Bad blood

Jeff Pruitt (Buffy’s stunt coordinator) and his wife Sophia Crawford (Buffy’s stunt double) left the show at the end of season four. His last huge fight sequence was in Primeval. This was apparently due to ‘creative differences’ with the production team. Jeff later went online to Buffy forums to air his views on the show and it’s star.

Blind Professor Walsh

Lindsay Crouse (Professor Maggie Walsh) had a lot of difficulty with seeing thought the clouded contact lenses she had to wear when her character was a zombie in Primeval. She was essentially blind and had to be guided by crew shouting directions to her. The reason her bottom is so big in that episode is that it’s holding a machine to pump the blood through the tubes around her neck.

Different magic

The following lines regarding Willow’s computer hacking skills were deleted from the episode Primeval:

Bob Fimiani

Bob Fimiani played Mr. Ward, the head of the Initiative in The Yoko Factor and Primeval who ordered the Initiative to be closed down and the earth salted over. Bob also played ‘Grounds Keeper’ in the Angel episode ‘The Prodigal‘ and ‘Codger Demon’ in the Angel episode ‘Heartthrob‘. He played ‘Elder Gamman’ in Joss Whedon’s show Firefly, in the episode ‘Our Mrs. Reynolds’.

Conor O’Farrell

Conor O’Farrell played Colonel McNamara in New Moon Rising, The Yoko Factor and Primeval. He also played Darren Leopold in Port Charles, and has appeared in many films and TV shows including Stir of Echoes, Dark Skies, NYPD Blue, Enterprise, 24, The X Files, Ally McBeal, ER, Chicago Hope, Desperate Housewives, Party of Five, Murder One and Matlock.

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.

Professor Maggie Walsh

Maggie Walsh was a bossy psychology Professor at UC Sunnydale. Walsh was also joint head of the secret government organization the Initiative, which trapped and tested demons. Riley worked for Maggie at the Initiative, and posed as her TA. She designed, and was in charge of secret Project 314 - a hybrid monster called Adam. Walsh invited Buffy to join the Initiative, but tried to have her killed when she felt the Slayer was a liability to her secret project. Maggie was skewered through the heart by Adam in The I in Team, who later reanimated her body to work in his secret laboratory, seen in Primeval.

Big snake

In Graduation Day (Part 2), the Mayor turned into a giant snake-demon. His Ascension is referenced in several future episodes. In The Harsh Light of Day, Harmony and Willow discuss the “big snake” that threatened Sunnydale High in Graduation Day Part Two. It was during the confusion at the end of this episode that Harmony was bitten and turned into a vampire. In Shadow, Buffy says the snake is “big, but not Mayor-big”. In Primeval, Xander says, “Does anyone miss the Mayor? ‘I just wanna be a big snake?’” In Smashed, Amy mentions a “giant snake thing” and “Snyder got eaten by a snake”.

Bye, Initiative

The Initiative is closed down by the Government at the end of Primeval as it was deemed a failure. There was a 40% casualty rate amongst the soldiers: “Maggie Walsh’s vision was brilliant but, ultimately, insupportable. The demons cannot be harnessed, cannot be controlled…The Initiative itself will be filled with concrete. Burn it down, gentlemen. Burn it down and salt the earth.”

Compass

The four core Scoobies (Buffy, Giles, Xander and Willow) meet on campus at four compass points in Primeval. We see this recreated in the final episode Chosen, as the gang meet before they fight the First’s army.

Hungover

In Primeval, Giles is hungover from his drinking binge in The Yoko Factor.

Magic gourd

Giles uses a magic gourd in Primeval, and on the vision quest in Intervention.

Photo friends

The photo that Buffy looks at when she visits her office in Empty Places is the same one she looked at in Primeval. It is also similar to a photo she looked at in Dead Man’s Party and Halloween.

Shouldn’t matter

“Whatever they think of you, it shouldn’t matter” - In Primeval, Anya reassures Xander (in her own quirky way) that she loves him. Their relationship lasts until Xander stands Anya up at the alter in Hell’s Bells.

Small crossover

At some point between the episodes The Yoko Factor and Primeval, Cordelia rang Willow up for help cracking into a computer of her own to find files coded by Wolfram and Hart in Angel’s ‘Blind Date‘. In that episode Willow says “hey” to Wesley - a little in joke as the two are together as a couple in real life.

Uranium core

In Superstar, Jonathan claims that Adam’s power source is a reservoir of uranium 235 in his chest. This information is actually true and helps Buffy to defeat her foe in Primeval.

Enjoining spell

Willow, Giles, Buffy and Xander used an enjoining spell to enable Buffy to defeat Adam in Primeval. They combined their essences of Giles (Surfus or The Mind), Willow (Spiritus or The Spirit), Xander (Animus or The Heart), and Buffy (Manus or The Hand). Buffy became indestructible, and was able to remove Adam’s uranium power core. The spell brought forth the First Slayer who attacked the Scoobies in their dreams in Restless.

Zombie influences

In its portrayal of zombies Buffy the Vampire Slayer draws on a wealth of (predominantly) cinematic material. Essentially, the cinematic zombie falls into three categories:

1) The Haitian Zombie: The classic depiction. The Haitian Zombie is an individual who has either been brought back from the dead or revived from a drug-induced death-like trance by a Voodoo priest. The revived individual lacks free-will and is used by the priest as a slave. This traditional type was pretty much the standard in early cinematic depictions of zombification, and was (perhaps) best used in Val Lewton / Jacques Tourneur’s excellent I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Though the zombies of The Zeppo (and Buffy herself) may initially seem to fit the bill (they were all revived by occult means) they are quite distinct, as they obviously have free will, a sense of self and do not have a ‘Master’. The (never seen) ‘Zombie Joyce’ from Forever may be closer to the mark, as it was suggested that she would be a mindless shell. I guess the lumbering, subservient zombies of Dead Man’s Party are the closest we get to Haitian lore in Buffy. They respond to their master and are clearly little more then slaves. Having said that, they owe much (at least visually) to the ‘Romero Zombie’ (see below).

2) The ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ Zombie: Obviously this type of zombie share’s little with its Haitian variant as it is a product of science/medicine and not magic. In addition, since it is a composite (made up of parts from different individuals, beings etc), its identity is necessarily a bit muddled. Depictions of such creatures therefore tend to focus on its quest for a sense of self. Adam is an obvious enough Buffyverse example, and (as is common for such creatures) was concerned with understanding himself and the world around him. The ‘bride’ that was being built for Daryl in Some Assembly Required, is typically ‘Frankensteinian’ and is a clear nod to James Whale’s seminal Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

3) The ‘Romero Zombie’: While it may be a simplification to credit George Romero with the (sole) creation of the stereotypical modern cinematic zombie, using his name is a handy way of explaining the type, and Night of the Living Dead (1968) may be the first depiction of the kind . This type gets reanimated through a variety of (often ludicrous) means and is the one we are probably most familiar as we’ve seen it everywhere from Dawn of the Dead (1978) to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They lumber about, they wear the torn outfits they were buried in, they are often badly decomposed, they travel in packs, they eat human flesh or brains, they seem to have only rudimentary cognitive skills etc. I think the wanting Braaaaaaaiiiinnnnsss thing originated with Dan O’Bannon’s hilarious 1985 effort Return of the Living Dead, but it’s become an accepted zombie characteristic by now. In terms of the overall aesthetic of the zombies, nearly all of the Buffy examples owe a debt to this type (Forrest and Walsh, the Dead Man’s Party gang, Jack O’Toole’s buddies etc). None wanted brains though, how disappointing.

Zombies

Zombies have been seen several times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The loosest explanation of a zombie is a corpse which has been reanimated in some way - mainly through magic. Examples of zombies seen on the show include those in Dead Man’s Party (who were revived by a magical Nigerian Ovu Mobani mask); Forrest and Maggie Walsh in Primeval (brought back to “life” by Adam); Joyce (resurrected by a spell by Dawn in Forever); and Jack O’Toole and his pals in The Zeppo. With the exception of The Zeppo zombies, most zombies have no free will and are essentially automatons. Click here for a full explanation of different types of zombie.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

In Primeval, Spike says, “Alice heads back down the rabbit hole.” He’s referring to Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, about a girl named Alice who sees a rabbit in a waist-coat and follows him down a rabbit hole into a world named Wonderland.
The Angel episode Through The Looking Glass is a direct title reference to Lewis Carroll’s sequel novel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In Through the Looking Glass, Alice steps through a mirror into an alternate reality, which is a parallel to the Angel Investigations crew entering Pylea through a portal.

Monty Python

British comedy team Monty Python have been referenced a few times in Buffy: In Life Serial, Andrew and Warren mimic Monty Python’s parrot sketch when watching Buffy’s adventures with the Mummy hand (Warren: “This mummy hand has ceased to be!” Andrew: “It is an ex-mummy hand!”).
In the episode Primeval, when Spike and Adam realize that Spike failed to do what Adam wanted, Spike says “Let’s not quarrel about who failed who.” This could be a nod to Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which Sir Lancelot slaughters many people at a party and the King says “Let’s not bicker and argue over who killed who.”
In Him, Dawn says, “Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition” and in Touched, Spike says, “The dreaded torture device, the comfy chair.” These are references to The Spanish Inquisition sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The inquisitors try to torture people by making them sit in the comfy chair.
In End of Days, Spike says, “the holy hand grenade or whatever the hell that is”. The “holy hand grenade” is what the knights throw at the killer rabbit in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
In Shells, Spike says he was, “flash fried in a pillar of fire, saving the world… I got better.” This is a reference to a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which one of the witch-accusing peasants shouts, “She turned me into a newt!… I got better.”
Additionally, Alan Tudyk (who played Wash in Firefly and Serenity) took over the role of Lancelot from Hank Azaria in the Monty Python musical, Spamalot, between June to November 2005.

Nancy Drew

In Primeval, Spike says to Buffy, “Look at little Nancy Drew”. He’s referring to fictional teen detective Nancy Drew, whose stories were written by Carolyn Keene. Many books, TV shows, films and video games of the character have been made since the first book was written in 1930. Nancy was mentioned previously in Choices. Faith caught Willow nosing through the Mayor’s Books of Ascension at City Hall and said, “you just can’t stop Nancy Drew-ing, can you?”

Promethea

In Primeval, Joss Whedon got the idea of the Scoobies combining their powers to make a super-Slayer to defeat Adam from the Promethea series by Alan Moore.

The Matrix

Joss Whedon is a big fan of the movie The Matrix, and it’s been referenced in Buffy a few times. In Superstar, Jonathan claims to have starred in The Matrix. In Never Leave Me, the butcher calls Andrew “Neo” because of the long, black leather coat he’s wearing (Keanu Reeves’s character Neo wore a similar coat in The Matrix). The final fight between Buffy and Adam in Primeval was clearly inspired by the movie too.

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.

Trojan Horse

In Primeval, Giles calls Adam’s scheme “The Trojan Horse”. This was a famous military manoeuver in Greek mythology. The city of Troy was at war with the Greeks. The Greeks declared a truce and delivered the horse to the Trojans as a peace offering, but the Greeks had hidden thirty of their best men inside of it. After being brought into the city and waiting for nightfall the warriors came out of the horse and led a surprise attack against Troy.

Waiting for Godot

In Enemies, Buffy says about Faith, “The girl makes Godot look punctual”. This is a reference to a famous play by Irish author Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, published in 1952.
During Primeval, Giles, Buffy, Willow and Xander meet at a crossroads after their falling out (in The Yoko Factor). They learn that Spike played them, and try to accept this as the reason for the words that were spoken. They all talk quickly about moving on, and then the camera pans out to show the four of them standing stock still. They do not move. In Waiting for Godot, Estragon and Vladimir repeatedly agree to leave, yet, so says the famous stage direction, “They do not move”. This stasis is directly referenced by this shot of the four protagonists unable to move.

Seen at 08.06 minutes:

When Anya comes to visit Xander, his blanket repositions itself several times.

Seen at 09.40 minutes:

As Buffy walks through the passage to find Adam, the brown bag she is carrying is under her left arm on the side and front views, but when we see her from behind, it’s still hooked over her left shoulder, though the whole of the bag is behind her arm.

Seen at 27.33 minutes:

During the first fight sequence, we see a soldier flipped over a railing into The Pit by a demon. He lands on a giant, metallic-plastic-covered cushion that rises around him like a big pillow - giving away that it’s actually a stunt mat.

Seen at 33.29 minutes:

How could Riley pull out the chip so easily, especially if it was lodged behind his heart?

Seen at 38.10 minutes:

When Buffy pulls Adam’s uranium core out, she holds it horizontally. In the next cut, she’s holding it vertically, and then horizontally again.