond-style to fight more demons and never be seen again (As You Were).

Buffy’s man

In The Initiative, Giles shows Buffy a rough sketch of the mystery storm troopers that have been spotted around campus:

Giles: .”..fairly accurate you’d say?”
Buffy: “That’s your man.”
Giles: “Your man, actually.”

This is a subtle foreshadowing of Buffy developing a relationship with Riley, and the Inititive.

Hostile Seventeen

Hostile Seventeen was the Initiative’s code name given to Spike after they captured him in the episode The Initiative. Interestingly, Riley told Buffy in A New Man that he had captured or killed seventeen ‘Hostile Sub-Terrestrials’ (or HSTs, the Initiative name given to demons).
In Where the Wild Things Are, Spike goes to a party held by the Initiative boys. Xander calls out, “Hey! What a surprise! hostile 17! Can I get you a drink Hostile 17?”
In Goodbye, Iowa, Riley recognises Spike as Hostile 17. Spike attempts to fake an accent to disguise himself but gives up.
In The Killer in Me, when Buffy has Spike’s chip removed, the Initiative soldier calls Spike Hostile 17. In Lessons, Adam refers to Spike as “Number 17″.

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).

Lilac gal

In the season four episode The Initiative, Spike tells Willow he was once tempted to bite her: “Remember last year? You had on that fuzzy pink number with the lilac underneath.” He’s referring to the events of the episode Lover’s Walk.

The Pit

The Pit was an area in the Initiative’ huge headquarters where experiments were performed on vampires and demons. The walls were covered with tin foil for some reason.

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.

Behavioural Modification Chip

During season four, the Government captured Spike and implanted a Behavioural Modification Chip in his head in The Initiative. It rendered him incapable of attacking humans without intense neurological pain, though he could attack demons. Spike first realised he had it when he couldn’t bite Willow. He later made a deal with Adam in season four to have the chip removed but the demon refused to when Spike messed up his plans. In season five’s Out of My Mind, Spike made another attempt to remove the chip by forcing an Initiative surgeon to remove it. The surgeon pretended to but left the device in Spike’s head. The chip was finally removed in The Killer in Me when it began to malfunction.

John Wayne

In Doppelgängland, Xander says, “So we charge in, much in the style of John Wayne?” referencing the actor John Wayne (1907-1979) who was most famous for his roles in western and war movies. Wayne was also referenced in the episode The Initiative, when Buffy called Riley “John Wayne”.

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.

Sub-T and HST

The Initiative have acronyms for demons including Sub-T’s (sub-terresttials) and HSTs (hostile sub-terrestrials.) HST are also the initials for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Seen at 02.47 minutes:

When Spike wakes up on the floor of his cell, his red shirt is completely open, but in the next shot, the shirt is closed half way.

Seen at 12.20 minutes:

In The Initiative, captured vampires are fed drugged blood to enable the scientists to run tests on them. Spike pretends to drink the blood and attacks the scientists when they find him ‘unconscious’ on the floor of his cell. The only problem is - we see that the bag of blood is empty, but where did Spike hide it?

Seen at 12.40 minutes:

Spike must have had his chip implanted while he was unconscious, so how was he able to attack the Initiative scientists when he escaped from the cell without feeling pain? He later attacks Willow and gets in position to bite her but feels no pain, though he should have felt pain as soon as he attacked her.

Seen at 12.45 minutes:

You can clearly see Spike’s reflection in the escape scene, in the glass cell wall, as he runs past it, and in the shiny floor.

Seen at 23.04 minutes:

When Harmony strikes the match it seems to burn out in the long shot, but in the next shot it’s suddenly a large flame again.

Seen at 33.25 minutes:

When Spike first goes to Willow’s room, the collar on his coat suddenly turns up without him moving it. In the shots of his face, it’s down.

Seen at 36.43 minutes:

Spike says that he’s only 126, but in School Hard, Giles said that he was “barely 200″.