Andrew’s antics

This conversation between Spike and Andrew was deleted from the episode Empty Places:

Andrew: “This one time, when I was in Sunday school, I woke up late, so my mom made me skip breakfast and I was really hungry, so I told the teacher I had to go to the bathroom, but I really broke into the supply closet and ate a whole package of communion wafers.”
Spike: “Yeah? Good on you, boy.”
Andrew: “But then I got sick for two days.”

Sick first

We see in Empty Places that Sarah Michelle Gellar’s voice has obviously been affected by a cold or flu. Interestingly, the First, in its favourite form of Buffy, has the same problem.

They cancelled Stargate

This line of Anya’s was deleted from Empty Places:

Justin Shilton

Justin played the cop named Munroe in Empty Places, and appeared in the Angel episodes ‘That Vision Thing‘ and ‘Billy’ as Billy Blim. He has also been in The Aviator, Paper Cut, 60 Seconds and Don’t Let Go.

Clem

Clem was a friendly, baggy-skinned demon who loved kitten poker, TV, movies and tasting food. He was first seen in Life Serial, at a poker game with Spike. Buffy entrusted him to look after Dawn when Willow went evil. In season seven’s Potential, Buffy took the potential Slayers to a demon bar where she got Clem to scare them.

Andrew’s pan pipes

In Empty Places, Giles says Andrew has a pan flute which he can use to summon demons. We saw this in Life Serial.

Clem’s car

Clem makes his final appearance on the show in Empty Places. He leaves town, driving a new red VW Beetle with the licence plate 4GCS913.

Cop thoughts

The way Willow alters the cop’s thoughts in Empty Places is reminiscent of Amy altering the teacher’s mind in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. Why does Willow use magic to get the police files anyway? It’s the kind of stuff she’d have got by computer hacking in the early days.

Football helmet

The football helmet that Dawn wears on Spike’s motorcycle in Bargaining (Part 2), is seen being worn by Andrew in season seven’s Empty Places. Andrew can be seen carrying the helmet in Touched.

Had him first

In Empty Places, Faith says of Anya, “Yeah, whenever she starts talking about getting all sweaty with Xander like that I just remind her I had him first. Shuts her right the hell up.” Faith and Xander had sex in The Zeppo.

Onion flower

Spike is obsessed with an onion flower served at the Bronze, which he mentions on several occasions. In Triangle, he says to Xander, “They have chicken wings, too. Also, a sort of a flower-shaped thing they make from an onion. It’s brilliant.” In Crush, he says to Buffy, “Especially since the flowering onion got remodeled off the sodding menu. It’s the only thing this place had going for it.” In Empty Places, Spike and Andrew have the following conversation about the onion flower:

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.

Shadow Valley

Caleb’s vineyard in season seven is called ‘Shadow Valley’. The name can be seen as the opposite to ‘Sunnydale’.

Spike’s bike

Spike takes one of the hellions motorbikes in Bargaining (Part 2). He can be seen riding it again in After Life, Seeing Red and Empty Places.

The mission’s what matters

Principal Wood and Buffy had the following exchange in Dirty Girls:

Buffy: “Some of these girls haven’t even been tested in battle.”
Robin: “Then, I guess, maybe you should test them… Remember, Buffy, the mission’s what matters.”

In the next episode, Empty Places, the Slayer decides to act upon his words, but Robin turns on her, leading to her being kicked out of the house.

Xander’s patch

Xander wears an eye patch when he is dressed as a pirate in All the Way. Xander’s eye was removed by Caleb in season seven’s Dirty Girls and he then had to wear an eye patch. He even references the costume when he’s in hospital in Empty Places: “Well, to go with the eye patch, to really complete the look. I think I still have that costume from Hallowe’en.”

Michelle Branch

Michelle Branch sings ‘Goodbye to You’ in the Bronze at the end of the episode Tabula Rasa. The song is taken from her platinum selling album ‘The Spirit Room’. The song was also played in the UPN promotion for the episode Empty Places. The lyrics are:

Nerf Herder

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme tune was written and performed by the band Nerf Herder. The band took their name from a line in The Empire Strikes Back where Princess Leia called Han Solo a “stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy looking nerf herder”. Joss Whedon said in his DVD commentary for Welcome to the Hellmouth that Alyson Hannigan brought the band to his attention by constantly playing their self-titled first album. Joss contacted them to compose Buffy’s title music.
Nerf Herder’s original recording of the Buffy theme tune had a point where the beat was lost slightly and it had to be re-recorded. The theme tune is available on the compilation Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album (1999, TVT Records). Nerf Herder’s song ‘Vivian’ (from How to Meet Girls, 2000) played during the episode Who Are You? when Faith (in Buffy’s body) danced at the Bronze.
The band appeared onstage in Empty Places when Faith, the Potentials and Dawn went dancing there, playing ‘Rock City News’ and ‘Mr. Spock’. Kennedy said in that episode, “What kind of band plays during an apocalypse?” to which Dawn replied, “I think this band might actually be one of the signs”.

Not for thee

Spike and Andrew check out the mission in Empty Places. The inscription on the wall there reads, “It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield.” This refers to the scythe Buffy finds in Touched.

Don Quixote

In Empty Places, Giles says “Windmills” to Buffy. This is a reference to Don Quixote where Quixote fights a windmill, believing it is a huge monster. Giles is essentially telling Buffy that he believes there is no reason to go to the vineyard as there is nothing real to fight there.

Harry Potter

The popular book series Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling is referenced a few times in Buffy. In Real Me, Dawn says, “I’m not going to Hogwarts”. This is a reference to Hogwarts is the school for wizards that Harry attends.
In Lessons, Willow wonders why Giles went “all Dumbledore on me”, referring to the Head Master at Hogwarts school. In Bring on the Night, Andrew says, “An evil name should be something like Lex or Voldemort.” He’s referring to Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor and Voldmort, who appears in the Harry Potter books.
In Potential, Andrew plays with the snakeskin for the spell, and says “at your ssservice, Missss Rosenberg, sssir”. This is also a reference to Harry Potter - Harry can speak to snakes, and does so in film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which is when the snake says “at your ssservice, Mister Potter, sssir”.
In Empty Places, while Anya is giving her talk about the Turok-Han in the basement, Kennedy goes up to the kitchen where Faith asks, “Shouldn’t you be at Hogwarts?”
In Belonging, Lorne says “This reading room - to die for. Raked stage, rocking chair, fabulous colours. I’m tempted to just show up tomorrow morning with Harry Potter”.

Jaws

Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark movie Jaws is alluded to a few times in Buffy.
In Go Fish, Xander says, “This was no boating accident” - which is a line from the first Jaws movie.
In Graduation Day (Part 1), Xander and Giles open a page of a book to see a giant monster they may have to face. Xander says, “We’re going to need a bigger boat”, which was the phrase used by Brody (Roy Scheider) in the movie when he first sees the size of the great white shark he’s hunting.
In the episode Anne, Oz suggests that Willow uses the phrase “This time it’s personal” as it’s a “classic”. He’s quoting from the fourth Jaws movie.
Anya makes an explicit reference to the movie in End of Days when she suggests killing demons with gas cylinders, “They’d only be useful if something big was attacking, and then we could shove one down their throat and blow ‘em up like Roy Scheider did with that shark in Jaws.”
In Empty Places, Xander mentions the abysmal third movie in the Jaws series, made in 1983. After he loses his eye, Xander says, “Oh, you know what the best part is? No one will ever make me watch Jaws 3-D again.”
In Soul Purpose, whilst dissecting Angel in his dream, Fred holds up a Mexican license plate saying, “Hmm. Came up the gulf stream, huh?” This is a reference to the first Jaws movie,in which Hooper opens the dead shark and says, “Ah. Just like I thought. He came up with the Gulf Stream - from southern waters” before holding up a licence plate from Louisiana.

The Wizard of Oz

The movie The Wizard of Oz, made in 1939, in mentioned several times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Buffy refers to the hyena-possessed bullies in The Pack as the “winged monkeys”. The phrase comes from the scene in The Wizard of Oz in which the Wicked Witch of the West sends her loyal winged monkeys to collect Dorothy and the ruby slippers. In Flooded, Andrew says he trained flying demon monkeys to disrupt the school play.
In Nightmares, Billy Palmer awakens from his coma and, seeing the Scoobies around his bed, says, “I had the strangest dream. And you were in it, and you”. This is a reference to when Dorothy wakes in her bed and sees her friends around her.
In What’s My Line? (Part 2), Xander says, “Welcome my little pretties”. In The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West called Dorothy her “pretty”.
In The Yoko Factor, Willow says, “If ever a whiz there was.” This is a line from the song in the film ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’ / ‘We’re Off To See the Wizard’.
The episode No Place Like Home takes it’s name from Dorothy clicking her heels together and repeating the phrase, “There’s no place like home” in order to get back to her Kansas home. A similar reference to this phrase is in the Angel episode There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb.
In Grave, Willow says, “Fly my pretty…fly!” when she sends her ball of fire to find Andrew and Jonathan. This is what the wicked witch says to her flying monkeys when she sends them off. In Empty Places, Rona says, “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.” This is from a song in The Wizard of Oz.
The title of the Angel episode Over the Rainbow is another reference to The Wizard of Oz, in which the land of Oz is said to be ‘over the rainbow’. In that episode, Cordelia clicks her heels three times (as Dorothy does in the film) and says, “Worth a shot.”

Seen at 09.03 minutes:

When she’s in the basement, Kennedy has no scars on her face but when she goes upstairs and talks to Faith, there are some cuts above her left eye.

Seen at 18.05 minutes:

Giles shows Spike the photo of the mission. Spike then leaves straight away, without being told where the mission was.