RECAP
of the
Infamous Unaired Half-Hour Buffy PilotPage 2 of 4
By Jennifer Godwin (mail at jengod dot com)
P.S. Don't email in search of a copy of the pilot -- I shared my tape with a friend and I haven't seen it since!Xander runs up, carrying his long lost skateboard, and they do the routine about Willow being so very much the person he wants to see, needing help with the math, and her reasonable tutoring fee of a shiny nickel. The Wrong Willow is perhaps the most unexpressive, emotionally monochromatic person ever to appear in the Jossverse. Adam included. She's fat, of course. Because the Willow role in this Jossverse is that of the fat funny sidekick. Except the Wrong Willow is not funny. You know how Marc Blucas couldn't deliver a punchline with a map and a Fedex truck? The Wrong Willow is like that, but worse. To top it all off, she's wearing a heavy white cardigan embroidered with blue flowers, over a sack-like peach dress. The horror of this monumentally dumpy outfit is noted by Cordelia, who, accompanied by Harmony and the future Cordette #1 (Nicole Bilderback), unenthusiastically delivers the softer sider of Sears line. The Wrong Willow lumbers off, completely without the charming rabbity fear of Alyson Hannigan, and with a much, much worse outfit than the jumper Aly sports in the real pilot. Of course, Cordelia is wearing plaid pants in this scene, so she really shouldn't be going on about Sears.
The camera follows Cordy as she leads her followers across the courtyard. A jock in a letterman jacket asks if she's going to the Bronze tonight, and she snaps back -- selling the line this time -- "Not with you." Harmony asks who's playing, Cordelia answers "Dingoes Ate My Baby," and all parties involved agree that the Dingoes rock.
Xander and his floppy skater hair approach the divas, but Cordelia quickly and unquotably tells him he's an ugly loser, and walks off. Xander waves to the retreating in crowd, "Check back tomorrow and I'll have that devastating comeback ready."
Buffy comes up behind Xander, distracted by the fascinating contents of her purse, and stumbles into Xander's long lost skateboard. Xander apologizes, Buffy apologizes in return and asks for the location of the library. He points it out, and asks if he knows her. "I'm Buffy. I'm new." Xander stares at her ass as she departs, saying to himself admiringly, "You're new and improved." Huh? "Oh, hey," he calls after her, holding up her stake, "You forgot your, uh, stake..."
Orange-flavored Buffy successfully finds the library, entering it from one of two frosted glass doors, and spins around calling out "Hi, anybody here?" like she's just a little bit drunk on her first day at the new school. I can understand her disorientation though. The Berryman High library is drastically different from the Sunnydale High library. It's got two stories, a spiral staircase and a lot more actual books. She peers over the checkout desk looking for the librarian, but finds no one. She turns and -- this being a horror show, you see -- jumps out of her skin, surprised to see the librarian. It's First Season Giles, of course, although with more bangs than we're used to seeing. He's partin' his hair all funny.
"Miss Summers!" he whispers. And it's actually kind of creepy. He's holds up one finger, and looks a little stoned. "Good call," says Buffy. "Guess I must be the only new kid, huh? So I'm taking Eurocentric history and I'm gonna need-- "I know what you're after," says Giles, going behind the counter to pull out the Big Book of Vampires. It looks similar to the one he pulls out in the real pilot, except the title -- "Vampyr" -- is in a much smaller font, and red.
You can tell it's an ancient sacred text because whoever wrote it didn't know how to spell Vampire properly.
Buffy freezes, and backs away. "That's not what I'm looking for." Her acting in this pilot is much more understated than in Welcome to the Hellmouth, and a lot closer to present day Buffy than to hyper-monkey First Season Valley Girl Buffy. "Are you sure?" "I'm way sure." "My mistake," says Giles, his tone sincerely apologetic and confused. "What was it that you wanted?" he asks tentatively, having put the Big Book of Vampires back beneath the desk, but Buffy's already out the door.
Cue melancholy montage matched with some kind of wacky jazz music. Orange-flavored Buffy is sad. Those durn vampires are everywhere. Buffy frowns her way through a class, probably aggravated by the wacky jazz, and after the bell rings, Wrong Willow approaches and offers to help her catch up. Buffy notes that history isn't her best subject. "I sort of lack a best subject." Does the history retardation bother anyone else? I mean, she's a Slayer. She comes from a multi-millenia-old tradition of vampire hunters, she kills centuries-old vampires, she hangs out with Giles all the time and she's never picked up the slightest interest in past events? It's non-sensical I tell you. Anyway, the Wrong Willow does her "I'm not worthy" routine, and it annoys, and Buffy and The Wrong Bad Very Wrong Willow talk as they walk, and exchange false compliments about each others' outfits. The camera moves in front of them and we discover for the first time that Riff Regan is short. Oh dear is she short. SMG is 5'2" on a good day, so Wrong Willow is maybe 4'11". Perhaps the first and most notable in long line of BtVS casting choices designed to disguise the fact that SMG is short. Aly used to be the same height, but grew a few inches. Seth Green is short to match Aly, and Veruca was midget to match with Oz. Buffy's various love interests, of course, are usually a foot or so taller than her, and she spends a lot of time looking up at them all doe-eyed and needy, but the Buffy's mismatched men is a whole other saga...
So, Meanwhile, back on the Infamous Unaired Pilot, the Wrong Willow is being humorlessly self-deprecating and Buffy's babbling on about Martha Stewart and Home Depot. Buffy also asks Wrong Willow about Giles, and she explains his provenance in the British Museum.
Cordelia interrupts and does her 'shoes are so important' routine which is Joss' primary way of illustrating DEEP AS A FRISBEE, and the Cordettes sheperd Buffy off, to go hang with the cool kids and their shoes. The Wrong Willow wrinkles her brow.
Locker room, two anonymous chatterbugs, bad dialogue with fake teen slang, Boy Toy falls out of a locker, he's dead, you've seen this all before.
Xander runs up, carrying his long lost skateboard, and they do the routine about Willow being so very much the person he wants to see, needing help with the math, and her reasonable tutoring fee of a shiny nickel. The Wrong Willow is perhaps the most unexpressive, emotionally monochromatic person ever to appear in the Jossverse. Adam included. She's fat, of course. Because the Willow role in this Jossverse is that of the fat funny sidekick. Except the Wrong Willow is not funny. You know how Marc Blucas couldn't deliver a punchline with a map and a Fedex truck? The Wrong Willow is like that, but worse. To top it all off, she's wearing a heavy white cardigan embroidered with blue flowers, over a sack-like peach dress. The horror of this monumentally dumpy outfit is noted by Cordelia, who, accompanied by Harmony and the future Cordette #1 (Nicole Bilderback), unenthusiastically delivers the softer sider of Sears line. The Wrong Willow lumbers off, completely without the charming rabbity fear of Alyson Hannigan, and with a much, much worse outfit than the jumper Aly sports in the real pilot. Of course, Cordelia is wearing plaid pants in this scene, so she really shouldn't be going on about Sears.
The camera follows Cordy as she leads her followers across the courtyard. A jock in a letterman jacket asks if she's going to the Bronze tonight, and she snaps back -- selling the line this time -- "Not with you." Harmony asks who's playing, Cordelia answers "Dingoes Ate My Baby," and all parties involved agree that the Dingoes rock.
Xander and his floppy skater hair approach the divas, but Cordelia quickly and unquotably tells him he's an ugly loser, and walks off. Xander waves to the retreating in crowd, "Check back tomorrow and I'll have that devastating comeback ready."
Buffy comes up behind Xander, distracted by the fascinating contents of her purse, and stumbles into Xander's long lost skateboard. Xander apologizes, Buffy apologizes in return and asks for the location of the library. He points it out, and asks if he knows her. "I'm Buffy. I'm new." Xander stares at her ass as she departs, saying to himself admiringly, "You're new and improved." Huh? "Oh, hey," he calls after her, holding up her stake, "You forgot your, uh, stake..."
Orange-flavored Buffy successfully finds the library, entering it from one of two frosted glass doors, and spins around calling out "Hi, anybody here?" like she's just a little bit drunk on her first day at the new school. I can understand her disorientation though. The Berryman High library is drastically different from the Sunnydale High library. It's got two stories, a spiral staircase and a lot more actual books. She peers over the checkout desk looking for the librarian, but finds no one. She turns and -- this being a horror show, you see -- jumps out of her skin, surprised to see the librarian. It's First Season Giles, of course, although with more bangs than we're used to seeing. He's partin' his hair all funny.
"Miss Summers!" he whispers. And it's actually kind of creepy. He's holds up one finger, and looks a little stoned. "Good call," says Buffy. "Guess I must be the only new kid, huh? So I'm taking Eurocentric history and I'm gonna need-- "I know what you're after," says Giles, going behind the counter to pull out the Big Book of Vampires. It looks similar to the one he pulls out in the real pilot, except the title -- "Vampyr" -- is in a much smaller font, and red.
You can tell it's an ancient sacred text because whoever wrote it didn't know how to spell Vampire properly.
Last updated: 22 November 2005.
Created: 15 August 2000.
Recap copyright © 2000-2005 Jennifer Godwin.
Unaired pilot copyright © 1996 Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox Television, the WB Network, Kuzui, et al.
Questions? mail at jengod dot com
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