Marti on Spike’s beating

Marti Noxon said about the episode Dead Things:

Sarah on season six

In an interview in March 2003, Entertainment Weekly asked Sarah Michelle Gellar: “You’ve mentioned how much you disliked the sixth season. Why was that? And how did you feel about Buffy’s depression, and her sexual obsession with Spike?” Her answer was:

Tom’s own stunts

Tom Lenk (Andrew) mentioned in an interview that he inadvertently did his own stunts in a couple of episodes:

Amelinda Smith

Amelinda played Warren’s girlfriend Katrina. Amelinda has also been in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Scrubs, Freaky Links and Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. She has a son (born in December 1999) called Cogeian Sky Embry with her (now ex) husband, actor Ethan Embry (Can’t Hardly Wait, Sweet Home Alabama). The two divorced in 2002. Amelinda appeared in three episodes of Buffy in total - I Was Made to Love You, Dead Things and Villains.

Bernard Addison

Bernard Addison, who played a cop in Dead Things, appeared in the Buffy spin-off show Angel as “Root Monster” in the episode ‘Couplet‘. He also played a waiter in a couple of episodes of Frasier.

Rock Reiser

Rock Reiser, who played the desk sergeant at the Police Station in Dead Things, has also appeared in Never Been Kissed, Letters from a Killer, Charmed, ER, Melrose Place and Northern Exposure.

Katrina

Katrina was Warren’s girlfriend who dumped him when she discovered he had a robot sex toy in I Was Made to Love You. She built monorails that move magnetically, which is one of the things that attracted Warren to her (it takes all kinds). Katrina and Warren met again in Dead Things and Warren accidentally killed her, after performing a spell on her to make her his slave. Willow showed a vision of Katrin to Warren in Villains.

Burba weed

Spike says in All the Way that he likes to put burba weed in his blood to make it “all hot and spicy.” We heard in Hush that he likes to crumble up Weetabix in blood as it “gives it a little texture.” Whilst in his crypt in Dead Things, Spike puts some kind of herb in a glass of blood which could be burba weed.

I have to…

In The Gift, when Buffy realises she has to jump of the tower, she says “Dawny I have to…” This line is echoed in Dead Things when Buffy realises she needs to go to the police after she thinks she has killed Katrina. While in Dawn’s room she says “Dawny I have to…”

Jonathan’s spells

In Dead Things, Jonathan uses his magic bone, which first appeared in the episode Life Serial. He also uses his shape-shifting spell from Life Serial to turn himself into Katrina.

Killer in Buffy

In Dead Things, Buffy believes that she’s killed a human, which echoes the earlier episode Ted, where she killed her mother’s boyfriend, who turned out to be a robot.

More Janice

We met Dawn’s friend Janice Penshaw in the episode All the Way. In that episode, Dawn and Janice lied to their families so they could go out on dates with what turned out to be vampires. Janice is mentioned in several more episodes. In Doublemeat Palace, Dawn mentions that her friend Janice has a sister who is a lawyer. In Dead Things, Dawn tells Buffy she’s sleeping over at Janice’s house, but Buffy says she isn’t falling for that again. In Normal Again, Dawn says, “I’m going over to Janice’s where they actually like having me around.” In Seeing Red, Dawn tells Spike, “I’m sleeping over at Janice’s.”

More singing?

In Dead Things, Buffy sees Xander and Dawn dancing and asks, “Is there singing?! … Are we singing again?” This is a reference to the musical episode, Once More, With Feeling.

No spells yet

Willow tells Tara in Dead Things that she has done no spells for thirty-two days. She gave up magic after endangering Dawn in Wrecked. Willow had a small lapse in Doublemeat Palace after Amy gave her a spell though Willow didn’t want it.

Bush

‘Out Of This World’ by Bush is the music playing as Buffy stands outside Spike’s crypt, trying to decide whether to enter in Dead Things. The lyrics are:

When we die we go into the arms of those who remember us.
We are home now out of our heads out of our minds.
Out of this world out of our time.
Are you drowning or waving? I just want you to save me.
Should we try to get along. Just try to get along.
So we move we change by the speed of the choices that we make.
And the barriers are all self made. That’s so retrograde.
Are you drowning or waving? I just need you to save me.
Should we try to get along. Just try to get along.
I am alive. I am awake to the trials and confusion we create.
There are times when I feel we’re about to break.
When there’s too much to say.
We are home now out of our heads out of our minds.
Out of this world out of this time.
Out of this time. Out of this time.

Red and the Red Hots

‘Boh Wah Boo Wah’ by Red and the Red Hots plays at the Bronze when Anya, Xander and Willow are dancing in Dead Things.

Cerebral Dampener

In Dead Things, Warren, Andrew and Jonathan invented a ‘Cerebral Dampener’ so that they could control any woman they desired. Warren used it to make his ex-girlfriend Katrina his sex slave, but he killed her when it’s effect wore off and she tried to leave. The cerebral dampener was made using a musk gland of a Homja-Maleev demon and the spell “Doma voluntatem, libera cupidinem, erumpe, ignem, excita”. The nerds use red tinted glasses to protect themselves from the dampener.

Jarvlen Flesh Eater

Jarvlen Flesh Eater is a demon that eats human flesh. It was never seen on screen but mentioned in Dead Things by the Trio. Warren wanted Andrew to summon one to dispose of Katrina’s body, but Andrew refused, as the Jarvlen are very difficult to control.

Rwasundi demon

Rwasundi are very rare demons whose presence in our dimension causes temporal fluctuations. Being around them for more than a few seconds can give people hallucinations. The Trio used these demons to make Buffy think that she had killed Katrina in Dead Things. Anya says they are, “very rare. Its presence in our dimension causes a sort of … localized temporal disturbance… Human perception is based on a linear chronology. Being exposed to the Rescindi for more than a few seconds can cause vivid hallucinations. And a slight tingly scalp.”

The Brekenkrieg Grimoire

Tara uses the book The Brekenkrieg Grimoire to research Buffy’s resurrection in Dead Things. She discovers that Buffy didn’t come back “wrong”. She says, “Shifting you out of… from where you were, funnelling your essence back into your body, it altered you on a basic molecular level. Probably just enough to confuse the censors or whatever in Spike’s chip. But it’s all just surfacey physical stuff. It wouldn’t have any more of an effect than… a bad sunburn.”

David Lynch

In Dead Things, Buffy says, “So that’s why time went all David Lynch?” Lynch is the director of many films including Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Dune, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, The Straight Story and, my personal favourite, Mullholland Drive. He also created the cult TV show Twin Peaks. Lynch has a very distinctive style. He has an unusual way of portraying time, framing shots and using sound.
The season four episode Wild at Heart is the same name as another Lynch movie.

New Kids On The Block

In Dead Things, Buffy says of her bedroom, “I think the New Kids On The Block posters are starting to date me.” She’s referring to the American boy band, who formed in 1984, and split up by 1994.

Soul Train

In Dead Things, Buffy tells the Scoobies she doesn’t want to dance, saying, “I think I’ll catch the next Soul Train out”. Soul Train (1970-) is a long-running American TV show featuring mainly R&B, soul and hip hop performers.

Star Wars

George Lucas’s Star Wars films are a cult phenomenon. They are referenced numerous times in the Buffyverse. The original trilogy included the movies Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return Of The Jedi (1983) and the movies The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005) were made later on.

• In When She Was Bad, when Xander and Willow play Guess the Movie from the tag line (Willow: “Use the Force, Luke.”,
  Xander: “Do I even have to dignify that with a guess?”)
• In School Hard, Spike told Angel that, “You were my Yoda!” Yoda was the ancient Jedi master who became the mentor and teacher for both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker.
• A visual reference to Star Wars can be seen in The Zeppo, when Xander runs into the corridor and runs back out with the gang members chasing him. Han Solo does the same thing in Star Wars.
• In Choices, Buffy says that Faith has turned to ‘the dark side’.
• In The Freshman, Xander confuses the Star Wars Jedi code quoted by Yoda in The Phantom Menace. (”Hate leads to anger…no wait…Fear leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side”). Also in that episode, the old frat house that the vampires are holed up in is the Psi Theta house. If you write those two greek letters together, and pronounce them together, you get Sith.
• In Fear, Itself, Xander says to Oz, “Sensing a disturbance in the Force, Master?”
• Buffy using the chain to choke Sobek the snake-demon in Shadow is reminiscent of Princess Leia killing Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi.
• In Forever, Ben calls Glory’s minions “Jawa rejects” after the small hooded and robed creatures in Star Wars.
• In Life Serial, Andrew paints a Death Star from Star Wars on the side of the gang’s van. It’s the Empire’s revised design from Return of the Jedi, which Jonathan says is flawed.
• In the episode Two To Go, Andrew says, “We’ve got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds us all into to Jawa burgers and not one of you bunch has the Midichlorians to stop her.” These are all Star Wars references: Darth is a title given to a Sith Warrior (such as Darth Vader); Jawas are the hooded creatures who live on Tatooine, and Midichlorians are micro-organisms which exist in all living things. Andrew says, “Laugh it up, Fuzzball” which is a quote from Star Wars. Andrew also later says in Two To Go, “…in a galaxy far, far away” - yet another Star Wars reference.
• In All the Way, Tara and Willow see a couple dressed as Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker kissing in the Bronze. Willow asks, “Do they know they’re brother and sister?”
• In Smashed, we see that the three nerds own a mint condition (though out of its packaging) 1979 Boba Fett action figure. Though Boba Fett was first introduced in The Empire Strikes Back (made in 1980), the earliest Boba Fett figure was made in 1979, before the film was released.
• In Dead Things, Jonathan and Andrew play fight with green light sabres.
• In Entropy, Warren calls Jonathan “Padawan”.
• In Conversations with Dead People, Jonathan and Warren have the following conversation: Warren: “Come on, “If you strike me down…” Andrew: “I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine…That boy is our last hope.” Warren: “No, there is another.” These are all quotes from Star Wars.
• In Potential, Xander says to Andrew, “Say Skywalker, and I smack you.” He is, of course, referring to Star Wars‘ Luke Skywalker.
• In Showtime, Andrew says, “I’m bored. Episode I bored.” He’s referring to George Lucas’s disappointing movie Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
• In Never Leave Me, Warren/The First says, “I’m like Obi Wan”. He also says to Andrew, “We’re right in the trench, and the exhaust port’s in sight.” This is a reference to the scene in Star Wars in which the Death Star is under attack.
• In Bring on the Night, Andrew says, “I’m like Vader in the last 5 minutes of Jedi with redemptive powers minus a redemptive struggle of epic redemption which chronicles…” He’s referring to the last scenes of the final Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi.
• In Storyteller, there are two framed Star Wars comics on the wall in Andrew’s opening scene.
• In Dirty Girls, Andrew says, “But like so many tragic heroes, Faith was seduced by the lure of the dark side.”

Seen at 04.42 minutes:

When Warren is talking at the beginning of the episode about the cerebral dampener, there is a piece of hair hanging down on his forehead. In the next shot the hair has gone, without Warren moving.

Seen at 08.47 minutes:

Why is Katrina in Sunnydale again? She doesn’t live there, and was only there in I Was Made to Love You as she was staying with Warren for Spring Break.