I Spy

The following scene between Andrew and Spike was cut from Touched:

Harry Groener

Harry Groener played the Mayor of Sunnydale - Richard Wilkins III. He was born in Germany in 1951. Harry has three Tony nominations for his stage work in Oklahoma, Cats and Crazy for You. He has also been in Dear John, The West Wing, Roswell, Malcolm in the Middle, The Drew Carey Show, Boston Public, Judging Amy, Charmed, Family Law, Just Shoot Me, Mad About You, Home Improvement, Star Trek: Voyager, Law & Order, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Enterprise and Remington Steele. His final Buffy episode was Touched.

Lance E. Nichols

Lance E. Nichols, who played the man who Buffy kicked out of the house in Touched. He has also been in Frailty, Last Rites, Snake Eyes, Serial Killer, Convicts, Cold Steel, The Drew Carey Show, NYPD Blue, Everybody Loves Raymond, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Matlock, Murder, She Wrote, Alien Nation and Twilight Zone.

Lisa Ann Cabasa

Lisa Ann Cabasa, who played an injured girl in Touched, played Tinga/X5-656/Penny Smith in Dark Angel and appeared in One Night Stand, Beverly Hills, 90210 and David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.

Principal Robin Wood

Robin Wood was Principal at the newly-rebuilt (and short-lived) Sunnydale High. Wood was the son of a Vampire Slayer named Nikki, who was killed by Spike in New York (seen in Fool For Love). He employed Buffy as a student counsellor at his school, though he knew she was really the Slayer. When he discovered that Spike was the one who killed his mother, he tried to kill him, but Spike overpowered him. Wood teamed up with the Scoobies to fight the final fight, which he survived. He was last seen charming Faith in Chosen.

Bombarama

The bomb which threatens the lives of Faith and the potential Slayers in the sewer in Touched, is the second explosion in season seven. Caleb planted a bomb in the Watcher’s Council In Never Leave Me. The countdown of the sewer bomb continues over the ‘executive producers’ credit screen.

Dawn’s magic

We learn in Touched that Dawn has been reading up on magic (”Hey, I’ve been reading this old Turkish spell book.”) This ties in with Conversations with Dead People when she perfomred a spell to help her mother.

Firecracker

In Graduation Day (Part 1) Faith mentions her childhood in Boston, where she describes herself as, unsurprisingly, a tough kid. The Mayor calls her a “firecracker” and she reveals that her mother used to call her that when she was younger. In Touched, the First Evil appears to Faith in the form of the Mayor, and calls her a firecracker again.

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.

Have a confrontation

When Faith in Buffy’s body flirts with Spike in Who Are You?, Spike says to her (believing her to be Buffy), “When I get rid of this chip me and you are gonna have a confrontation”. In a little bit of continuity, in season seven’s Touched, after his chip is removed, Spike and Faith fight about Buffy.

Hell of a woman

Spike tells Buffy that she’s “a hell of a woman” in Touched. Riley said the same thing to her in As You Were.

Passive-aggressive Buffy

After getting every inch of herself kicked by Caleb in her first two confrontations with him, Buffy takes a decidedly different tack when she confronts him for the third time in Touched. When she comes to the vineyard, alone (after her night with Spike), she makes no effort to fight Caleb, instead, she simply avoids his punches and kicks, and gets him to reveal the location of the scythe.

Now, granted, Buffy will eventually use violence and a weapon (the aforementioned scythe) to destroy Caleb, but one has to wonder if Joss Whedon was trying to make a point in the having Buffy react passively to Caleb’s assault, and, in so doing, succeed where she had failed so miserably before. The show received some measure of criticism for the fact that, when all was said and done, Buffy — no matter how bright and sensitive a woman she was — invariably resorted to violence when it came to defeating “evil”.

I would not be at all surprised if the scene at the vineyard in which Buffy outwits Caleb and retrieves the scythe without the use of violent force was a tacit reply to those who criticised the shows “violent solutions to problems” formula.

Heather Nova

The song that plays while everyone is having sex in Touched is ‘It’s Only Love’ by Heather Nova from the album ‘South’.

Willow’s Turkish spell

The translation of Willow’s Turkish spell to get the Bringer to talk is, (according to the script): “You are getting very sleepy. Very, very sleepy. I do not have a pocket watch but then again you do not have eyes.” The actual translation is: “Eyeless man, speak to us. The man without eyes, speak to us.”

Fray

The scythe which Buffy finds in Touched comes from the Slayer comic book called Fray, created by Joss Whedon. In the comic, future slayer Fray is using the scythe to fend off vampires, so it gets passed down through generations after Buffy has it.

Little Women

In Touched, the Mayor references Louisa May Alcott’s book Little Women: “Who was my favorite character in Little Women. Meg. I know! Most people guess Beth but Meg, she’s such a proper young lady. Remember when Jo burned her hair?”

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.

Rhodes scholarship

Anya mentions the Rhodes Scholarship in the episode Touched. It’s a scholarship which allows students to attend the University of Oxford.

Seen at 01.25 minutes:

The episode starts as a direct continuation from the previous episode (Empty Places). Anya’s hair was straight then but is curly now. This can be seen in the “previously on Buffy” section. When did she curl it?