Additional characters

Joss Whedon mentions in his DVD commentary for Hush the use of the ‘extra characters’ in the scene where people’s voices are being stolen by the Gentlemen. He points out that it takes a lot to film a three-second piece like that - you have to cast someone, then build a set and light it. This isn’t usually done in TV as it’s too time-consuming and expensive but he was delighted with the way it turned out.

Alyson’s favourite episodes

Alyson Hannigan told Entertainment Weekly which her favourite Buffy episodes were in an interview in October 2005:

1. Hush: “It was a whole new way of figuring out how to act, the not-talking thing.”
2. The Body: “I just remember the no sound, no music - it was so disconcerting.”
3. Ted: “John Ritter was the best. We would all just hang out in his trailer and be like, ‘Hi, John Ritter!!’ and he didn’t care. And, we got to shoot at a mini-golf place.”
4. Doppelgängland: “I was in the vampire Willow outfit, and Alexis had some holy water, and he made this noise, like FFFFT!! And it just cracked me up. I had such a crush on him.”

Bored or confused

Joss Whedon wrote the episode Hush as a challenge to himself. He felt his directing skills had become boring stylistically and that TV was limiting as to the kind of shots you can use. He therefore wanted to create an episode which was completely different to his usual work. He was convinced that he would fail and that people would get bored or confused.

Buffy’s Flintstones shirt

In his DVD commentary for Hush, Joss Whedon says how much Buffy’s blue sleeveless top (shown in the first scene) annoys him now, “It didn’t bother me at first,” he says, but he calls it her “Flintstone looking shirt”.

Casting Tara

When casting the role of Tara, Joss Whedon was originally looking for someone like ‘old Willow’ - before Willow became as confident as she is now. Visually he wanted someone who was small and thin. Amber Benson read for the role and it was Marti Noxon who saw her vulnerability beyond her body shape and convinced Joss to get Amber back to read again.

Cherrypickers

The scenes of the Gentlemen gliding smoothly through Sunnydale in Hush were achieved by swinging them by wires across distances of over 120 feet using cherrypickers.

Directing Dave

The scene in Hush where Xander and Spike wake up and can’t speak was directed by regular Buffy director David Solomon as Joss was to busy at the time to oversee it.

Emmy Awards

A bone of contention with many who love Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the fact that it is often overlooked by the Emmy Awards. The show has won in these categories: Christophe Beck’s score to Becoming; and ‘Best Make-Up’ for Surprise and Innocence. Joss Whedon was nominated for the ‘Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series’ award for Hush (interesting considering most of the episode has no dialogue!) and Chosen was nominated in the ‘Special Visual Effects for a Series’ category. Beer Bad received an Emmy nomination for ‘Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series’ in the 52nd Annual Emmy Awards. Hell’s Bells got 3 Emmy nominations: Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series, Outstanding Make-up for a Series (non-prosthetic), and Outstanding Make-up For A Series (Prosthetic).

Everybody’s talkin’ at me

You may notice that, until the gang lose their voices in Hush, they talk a lot about speech and communication. This is the theme of the episode, in that when people stop talking, they start to communicate more, as language itself can be inhibiting. Joss Whedon said in his DVD commentary, “once you say something you limit other ways of communication.”

First kisses

Riley and Buffy kiss for the first time in Hush, once in her dream, and once in real life. In his DVD commentary, Joss Whedon states that he expected to have Riley and Buffy make love for the first time in the episode, but it seemed too soon in the development of their relationship.

Gentlemen inspirations

Joss Whedon’s inspiration for the Gentlemen included: a dream he had as a child; Nosferatu; Pinhead from Hellraiser; Mr. Burns from The Simpsons; The Joker and The Seventh Seal. A stage direction in the script for the Gentlemen was: “He’s old, bone white, bald – Nosferatu meets Hellraiser by way of the Joker. Actually, he looks kind of like Mr. Burns, except that he can’t stop his rictus-grin, and his teeth are gleaming metal.”

Giles’s notes

Due to the wonders of technology (or the zoom button on my DVD remote) I’ve checked what Giles’ handwritten notes say in Hush. The rhyme which Buffy heard in her dream is written in large writing, but in pencil surrounding this there are notes such as, “Goosey Gander”, “Ring o’ Roses”, “Political ref. i.e. Bill of Rights” and (next to the word The Gentlemen) “This is the Key”.

Joss Whedon’s favourite episodes

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon spoke to USA Today in May 2003 (after the final episode had aired) about his favourite Buffy episodes. They are as follows:

1. Innocence: “It’s a mission-statement show, and one of the ones where I first found out what we could do.”
2. Once More, With Feeling: “What am I going to say?”
3. Hush
4. The Body
5. Doppelgängland: “Because one Willow is certainly not enough.”
6. The Wish: “Very bleak, very fun. It went to a dark place, and that’s really exciting to me. That’s where I live.”
7. Becoming (Part 2): “Buffy loses everything. Also, it had a sword fight. I love sword fighting.”
8. Restless: “Most people sort of shake their heads at it. It was different, but not pointless.”
9. Conversations with Dead People: “I’m very fond of ‘Conversations with Dead People.’ I just thought structurally and tonally it was very interesting and had a lot to say. And I got to write another song.”
10. Prophecy Girl: “Because that was my first time, besides telling directors what to do, that I actually got to direct. And it was the first time I got to kill Buffy, and the first season ender, and it was the first time I realized I could take everything we did in the season and tie it in a bow.”

Joss’s hope

Joss Whedon wrote the following stage direction in the script for Hush: “Clock Tower – From up here we can see the whole town – or possibly much less than all of it, but I can hope – and the collective breaths snake all across town heading here.”

Lecture theatre

Joss Whedon says that in Buffy’s dream sequence in the lecture hall in Hush, he wanted the set to look as full as possible so got everyone who was on set or in the production office that day to sit in the hall. He even sat people in the aisles to fill up the space.
If you look closely during the opening sequence, Andy Hallett (Lorne in Angel) can be seen in the top left hand corner.

Amber Benson

Amber Nicole Benson played shy Wiccan Tara Maclay. Amber was born in Birmingham, Alabama on January 8, 1977. She started acting when she was a teenager. She studied dancing and singing and did amateur community theatre. Her family moved to Los Angeles to help her career, and she has since had a great deal of steady work. She starred in Imaginary Crimes, Can’t Hardly Wait (alongside Seth Green who played Oz) and Bye Bye Love as the best friend of Eliza Dushku (who plays Faith). Amber wrote and directed a movie called Chance in 2001 when she was just 24. It starred Amber, James Marsters (Spike), Andy Hallett (Lorne in Angel) and Tressa DiFiglia (Nicholas Brenson’s wife). Amber co-wrote a comic book about Willow and Tara, and wrote a comic strip called ‘The Innocent’ for Joss Whedon’s Tales of the Slayers. Amber has also written an on-line story called Ghosts of Albion for the BBC cult website.
Since leaving Buffy, Amber has played Maggie in Race You to the Bottom, Barbie in Intermedio and Traci in Latter Days. She has also been in episodes of Cold Case and The Inside. Amber also starred in a film with Sin City’s Nick Stahl, Tru Calling’s Derek Hamilton and American Pie’s Eddie Kaye Thomas called Taboo. She is currently dating Adam Busch, who played Warren in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Camden Toy

Camden Toy played one of the Gentlemen in Hush, Gnarl in Same Time, Same Place and a Turok-Han in season seven. Camden also played a character called The Prince of Lies in the Angel episode ‘Why We Fight‘. Camden has also been in Irascible (which he also produced and edited), The Works, My Chorus, Deja Vu, The Devil May Care and Faith. His resume website lists his special skills as “Physical Comedy, Street Performance, Juggling, Coin Roll, Dialects, Cooking”. Camden enjoys meeting fans at various Buffy and Angel conventions around the world.

Carlos Amezcua

Carlos Amezcua played the newscaster on Giles’s TV in Hush. He is an actual newscaster on KTLA’s morning news. KTLA is the WB affiliate in Los Angeles. The weatherman from KTLA, Mark Kriski, was the weatherman in Amends. Carlos produced the first all-Latino standup comedy programme in Los Angeles, called Comedy Compadres.

Doug Jones

Doug played the lead Gentleman in the episode Hush. He learned mime at school, and joined a troupe called “Mime Over Matter”. Doug has also worked as a contortionist. He has acted in over 25 films (including The Time Machine, Hocus Pocus, Adaptation, Mystery Men, Batman Returns, A Series of Small Things, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari and as ‘Abe Sapien’ in Hellboy), many television series, over 90 commercials and music videos with the likes of Madonna, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Marilyn Manson.

Phina Oruche

Phina played Giles’s on-off girlfriend Olivia in season four. She appeared in the episodes The Freshman, Hush and Restless. Phina and Anthony Stewart Head were in acting class together in the past and he suggested her for the role in Buffy. Phina has also appeared in The Forsaken, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Sabrina, as well as episodes of Charmed and Diagnosis Murder.

Olivia

Olivia was an English woman who had a casual relationship with Giles. She flew over from England to stay with him on two known occassions (The Freshman and Hush). Olivia encountered the Gentlemen and sketched them for Buffy to know what she was facing. Decided to end her relationship with Giles after the Gentlemen incident, as she felt his world was too scary for her. Olivia appeared once more in Giles’s dream in Restless.

Tara Maclay

Tara was a shy and insecure witch who met Willow at a Wicca meeting in college (Hush). The two became friends, and practised magic together. They fell in love and came out as a couple and Tara blossomed. She cared very much about Willow, and also about Dawn who she was very close to, sensing that she too wasn’t properly part of the Scoobies. Tara’s family came to Sunnydale and the Scoobies realised that they had been repressing Tara by telling her she was part-demon, which she wasn’t at all (Family). The Scoobies, led by Buffy, stood up for Tara and she became an integral member of their group. When Willow started to use magic too much, Tara warned her that it could be dangerous but Willow couldn’t stop. Tara left Willow, and they only got together again when Willow could prove that she no longer was addicted to magic. Tara was tragically shot soon after by Warren and died suddenly (Seeing Red).

Bank and liquor store

A couple of new businesses in Sunnydale are seen in the main street in Hush: Sunnydale Securities Bank and Hank’s Jr. Mart (a liquor store).

College wiccans

There’s a Wicca group on UC Sunnydale campus which Willow looks into joining in Wild at Heart. She meets Tara there in Hush, and they bond over the fact that their fellow Wiccans aren’t interested in spells. Amy Madison joins the group in season seven, seen in The Killer in Me when Willow goes to the group for help.

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.

Earthquake shenanigans

The Initiative clearly doesn’t train it’s soldiers in earthquake survival. Forrest and Graham get into a lift in the middle of an earthquake in Where the Wild Things Are, and Forrest and Riley try using the lift when they lose their voices in Hush - thus being unable to activate the voice recognition system.

Floating pencils

In Gingerbread, Willow says she can make pencils float, seen later in Doppelgängland and Choices. In Triangle, Willow tries to persuade Anya to join her in doing spells by saying, “You could be floating pencils by the end of the day”. In Hush, Willow says she’d like to “float something bigger than a pencil one day”. By the end of the episode, she meets Tara and together they magically move a vending machine.

Kiss the Librarian

Spike drinks blood from a novelty mug which says ‘Kiss the Librarian’ in Something Blue and Hush.

Soda movers

The soda machine that Tara and Willow magically move in Hush is the same one that was used in Sunnydale High School in Go Fish and Halloween.

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.

We should talk

In First Date, Principal Wood says “I guess we should talk” after Buffy sees him fighting the vampires. In Hush, Riley said, “Well, I guess we have to talk” after he and Buffy discovered each others’ demon-fighting secrets.

Buffy/Riley theme

The episode Hush sees the introduction of the Buffy/Riley theme tune, written by Christophe Beck. Joss mentioned in his DVD commentary that he prefers the Buffy/Riley theme to the Buffy/Angel theme as it’s more mature.

Les Miserables

The rhyme that the girl sings in Buffy’s dream at the start of Hush is sung to the tune of “Master of the House” from Les Miserables.

Saint-Saens

The music playing during Giles’ lecture in Hush is taken from Camille Saint-Saens’ ‘Danse Macabre’ written in 1874. It was also the theme tune to British drama Jonathan Creek, in which Anthony Stewart Head appeared playing Jonathan’s boss. Anthony gave up the role to come back for season two of Buffy. Joss said on the Buffy Posting board that the use of the music in the two shows was just a coincidence.

Gaia

In Hush, the Wicca group in the college begin their meeting with the prayer: “We come together, daughters of Gaia, sisters to the moon…” Gaia was the Earth Goddess of the ancient Greeks. She was fertilised by Uranus and gave birth to all living matter.

Gentlemen

The Gentlemen were tall, skeletal and polite (apart from the murdering part) fairytale monsters from the children’s rhyme: “Can’t even shout. Can’t even cry. The Gentlemen are coming by. Looking in windows, knocking on doors, they need to take seven and they might take yours. Can’t call to Mom. Can’t say a word. You’re gonna die screaming but you won’t be heard.” The Gentlemen floated instead of walking, and had minions who wore straight jackets and held down their victims. They magically stole the voices from population of Sunnydale, and stored them in a carved wooden box. This enabled them to harvest seven human hearts that they cut from their living victims. The victims were unable to scream so the Gentlemen could work without being disturbed. Riley smashed the wooden box which released the voices allowing Buffy to kill them all by screaming in Hush.

Fortune favours the brave

In his DVD commentary for Hush, Joss says that he took the quote “Fortune favours the brave” from a surfer and artist called Rick Griffin. This line was actually first said by Virgil, and later used by Shakespeare.

K’s Choice

The band playing on stage in the Bronze in Doppelgängland when Vamp Willow enters is K’s Choice, playing their song ‘Virgin State of Mind’.
In Hush, as Tara runs up the stairs to escape the Gentlemen, she passes a board. If you look closely or pause the picture, you will see a poster of K’s Choice’s album “Cocoon Crash”.

The Bible

The Bible is referenced a few times in the Buffyverse. In the episode Angel, the Master says, “out of the mouths of babes”, which is from Psalms 8:2. Absalom, the religious vampire in When She Was Bad, was named after a character in the Bible. Absalom was the third son of King David. He turned against his father and challenged him for the kingdom of Israel. The story is told in the second book of Samuel (2 Samuel 13:20 - 19:10).
The title of the episode Faith, Hope and Trick is from the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love has been replaced by Trick.
In Hush, as Buffy and Willow are first walking through town after their voices have been stolen, they walk past a group of Christians reading from the bible. The verse they’re reading is Revelations 15:1: “Then I saw another portent in heaven, great and wonderful: seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for in them the wrath of God is ended.”
In Never Leave Me, Quentin Travers quotes Proverbs 24:6: “Proverbs 24:6. O, by wise council, you shall make your war”.
In Dirty Girls, Caleb says to Faith, “Well you’re the other one. The Cain to her Abel. No offence to Cain, of course.” In the Bible, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy.

Virgin Cola

In Hush, Buffy and Willow return to their dorm room after Willow’s crappy wicca group and have a conversion about Riley. Buffy hands Willow a can of soda - the brand “Virgin Cola”. This is an obscure (at least in the USA) drink introduced by Richard Branson’s Virgin empire. If you freeze frame the DVD you can even see Branson’s smiling mug on the side of the can as Willow attempts to open it.

Weetabix

In Hush, Spike tells Giles he needs to buy more Weetabix. When Giles says he thought vampires ate only blood, Spike replies, “Well sometimes I like to crumble up the Weetabix in the blood - give it a little texture.” Weetabix is a wheat-based British breakfast cereal, best served hot in my opinion.

Seen at 12.46 minutes:

When we first see a shot of the clock tower, the time is almost one o’clock. The camera cuts to a shot from inside, looking out at the clock, and the minute hand is pointing at the 40 minute mark. Back outside, it’s one o’clock again.

Seen at 19.12 minutes:

As the gang watch TV, Olivia’s drink appears to change from whiskey to water.

Seen at 23.25 minutes:

When the Gentlemen are floating around the UC Sunnydale campus at night, there is a shot of a notice board and the Gentlemen float past from right to left. If you look closely at the bottom of the screen, you can see a bit of the dolly which was used to make them seem like they’re floating.

Seen at 26.45 minutes:

In the lecture hall, Anya sits down empty handed. A moment later, she’s holding a bag of microwave popcorn. Whre did it come from?

Seen at 29.00 minutes:

Buffy holds her message board up to ask how she gets her voice back. When she first holds it up, the marker is in her right hand. The shot cuts away and when we go back, the marker is in a slot on the message board.

Seen at 32.40 minutes:

In Hush, Tara runs from the Gentlemen into Willow’s dorm. At one point she runs up some stairs and past a message board, only it’s very hard to read what any of them say since the image has been reversed. Later, Willow and Tara run past the same message board, only it’s the right way this time.

Seen at 34.33 minutes:

When Spike opens the fridge, his cup of blood is full almost to the brim. When he starts to drink he tips it so far that if it were that full, it would have spilled onto him before it even got to his mouth.

Seen at 38.26 minutes:

When Riley smashes the bottle, a chunk of glass lands on top of the box. In the next shot, the glass has gone.