The Dark Age

Mark here... this next episode of Buffy is called, "The Dark Age".  This one delves a little into Giles' past.  Apparently, Giles and some friends from high school conjured a demon back in the day for kicks and now the demon is back for revenge.  The demon takes hold of dead or unconscious people. In the course of events he possesses Jenny Calendar.  In the end, Willow realizes the best way to defeat this demon is to have it possess Angel, who already has a demon inside him.

It's a fun episode I thought. We get a bit of Giles' past.  He dropped out of Oxford and abandoned his destiny as a Watcher for a time.  Falling into a crowd of rowdy occult-loving punks in London, as you do.  Also, he had the nickname "Ripper" during this time...a bit more punk rock than Rupert.

Otherwise, there's not too much else for me to say about the episode, except that I thought it would've made a better Halloween episode. The Halloween episode first introduced us to Giles' former friend Ethan Rayne as a villain, but here he shows up in a way that's much more integral to the plot. Also, he represents Giles' past as a bad boy.  In the episode, Ethan attempt to sic the demon on Buffy but fails and disappears...

Hey Laurel here..not much to add except about how much Jenni Calendar sucks.  Mark and I have talked about this at length, she is horribly miss-cast.  They really missed an opportunity here to cast a unique, smart, funny, off the beaten path woman, which is what Joss Whedon seems to be into, but instead we get Melrose place.  Her character could be so much more interesting, but alas, it is what is is.  Wah wah.

Overall, this episode gets 4 stakes, on the basis of fun Giles character development...