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Jul 6, 2006

Stu and I wax philosophical about Nightmares, the tenth episode from Buffy's first season. Everyone's worst fears are materializing, and it might just have something to do with a little boy named Billy, seen wandering around the halls of Sunnydale High. Within this episode, we learn some stuff like: Clowns are scary. Singing in an Opera is hard. Being buried alive really sucks. And, if you find a candy bar on the ground, you should definitely eat it without question. Notes: The Buffy and Angel Trivia Guide can be found at www.restlessbtvs.com


Stu
seventeen and a half years ago

How about...her dad comes to Sunnydale after Joyce\'s death and tries to convince Buffy and Dawn to come live with him. He has a new job, so he can\'t move to Sunnydale permanently. Buffy tells him she can\'t/doesn\'t want to leave Sunnydale. Dad reluctantly agrees to let them stay in the house, but he\'ll send them money and the offer will always be open yadda yadda...

I guess it\'s not watertight, but if they\'re willing to fudge some excuse for Giles to abandon Buffy in S6 then surely the above would fly? ;)

Daniel Rudolph
seventeen and a half years ago

On Buffy\'s dad: My understanding is he was retconned because they didn\'t want Buffy to have anyone else to turn to. Otherwise, she would have goen to him when she ran away from home and there\'s no way she would have been stuck with raising Dawn by herself. I think they perhaps would have been better off killing him too in an unrelated manner.

This was the episode that really hooked me on the series. There are certain episodes that every genre show has to do. Most of them date all the way back to Star Trek. These include: evil doubles, body switch, alternate universe and dreams/fears becoming reality. I had seen this premise done dozens of times, but this show just handled it so incredibly well compared to most with their fears being deeply tied into the characters, not just somewhat random phobias. Compare this to the Charmed episode about facing your fears and there\'s a big difference.

Stu
seventeen and a half years ago

I fear I may have actually seen that episode of Charmed...

I don\'t think they should have killed off her Dad, just at least given some reasonable excuse for him not to show up long enough for Buffy to prove she could cope.

Daniel Rudolph
seventeen and a half years ago

The problem is, if he had shown up at all it would have been very difficult to come up with an explanation why he would leave his twenty-year-old daughter to raise her fourteen-year old sister on her own, which was somethign they seemed to really want to do.