Trivia: In "Where The Wild Things Are," Willow mentions that she used to have a crush on Giles. This is evident in "I Robot, You Jane." When Buffy and Willow are talking at Willow's locker about Willow's new online romance, there is a picture of Giles and Willow in a magnetic frame on the inside of the locker door.
Welcome To The Hellmouth (1) - S1-E1
Trivia: Brian Thompson played two different characters in Buffy. He also played two roles in the Charmed series.
Trivia: Musetta Vander, who plays Miss French/She-Mantis, was very squeamish about the scene where she makes an "insect sandwich" with crickets. Not only was she grossed out by having to handle real crickets, but as an animal lover, she was incredibly worried that she'd accidentally kill one of them when she folded the bread over. According to Vander, no crickets were killed during the filming of the scene. (When the showed her eating the sandwich, they switched it out with another cricket-less one).
Trivia: The demon's name is Moloch, a word found several times in the Hebrew Bible that is commonly associated with either a type of deity, or as a term referring to a type of sacrifice. The name was also chosen in part because in addition to its mythological connotations, it's also similar to the word "malloc," which is a function in C-based computing languages that has to do with allotting unused memory. The fact the term connected to both the mythological and technological made it fit perfectly.
Trivia: The lead monk at the beginning of the episode is named "Thelonious." This is a not-so-subtle nod to renowned jazz pianist Thelonious Monk.
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 ★