RECAP
of the
Infamous Unaired Half-Hour Buffy PilotPage 4 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!
Cut to the Berryman High auditorium where footlights blink on and Wrong Willow, standing onstage, squints out at the empty seats. She says tentatively, "This is nice. I don't usually do this sort of thing," and then under her breath, "I don't usually get asked." The undead love child of James Marsters and Ryan Phillippe -- some guy with curly blond hair, great skin and lovely cheekbones -- sits down next to her.
"Sooo, where did you say you go to school?" asks Wrong Willow. "Crossroads," replies Cheekbone Guy. (FYI, there is a real Crossroads School in L.A. It's an expensive private school with a touchy-feely-artsy reputation located in an industrial area of Santa Monica.)
"Sooo, time for some kissing, huh?" That's Wrong Willow talking, and Cheekbone Guy tells her to relax. Yes. Please do.
"We probably shouldn't even been here, especially after what happened to that poor boy." Yes, Wrong Willow, don't be here. Go away. Wrong Willow gets up and looks away from Cheekbone Guy, who says Boy Toy deserved what he got. Wrong Willow wrinkles her brow, and asks what he means. "Coming up here alone, at night, with a complete stranger... What kind of an idiot would do a thing like that?" Willow turns, and opens her mouth a little bit. I think she's supposed to be speechless and terrified, but it mostly looks like her mouth is open. There's no scary music, no sound at all except my tape hissing. Cheekbone Guy is vamped out, yellow eyes and all, and says wickedly, "What's the matter? Don't you want to snuggle?"
Somewhere on the high school grounds Buffy runs around a corner, as Xander pursues, telling her to wait up. She stops in front of big red sign that says "Go Bulls!" Apparently it's the Berryman Bulls, as opposed to the Sunnydale Razorbacks. (Which I've never understood. Why in god's name would the Sunnydale mascot be a feral pig from Arkansas?) Xander wants to know "the sitch" and Buffy just hands him her purse, saying he might need it. This one is green and yellow plaid. Xander asks if this might by some chance be a vampire issue, and then a blood-curdling scream emanates from the auditorium.
Buffy shuffles up, now wearing a black leather jacket, black pants and white shoes, and gets in line behind Danny Strong, who later becomes the recurring character Jonathan Levinson. He's wearing glasses, and because he's so short, he makes SMG look normal-sized. He asks if she's the new girl, she confirms she is, and an uncomfortable silence ensues. Xander bounds up, psyched that she came, and Buffy asks if the band's good. "Well, they don't know know any actual chords yet, but they have really big amps." Buffy grins, and says, "It seems normal. A normal thing to do. Everyone comes here, right?" Xander's newly-activated vampire-related-activity antenae shoot up, and he asks suspiciously if she didn't do normal things at her old school. "Oh yeah," covers Buffy, "Homework, student council, football team." "You were on the football team?" "Um, no," says Buffy, who looks much better than she does all blond and baubled in the real series premiere. Here, her hair's up in a bun, with cute curls hanging down everywhere, and the auburn hair color becomes her, probably because it's about 18 shades closer to her real color that the blond we get on the show. Buffy asks if Willow's coming, and Xander reports that he spotted her sneaking around campus with some guy. "Willow has a boyfriend?" asks Buffy, surprised. Because the fat funny sidekick doesn't usually get a boyfriend before the star of the show. Something is definitely up.
Xander is apparently pleased that the Wrong Willow is gonna get some but says he didn't recognize the guy. Buffy interrogates him about skin tone and outfit and comes to the shocking conclusion that Wrong Willow hooking up with a vampire, although this particular vampire dresses like Lionel Richie, rather than Debarge.
Cheekbone Guy is feeding on Wrong Willow and it's all quiet, and again I really miss the growly noises they have on the show. Buffy bursts through the door, and says cavalierly, "Take your hands off of her!" By the way, I was wrong about Buffy wearing a leather jacket. It's gun-metal gray, or maybe blue, and it's not leather, but some kind of plastic. Cheekbone Guy licks his lips, eyeing Buffy, "Mmm, seconds." Buffy gives him a lecture on the outdated clothes being a dead (ha!) giveaway. Wrong Willow whimpers or screams or something, and Buffy runs down the aisle. Wrong Willow struggles to gets away, and Buffy jumps on stage and throws a flying kick into the vamp's chest.
"You know, you really shouldn't be here. A vampire, all alone at night, it just isn't safe," lectures Buffy. "You've got me wrong..." "Oh, you're not a vampire?" "I'm not alone," says the vamp. Buffy looks up to see another vampire in the rafters and a cocky looking one in a ripped t-shirt approach from the left. "I don't suppose you'd be tweety and attack me one at a time?" (I swear to god, she says the word tweety.) Cheekbones tells her she's watched too many movies, and Buffy retorts that you can never watch too many movies, just before kicking him in the chest again.
A fight ensues, ranging across the stage set, which is helpfully equipped with all sorts of interesting scaffolding. Buffy takes a few hits, but mostly kicks ass, Wrong Willow sits quietly, and Xander finally rushes in, still holding Buffy's purse. He throws Buffy an industrial-size broom, and hands Wrong Willow the purse and walks out of the shot. Wrong Willow asks if Xander usually carries a purse, and right on cue, Darla pops up and grabs Wrong Willow from behind. Wrong Willow gasps and cringes, but Darla rejects her -- "God, I hate leftovers." Onstage, Buffy stakes the bigger, cocky-looking vampire, and since there aren't any special effects yet, he dusts in five stages. Clutching the stake wound, he first turns to plaster, like a George Segal statue, then into a pile of flour, which in four steps gets successively smaller and smaller. "See what happens when you rough-house?"
Backstage, a vamped-out Darla has found Xander. "I don't like any girls. That I'm afraid of," says Xander, backing away slowly. Darla takes Xander down, my tape hisses, and Wrong Willow spots a cross sticking out of Buffy's purse. She applies it to Darla's forehead, Darla lets out an appallingly high-frequency scream, and we watch Wrong Willow try that thing called acting, while steam rises up from Darla's burned face. Onstage, Buffy's still working over Cheekbones. She throws him over some of that conveniently located scaffolding, and he looks up to ask "Who are you?" (I'm Batman.) "I'm the Slayer." A newly introduced bald vamp looks up in fear -- "A slayer!" -- and runs off.
Buffy, still high on top of the scaffolding, to Cheekbones: "You've run out time, you've run out of friends, and nobody likes your outfit." Cheekbones dashes behind a door on the set as Wrong Willow jumps onstage brandishing the cross, with Xander cowering behind her. "Be careful you guys, there's still a --" vampire around, who just jumped on your ass, and knocked the two of you through the trapdoor. Xander peers down at Buffy and Cheekbones struggling beneath the stage, and suddenly Cheekbones' head appears through the trapdoor. Cheekbones grabs Xander's hand, trying to pull him down, but from beneath the stage, Buffy has got a hold of Cheekbones, and drags him back under.
Things beneath the stage crash. And bang. Until Buffy triumphs, and crawls out victorious. The three sit down, nonchalant. Wrong Willow apologizes for causing the trouble, and Buffy shrugs, "It's kind of a destiny thing."
Next morning, in the courtyard at Torrance High, a film geek is stapling a "Nosferatu" poster to the bulletin board, and the Cordettes are stalking the school. Giles lectures. Xander defends. "She was huge. She had the moves -- this crane technique." Wrong Willow says Buffy saved her life, "which I'm for," and her voice is so completely cloying that I'm going into hyperglycemic shock as I type this. Buffy is chewing gum again, and it's not a good thing, and Buffy lectures Giles on being stuffy, and then SMG starts channelling Kristy Swanson's Buffy, and it's also not a good thing. Swanson's Buffy was mindless, and had empty eyes, and SMG's Buffy is suddenly mimicing that, as she checks out the Nosferatu poster across the quad.
Giles yammers on, and Swanson's Buffy in SMG's body smirks, throwing her handy stake, getting the paper vamp right through the heart. That Buffy, she's got dead (ha!) aim.
The end.
Sorry, no closing credits. There weren't any opening credits either. There's a song. But no credits.
And here, thank god, with no credits, but a song, endth the very wrong reign of the Wrong Willow. And there was rejoicing. And a council of elders convened and there was another casting call and amidst the throngs was found Alyson Hannigan, and she was the Chosen One, the only girl in all the world with the charm and skill to play Willow. She was called, and she was great, and all was right with the world.
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