Episode 8.
airdate: 28 Apr 1997.
I don't even remember this one based on the title alone. Ohh, the one where an internet predator (in the Buffy world, a demon trapped in the internet gets unleashed) preys on Willow. This is so not a thing Willow would do...chat with an unknown boy online? Well, ok, maybe. She becomes so different after she comes out and gets witchy.
Jenny Calendar is introduced. How old is she? She looks really young. Googling: she was only 27 here; the same age as Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia). How old is Willow? 24?! I thought she was younger at the beginning of the show! She looks 15. OMG, Nicolas Brendon (Xander) is freakin' 26 at the beginning of the series!! So, Sarah Michelle Gellar is the only one even close to highschool age. That's so weird.
Xander is wearing a Porn Star shirt! Remember those? How come those were ok to wear back in the '90s, but you couldn't wear a shirt with Marilyn Manson's face on it? Weird.
OMG, they just showed a 1997 laptop! It was huge! It had like a normal-sized disc-drive and floppy-disc area too, like a full-sized computer! So funny!
I wonder when they decided Willow would be gay. Most plot progressions in Buffy are meticulously thought-out, but I really don't think they knew about Willow yet. She's so unquestioningly hetero at the beginning. But, I see how that can be explained away, because even lesbians would be attracted to Seth Green, and she is very outcasty and insecure at the beginning of the series...
Check out this yummy picture of Nicolas Brendon I just found!
The Giles/Jenny debate about books becoming obsolete and the fear of the internet of the mid-to-late '90s is almost cute now. I remember when my mom thought the internet was "evil" and wouldn't let us have it until probably 2000-ish.
"He's gone binary on us." -Buffy. The demon was trapped in a book and then scanned into the computer and is now trapped in the internet. That's actually pretty cool.
Giles immediately tells Jenny about a demon being in the internet. Immediate trust with another completely new character. Jenny the techno-pagan. Ha! Techno-pagan. Is that a real thing? Whoa, it is! It sounds so awesome! I wanna be a techno-pagan!
I am so bored with this episode. I like Buffy better when the continuity is more pervasive. I just gotta power through season one and then it'll truly get good.
Ooh, they're transcribing a spell into text and typing it into a computer in order to shut internet demon down.
The Giles/Jenny book vs. computer debate ends the ep with Giles explaining that he loves the smell of books ("books smell musty and rich") and that's why computers freak him out. I feel ya, Giles. I feel ya. He just took off his glasses! He's not cleaning them, though. He's wearing too much tweed to polish. What a letdown.
"Let's face it: none of us is ever going to have a normal happy relationship." -Buffy speaking to Willow and Xander. Yep, that's true. Xander ends up with an ex-demon...Buffy boinks vampires pretty much exclusively, and Willow dates a werewolf, then later loses her gf to death. God, I love this show!
