Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997) - 36 questions

Question: Does Seth Green play Oz-Wolf as well as regular Oz, or is it someone different?

Answer: In the episode Phases, Oz-Wolf was played by Keith Campbell, a stuntman who regularly doubles for Tom Cruise. I don't know about other episodes, but it seems unlikely that they'd choose not to use Seth Green in one episode, then change to using him to play the Oz-Wolf later on.

Question: We have seen in episodes flashbacks of how Spike was turned by Drusilla and how Angel was turned by Darla, but apart from him describing it, is there an episode in which we see Angel turning Dru?

Answer: I don't think so, no. There are episodes where we see Angelus interacting with the human Drusilla, but, to the best of my knowledge, we've never actually seen the moment of her change.

Question: In the title sequence (series 1 and 2, anyway), at one point the theme music has a squeal over the top of it and there's a shot of Buffy (or possibly Willow) holding her hand up against a blast of light. What episode is this from?

Answer: If this is the bit I think it is, it's from the episode "Witch" - the person in the shot is actually Catherine Madison, the villain of the episode. The shot used in the title sequence is different from what's seen in the episode - possibly an alternate take.

Question: Was the Angel spin-off created because it was time for the character to be written out of Buffy but Angel was too good a creation to ditch, or was the character written out because people thought a spin-off would be a better idea?

Answer: Joss Whedon claims to have had the idea for a spin-off series while watching David Boreanaz's performance in the late second season episode "I Only Have Eyes For You" - he began to feel that Boreanaz would be capable of carrying his own series. From that point on, taking Angel off to his own show was on Joss's mind and many of the events of the third season were written with this intention.

Question: Why did Sarah Michelle Gellar leave the show?

Answer: She wanted to devote more time to her movie career and her new husband Freddie Prinze Jr.

Question: What's the name of that website that i was on that had a list of every episode of buffy. I can't find it. Please help me.

Answer: There are several different websites. Tvtome.com is one that covers almost all television shows. Google will show many more results.

Question: I know that in "Fool for Love" Cecily is played by the same actress that plays Halfrek. So, when we see Hallie in "Older and Faraway" and she whispers "William," when she notices Spike, is this directly related to that? I know that names are often changed when becoming a Vengeance demon (example: Aud-Anya), so is Cecily the same character as Halfrek?

Answer: Yes. Rocha confirmed that her characters are the same in an interview.

Question: Can someone please explain how exactly a Watcher knows who the chosen one is? In the season 2 episode "What's my line" Kendra explains that her parents gave her away to her watcher when she was young because they believed it would be best for her. How did they know about the slayer mythos and how did they know Kendra could be one? I always thought that when a new slayer is born it could be anyone; and that was no discernible factor in who would be the next one to become the slayer.

Answer: From what we see in the series, certain girls are identifiable as potential Slayers - Kendra clearly fell into this category. The identification method is presumably mystical in nature, but the Watchers' Council are pretty effective at that sort of thing, so they're quite good at tracking down the potentials ahead of time. Not perfect, though - it does appear that Buffy herself may have slipped through the net - certainly she had no inkling of what she was until she'd already taken on the role of Slayer. It is possible, however, that this was actually cultural - an American family would hardly be likely to turn over their daughter to some strange man for 'training', so the Watchers might have chosen to keep an eye on her covertly, whereas some other cultures (like Kendra's Jamaican parents) might be more willing to believe.

Question: I haven't seen the majority of all the BtVS episodes, so I could have missed something, but in the last episode Giles states that there are other Hellmouths' if that's true, and there is only one slayer (before Buffy had all the potentials powers unlocked) then are all the other people that live on them screwed? What keeps vampires from running rampant and killing everyone?

Answer: Several factors restrict the demons besides the Slayer. The Watchers' Council is obviously much larger than it would need to be to simply guide the Slayer; much of their energy is directed toward gathering information for their own use against the demons. They have elite teams (seen in season 3) for Special Forces-style offensives. There are also innumerable witches and warlocks around the world, some of whom fight for good (like Giles' coven from the end of season 6) and all of whom would be attracted to the energies of the Hellmouth. Some demons like Whistler (end of season 2) exist to balance the forces of darkness with the forces of good and would handle their share as well. The existence of the Initiative (season 4) shows that the world's powerful elite are aware of the demon world to some extent and take measures to address it. Lastly, there are always some civilians who take part in the battle because they become aware of the existence of demons, like Kain from "Phases", Gunn's gang from Angel, and Wood from season 7. Obviously, there's a whole lot more than just the Slayer defending the world, but no one else can really match her firepower.

Question: Does anyone have any idea exactly how much in common the series is to the movie? As in what details changed, and do the events from the movie even transpire into the series?

Answer: The series followed on from the original script that Joss Whedon wrote, which was in turn radically different to the movie that was released - thus numerous references to Buffy burning down a building at her old school, which never happened in the movie. Basically, the only story that follows over is this: Buffy was a student at Hemory High, quite popular (she compares herself to Cordelia) until Merrick, her first Watcher, discovered her and told her her destiny. While fighting a group of vampires, Merrick ended up dead (according to Whedon, he was trapped by a group of them and was forced to kill himself to avoid being turned); Buffy later trapped the vampires in the school gym and burned it to the ground, resulting in her expulsion from Hemory and her move to Sunnydale.

Question: Is it ever explained how vampires can have sex when it is stated pretty explicitly that they don't have blood flowing around their bodies? I mean, I've studied biology and I hear it's pretty important for guys.

Answer: It's also stated pretty explicitly that vampires are dead, yet they're walking and talking, controlled by a demon inside of them, which could also control their sexual parts.

Question: One of the other questions about season seven mentions Sarah Michelle Gellar leaving the show, so they had to change the storyline and not look at Dawn's key-ness, or lack of. Was Sarah Michelle Gellar's leaving the reason they had to end it at season 7 or was there only 7 seasons planned? If it was ended prematurely, how many more seasons were they planning/hoping for?

Answer: Sarah leaving the show was one of many reasons it finished at the end of season seven, Joss did want to carry on with one of the other characters kind of like a spin off but he has as yet unable to get funding for it. Season 8 is going to be released but in comic book form, the title and date of release is not available yet but Joss is writing it.

Question: Donald Sutherland was in the Buffy movie, and Kristine Sutherland is in the TV series as Joyce. Was it intentional or just coincidence that two Sutherlands are involved in the Buffy world?

Answer: They are not related so put this down to just coincidence.

Question: Are the vampire prosthetics the same kind Joel Schumacher used in The Lost Boys?

Answer: There is no way to be positive as Schumacher has never addressed this issue publicly. I can tell you that there are no common special effects make-up personnel between the two productions.

Question: When a vampire sires a human, why is necessary for the human to drink some of the vampire's blood?

Answer: If all that was necessary was for a vampire to drink from a human, then every person the vampire fed from would rise as a vampire, resulting in colossal over-population. There has to be an exchange - the factors that make a vampire what they are have to pass into the newcomer - the only way to do this is through the blood.

Question: Which episodes (across both Buffy and Angel) featured flashbacks of Angel and Spike during the Boxer Rebellion?

Answer: The Buffy episode "Fool for Love", and the Angel episode "Darla".

Question: Was the process in which a vampire sires a human borrowed from Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula? Having seen that film recently, I noticed that, when Dracula sires Mina, the process was the same. Or was it taken from vampire mythology?

Answer: It is classic vampire mythology.

Question: Buffy supposedly killing Angel in Season 2, in the episode "Becoming part 2", when she impales him with a sword shortly after he gets his soul back. However, in BtVS you can only kill a vampire via wooden stakes, direct sunlight, holy water, and decapitation. Is this ever fully explained?

Answer: She's not "dusting" killing him. She's killing him in the sense that since it was his blood that opened Acathela's portal, it needs to be his blood that closes it, as well.

Question: Can the vampires in BtVS have their picture taken? I know in some other stories they can be. We know they don't show up in mirrors but I'm not sure if cameras were ever directly addressed.

Answer: It was addressed on Angel, and they can be photographed, just not well.