Factual error: When Willow is chatting with "Malcolm," she says she has to sign off the chat program after she gets nervous. However, all she does to "sign off" of the chat program is turn off the computer monitor. This would do literally nothing. The program would still be running if you turned the monitor back on. Yet the episode treats it like she's just turned the entire computer off by turning off the monitor.
I Only Have Eyes For You - S2-E19
Factual error: In the episode 'I Only Have Eyes For You', during the flashbacks to 1955 James and Grace dance, and James later shoots himself, to the song 'I Only Have Eyes For You', which wasn't released until 1959. (00:18:20 - 00:26:50)
Factual error: When Angelus is torturing Giles in this episode he is seen with Giles' glasses, and he cleans them by breathing on the glass and wiping with a cloth. Vampires don't have breath, as Angel tells Xander in 'Prophecy Girl' from season one - even if he can force some air out of his body, it wouldn't be warm, moist air, which is needed for condensation to clean glasses with.
Factual error: In Amends, season three, one of the movies playing at the theater is 'Abilene,' which was not released until March 13, 1999 ; three months after this episode was aired (and probably five months after it was filmed, which is interesting). (00:43:10)
Gingerbread - S3-E11
Factual error: There is a short picture of a 17th century German newspaper. The actual text however not only is written in modern High German as opposed to Mid-High German, but also is full of errors (mixing female articles with male nouns is only one example). Funnily enough, Giles' incantation at the end of the episode is in correct German. (00:30:45)
Gingerbread - S3-E11
Factual error: When Giles and Cordelia are driving to save the girls from getting burned at the stake and are making the potion to make the demon show his true face Giles tells Cordelia to shred the Wolfsbane. This is a huge mistake as any Witch will know (my sister pointed this out to me) that Wolfsbane is highly poisonous and should never be touched with bare hands and Cordelia didn't have gloves or anything.
Factual error: In "The Initiative," Riley is looking for Spike with a heat sensitive camera and says "we've got a cold one." If Spike was at room temperature as indicated on the sensor, he would be indistinguishable from from the air and objects in the room. (00:37:30)
Factual error: After Buffy drags Xander down to the basement she locks the door and goes upstairs to find Dawn. When she locks the basement door, the handle is on the left side of the door and she turns the key to the right. In reality, a door with the handle on the left needs the key to be turned to the left to lock it. So Buffy did in fact unlock the door, not lock it.
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 ★