Continuity mistake: When Buffy and Riley are in Buffy's room, Buffy holds Riley's hand with both of her hands and says to him, "Is there anything I can do?" But in the following shot she is holding Riley's hand with only one of her hands.
Continuity mistake: In the scene near the end when Faith is putting Joyce's lipstick on in the mirror and taunting her, it is obvious that the make-up department forgot to put Faith's tattoo on her upper arm. It's obvious if you watch back and forth between the mirror and the shot of Faith standing and turning, there is no evidence of a tattoo that has been established Faith has in the previous season.
Continuity mistake: When Adam enters the cave and is talking to the vampires and then pulls the head off of one of them, watch as he falls, his head is still visible when he is falling out of frame. (00:15:25)
Continuity mistake: After the group find out Jonathon cast a spell, Willow is holding a book to her chest. But in the side shot, the book is resting on her stomach and then back on her chest a few shots later.
Continuity mistake: When Oz turns back into a werewolf, he chases after Tera. She hits him with a chair and he falls to the ground and passes out. We then see The Initiative show up and learn that Riley has shot Oz with a dart (it's sticking out of Oz's side). But two shots earlier the dart wasn't there.
Continuity mistake: When Oz shows up at Buffy and Willow's dormitory, Willow has a lump or a pimple above the left corner of her mouth. It disappears later in the episode when she's talking to Buffy about her feelings for Tara and it returns at the end when she and Oz are in his van.
Continuity mistake: Buffy gets a massive scar on her head from fighting with Adam. This scar changes size at least twice throughout the rest of the episode.
Continuity mistake: We see Xander lying in bed with his chest and stomach uncovered. But when Anya comes in and starts talking to him about checking in at the unemployment office, his bed sheets are suddenly pulled up covering his chest and stomach.
Continuity mistake: When the group is debriefing about their first Dracula encounter at Giles', Anya is sitting on the sofa with her hands crossed on her lap. In the next shot she has her arms straight with the palms of her hands on the sofa cushion, fingers towards the back. (00:11:25)
Continuity mistake: After they finish dinner, Joyce says to Buffy that she'll have to get used to her not being around anymore because it gets so quiet. After she says this, her plate disappears.
Continuity mistake: The morning after Buffy is bitten by Dracula, her house address can be seen as "1313" instead of "1630."
Continuity mistake: When Xander is shot by the demon's lightning rod, he falls on a heap of black trash bags. When he is helped to stand up, different bags, pink and white ones, are visible instead. (00:11:30)
Continuity mistake: When Buffy, Willow, and Dawn are discussing Riley's problems in the bedroom, Dawn's hair shifts from over her shoulder in the long shots to behind her shoulder in the closeups. (00:16:45)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Willow and Tara are at the old High School looking for Riley, Willow uses magic to light up the hallway. Tara then asks Willow how she did it. As Willow tells her that she taught her, she tucks her hair behind her right ear. Then after Tara says, "I taught you teeny Tinker Bell light", Willow's hair is hanging back down over her right ear.
Continuity mistake: When Spike is stalking Buffy in front of her house, she somehow senses him and pulls him out of behind the tree in front of her porch. While he is being pulled out, he has no cigarette in his mouth. However in the next close-up shot, he has one (which he then quickly throws away). (00:29:55)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the episode Buffy is thrown against a 'No Trespassing' sign and the sign is all crinkled, the vampire also punches it but later in the episode we see the same sign except that it looks brand new.
Continuity mistake: When Riley is dressing Buffy's wound, it is much further to her left side than where she was actually staked, which was more central on her stomach. (00:00:35 - 00:02:40)
Chosen 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.
Tailkinker ★