"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Lessons (2002)

Director:

David Solomon

Writers:

Joss Whedon (creator)
Joss Whedon (written by)

TV Series:

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997)

Original Air Date:

24 September 2002 (Season 7, Episode 1)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Fantasy

Plot:

Sunnydale High is re-opened, with a new designed campus and a new principal, Robin Wood. It is Dawn's first day at school there and Buffy accompanies her to class, only to discover evil spirits lurking in the basement.

Plot Keywords:

Heroine | Lesbian | One Word Title | Sister Sister Relationship | Reference To Britney Spears

Cast

Sarah Michelle Gellar	...	Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon	...	Xander Harris
Emma Caulfield	...	Anya
Michelle Trachtenberg	...	Dawn Summers
James Marsters	...	Spike
Alyson Hannigan	...	Willow Rosenberg
Anthony Head	...	Rupert Giles (as Anthony Stewart Head)
Alexandra Breckenridge	...	Kit Holburn (as Alex Breckenridge)
Kali Rocha	...	Halfrek
D.B. Woodside	...	Principal Robin Wood (as DB Woodside)
Mark Metcalf	...	The Master
Juliet Landau	...	Drusilla
Harry Groener	...	Mayor Richard Wilkins
George Hertzberg	...	Adam
Clare Kramer	...	Glory

Runtime:

41 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

USA:TV-PG

Filming Locations:

Bath, Somerset, England, UK

Company:

Mutant Enemy

Trivia:

When the writers first came up with the character of Robin Wood, they weren't definite on whether it would be a man or a woman, so they picked a name that could apply to either gender.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When The First (masquerading as Drusilla) speaks to Spike, she touches his hair and cheek, but The First is unable to touch anything. However, since Spike is still mentally unstable after getting his soul back, it is possible that he's just imagining Drusilla is touching him.

Quotes:

Dawn: But, he's new. He doesn't know his strength. He-He might not know all those fancy martial arts skills they inevitably seem to pick up.

Soundtrack:

So High

The Beginning of the End

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Going into season 7, there was a lot of discussion on the boards about the possibility of this being the end of the series, or the possibility of continuing on without Sarah Michelle Gellar. We left season 6 with Willow having been pulled back from the brink of destruction, Buffy and Dawn forming a new relationship, Xander and Anya still broken apart, and Spike having regained his soul. Where to go from here?

As the season opener showed us, back to the beginning - with a wasted mini-montage of the previous 6 seasons baddies morphing into each other to spout off about evil and such. We are introduced to a new principal, Robin Woods who seems to have a sinister agenda and conveniently hires the college drop-out Buffy as a counselor in the newly rebuilt Sunnydale High. Can you say plot device? Worse, we're given a group of ghostly, zombie-like dead people who mostly stand around and shout at the main characters. Finally, we're given a resolution revolving around a spell that created the baddies, but we never find out who performed it or what they were trying to accomplish.

However, there are some goodies in the episode such as Dawn's training session. This is one of the few cases since season 5 that Michelle Trachtenberg gets an opportunity to do more than just stand around and whine about how everyone treats her and she makes the most of it. In all, the episode is worth watching but will have very little bearing on the story of the coming season.