Alternatives for the show

There are a few alternative Chosen scripts on the internet with many differences, including: Xander dying to save Dawn; Anya living to see the end and Dawn being the third Slayer. In the alternatives, there are many extra guest stars including Kendra. Sarah Michelle Gellar told Entertainment Weekly in 2003 that she knew of Joss’s grand plan for the show:

Amber in the credits

Amber Benson became ‘Amber Benson as Tara’ in the guest credits from the episode Buffy vs Dracula. She was a member of the main cast credit montage for only one episode - Seeing Red, in which her character was killed.

Born of Joyce

The following lines were deleted from Buffy vs Dracula:

Dracula’s defeat

The following was an alternative ending to Buffy vs Dracula:

Emma’s promotion

Emma Caulfield was listed with the regulars in the script for the first time in New Moon Rising, though she was not yet added to the opening credits. She had signed a contract confirming this though. Emma was finally added to the opening credits montage in Buffy vs Dracula.

Freddie Prinze Jr

Sarah Michelle Gellar married actor Freddie Prinze, Jr. on September 1, 2002, in Mexico. It is rumoured that Freddie was originally penned in to play Dracula. I can’t find any true evidence for this except for an old interview with Joss Whedon, of which I can’t find the original source. Joss says in the interview:

He goes on to say that the reason Freddie didn’t take the part was, “Fred’s got movie offers coming out his ears”. This may be Joss’s usual tongue-in-cheek style of being interviewed, so the rumour is still unconfirmed.

Edward James Gage

Edward James Gage, who played one of Dracula’s movers in Buffy vs Dracula, played ‘Mordar the Bentback’ in the Angel episode ‘Judgement’

Jennifer Slimko

Jennifer Slimko, who played one of the vampire girls who toyed with Giles in Buffy vs Dracula, also played a Romanian woman in the Angel episode ‘Five By Five‘.

Michelle Trachtenberg

Michelle played Dawn Summers. Michelle started acting in commercials when she was just three years old. She grew up in New York but moved to Los Angeles. She appeared for two years on the soap All My Children as Lily Montgomery, alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar. Michelle starred in the movies Harriet the Spy, Richie Rich’s Christmas Wish and Inspector Gadget before landing the role as Dawn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She has since been in the movies Eurotrip, The Ice Princess and Mysterious Skin and the TV show Six Feet Under, and the TV movie The Dive From Clausen’s Pier (with Sean Maher from Firefly).

Rudolf Martin

Rudolf Martin, who played Dracula in the episode Buffy vs Dracula, previously worked with Sarah Michelle Gellar on All My Children. He played Anton Lang in the soap. The two portrayed lovers, then enemies. Rudolf also played Dracula again in 2000 in TV Series Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula. The Buffy credits for Rudolf were misspelled and his name was spelt as ‘Rudolph’. Rudolf has also appeared in Bloodlines, The Scoundrel’s Wife, Firedog, Swordfish, Punks, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Enterprise. He played ‘Jonathan, Martin Belkin’s Lookalike’ in 24.

Scott Berman

Scott Berman, who played one of Dracula’s movers in Buffy vs Dracula, played ‘Vendor’ in the Angel episode ‘Blind Date‘.

Dracula

Dracula was a famous vampire who visited Sunnydale in search of Buffy. He had the ability to change his shape: we saw him take the form of a bat, a wolf and some mist in his only appearance in Buffy (Buffy vs Dracula). He had a strong hypnotic effect on his victims, who he wanted to feel a connection with. Buffy allowed him to drink from her. She eventually managed to overcome her feelings and tried to kill the vampire, though he was able to avoid being staked by turning into mist.
Dracula is probably the most famous vampire in literature and film. Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was written in 1897. There are many similarities between the novel and the Buffy Dracula. The three sisters whom Giles encounters appear in the book, and Dracula has the ability to enthral mortals (here it is Xander receiving the treatment). In the novel the character Renfield was enthralled by the vampire, and he ate flies and spiders, just as Xander does in the episode.

Beach

We discovered in Go Fish that Sunnydale has a beach. That episode and the season five opener Buffy vs Dracula are the only episodes where the Scoobies were seen on the beach.

Becoming a Slayer again

The appearance of the first, original Slayer in Restless raises some interesting points not yet explored in the show. The episode is essentially an epilogue for the forthcoming season, and in the next episode (Buffy vs Dracula), Buffy tells Giles that she wants to find out more about what it is to be a Slayer, which is the beginning of Buffy’s more spiritual period where she finally accepts that the Slayer is part of her and she can’t fight it.

Buffster

Xander calls Buffy “Buffster” in the episodes Dead Man’s Party, Revelations, Buffy vs Dracula and Tough Love.

Buffy’s moving scar

A couple of people have stated that Buffy’s bite mark from Dracula in Buffy vs Dracula moves from one side of her neck to the other. In one scene we see her reflection in a mirror which is why the scar seems to have moved.

Buffy’s scars

In Graduation Day (Part 2), Buffy allows Angel to feed from her, so that he can live (or rather, continue to be undead). The scars from this encounter can be seen in future episodes. It’s not the first nor last time that she allows a vampire to drink from her. Dracula (in Buffy vs Dracula) and The Master (in Prophecy Girl) have also bitten our Slayer.

Butt monkey

In the episode Buffy vs Dracula, Xander says, “I’m finished being everybody’s butt monkey!” In the episode Villains, whilst Jonathan and Andrew are in jail, Jonathon says that a fellow prisoner wants to make him his “butt monkey”.

Dawn’s creation

When was Dawn created by the monks? There’s a suggestion in Buffy vs Dracula that it was as late as during that episode, as Joyce comments (as she and Buffy eat alone) that the house will get quiet when Buffy goes back to college.

Giving up on men

Joyce apparently knows nothing about Willow and Tara’s relationship in Buffy vs Dracula as she says, “Oh, when you girls are older you’ll understand. It’s hard to date. Sometimes you just…feel like giving up on men altogether.” She apparently finds out before the next episode as Dawn mentions in her diary in Real Me that, “I told Mom one time I wished they’d [Willow and Tara] teach me some of the things they do together. And then she got really quiet and made me go upstairs.”

Jelly doughnuts

Riley offers Buffy a jelly doughnut whilst at Giles’ house in Buffy vs Dracula. In The Zeppo we discovered that both Buffy and Giles love jelly doughnuts.

Knocked out

In Buffy vs Dracula, Giles falls into Dracula’s basement, where he is surrounded by the sisters. After he falls he says, “Good show, Giles. At least you didn’t get knocked out for a change.” In A New Man, Giles says he has a “tendency to get knocked on the head”. He’s not kidding. Giles has been knocked unconscious in the episodes:

• The Witch (by vampires who want to raise the Master again)
• Never Kill a Boy on the First Date (by Andrew Vorba in the crematorium)
• Prophecy Girl (by Buffy, to stop him from trying to help her)
• When She Was Bad (by the vampires attempting to raise the Master)
• Passion (by Angelus, after Giles attacks him for killing Jenny)
• Becoming (Part 1) (by a group of vampires who take him to Angelus)
• Beauty and the Beasts (shot with a tranquilizer gun)
• Homecoming (by Lyle Gorch and Candy).
• Revelations (by Gwendolyn Post, in his office)
• Gingerbread (by the MOO mob as they come to take Buffy away. When Cordy wakes him up shes says, “I came over here to tell Buffy to stop this craziness and found you all unconscious… again. How many times have you been knocked out, anyway? I swear, one of these times, you’re going to wake up in a coma.”)
• Earshot (he doesn’t get knocked out in this episode - but he does walk into a tree in a very amusing manner)
• Flooded (by the Mfashnik demon as it breaks ino Buffy’s house. Giles later says, “Well, I know I’m back in America now. I’ve been knocked unconscious”).

Slayage alternatives

Buffy shows some ingenious ways of killing demons, and the gang have some great suggestions too. Here’s a list of alternative ways of killing, seen or mentioned on the show:

• Hummus and Ebola: In Graduation Day (Part 2), Oz suggests, “We attack the Mayor with hummus.” Cordelia later suggests, “No, we’ll get a box with the Ebola virus and… or it doesn’t even have to be real. We can just get a box that says Ebola on it and… chase him! … With the box!”
• Drowning and licking: In Something Blue, When Spike’s in the bath-tub at Giles’ apartment, he yells, “Passions is on! Timmy’s down the bloody well, and if you make me miss it, I’ll…” Giles yells back at him “You’ll do what? Lick me to death?” In the same episode, Anya and Xander drown a Pargo demon to kill it (the only way, apparently).
• Nuzzling: In Buffy vs Dracula, Riley says to Giles about his being found with Dracula’s ladies: “You were gonna nuzzle ‘em to death?”
• Rocket launcher: In Him, Buffy attempts to kill Principal Wood with a rocket launcher, something she killed the Judge with in Innocence.
• Puppets: In Get It Done, Xander says, “Puppets! That’s it. The First hates puppets. Now if we can just airlift Kermit, Fozzy the Bear and Miss Piggy into town, The First will be a-runnin’.”

Syphilis

Xander’s bout of syphilis in Pangs is mentioned again in Once More, With Feeling when Anya sings, “His penis got diseases from a Chumash tribe” in the song ‘I’ll Never Tell’. In Buffy vs Dracula, Xander says that he’s is tired of being “the guy who gets the funny syphilis.”

You think you know

In Buffy vs Dracula, Dracula said to Buffy, “You think you know…what you are, what’s to come. You haven’t even begun.” Tara said almost exactly the same thing to the Slayer in her dream in Restless, “You think you know…what’s to come…what you are. You haven’t even begun.”

Vertical Horizon

The song playing when Buffy and Riley play with a football on the beach in Buffy vs Dracula is ‘Finding Me’ by Vertical Horizon, from their album Everything You Want.

Rooted in darkness

Dracula mentions that Buffy’s power is “rooted in darkness” in Buffy vs Dracula. In the season seven episode Get It Done, we discover that the Shadowmen created the First Slayer by using the energy of a demon.

Anne Rice

Anne Rice was the author of a popular best-selling series of vampire novels, including Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned. In School Hard, Spike says to Angel, “People still fall for that old Anne Rice routine?”
In Buffy vs Dracula, Buffy tells Dracula, “I’ve fought more than a couple pimply, overweight vamps that called themselves Lestat.” She’s referring to the main charismatic vampire character of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles.
The story in Lies My Parents Told Me of Spike siring his mother as a vampire may come from Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. In the book, the character Lestat sired his mother Gabrielle, because she was ill and to prevent her from dying.
When Darla tries to get a vampire to sire her in The Trial, they have the following conversation:

Darla: “Weird?! It’s mythic!”
Shempire: “No, you been reading too much Anne Rice, lady. You got no idea how this thing works.”

In Origin, Connor asks Angel, “Do you spend all your time making out with other vampires, like in Anne Rice novels?”

John Wayne Gacy, Jr

In Buffy vs Dracula, Buffy says “‘killer’ just sounds so…like I paint clowns or something”, which is a reference to serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr., who had a hobby of painting clowns.

Sesame Street

Xander says in Buffy vs Dracula, “where’d you get that accent, Sesame Street?”, and he impersonates Count von Count from the children’s show. In Disharmony, the following conversation refers to the character Big Bird, from Sesame Street:

Cordy: “Whoa. Big bird”
Gunn: “Big Bird?”
Cordelia: “Not the muppet, dumbass…”

The Horse Whisperer

In Buffy vs Dracula, Willow says, “Just call me the Computer Whisperer”, which is a reference to the book The Horse Whisperer, by Nicholas Evans. A movie of the novel starring Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas and Scarlett Johannsson was made in 1998. Interestingly, Anthony Stewart Head’s partner Sarah Fisher is an animal psychologist and practiser of the ‘Tellington Touch’. In 2003, Anthony and Sarah created the first TTEAM Centre in the UK. They also produced a documentary shown on ITV called “Talking to Animals”, highlighting Sarah’s work with animals.

Seen at 06.35 minutes:

After Buffy and Joyce have eaten dinner, Joyce has a plate in front of her. The plate then disappears and is replaced by a large bowl which had previously been a few feet away.

Seen at 38.17 minutes:

When Buffy has a heart to heart with Giles at the end of Buffy vs Dracula, she is wearing a gold chain around her waist. It disappears when she stand ups and we see her from behind, then appears again.