Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Showtime

Showtime
Season 7, Episode 11
Airdate	January 7, 2003
Production Number	7ABB11
Written by	David Fury
Directed by	Michael Grossman
← 7x10 Bring on the Night	7x12 → Potential
Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Season Seven

Showtime is the eleventh episode of the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the one-hundred and thirty-third episode overall. With the Turok-Han bearing down on them, Buffy and the Potentials prepare to fight him and the bringers off.

Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), James Marsters (Spike)

and Alyson Hannigan (Willow)

Special Guest Star: Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles)

Guest Starring: Tom Lenk (Andrew Wells), Iyari Limon (Kennedy), Clara Bryant (Molly), Indigo (Rona), Amanda Fuller (Eve)

Co-Starring: Camden Toy (Ubervamp), Lalaine (Chloe), Felicia Day (Vi)

Uncredited: Josh Braaten (Torg)

Plot Overview

As more potentials gather, Buffy hopes to get Spike back, but must first find a way of getting past the ubervamp.

Meanwhile, Anya and Giles seek out information on how to defeat the First Evil.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Beljoxa's Eye: The Beljoxa's Eye is an oracle-like creature that only demons can open the gateway to his domain. The Eye is, literally a gigantic eyeball with several smaller eyes on it. It doesn't appear to have a mouth, but appears to speak through telepathy. The eye sees the truth present and past, but not the future. The creature seems to be inspired by Revelations 4:7–8, which describes four creatures that are "full of eyes around and within." The Eye may have also been inspired by the Beholder from Dungeons & Dragons.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Bringers	Buffy	Snapped Neck	Bus Station
2/3	Bringers	Buffy	Stabbed	Bus Station
4	Eve	Bringers	Stabbed	Motel
5	Bringer	Xander	Axed	Buffy's House
6	Bringer	Kennedy	Crossbow	Buffy's House
7	Bringer	Buffy	Stabbed	Buffy's House
8	Turok-Han	Buffy	Decapitated	Construction Site

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Potentials: Several more potentials show up in this episode, including Rona, Vi and Chloe. Eve appears, but only as the First imitating her.

• From Beneath You: Giles and Anya learn that the reason why the First is attempting to destroy the slayer lineage is because Buffy was brought back from the dead.

Characters

• Spike: Spike is finally rescued from the First's lair by Buffy.

Trivia

The Show

• Back to the Beginning: Buffy says to Rona, "Welcome to the Hellmouth." This was the name of the first episode of the series.

Behind the Scenes

• Mindspeak: In the original airing of this episode, the telepathic voice of Buffy wasn't Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, by the time the episode aired in Australia, her voice was dubbed in.

Allusions and References

• Misery: Misery is a novel by Stephen King about a famous author who gets into an accident, but is saved by a fan. It's slowly revealed that the fan is obsessive and insane. At one point he attempts to escape, so she removes his foot. This is different from the movie staring Kathy Bates, as noted by Andrew.

Buffy: So, I'm here to tell you, if you try anything, try to run—did you ever see the movie Misery?

• Six Degrees: There is a theory that one can connect any actor with Kevin Bacon using six steps or less. This has turned into a game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or Six Degrees of Separation. One person throws out a name and the other person must connect the actor to costars until they get to Kevin Bacon.

Andrew: Wanna play Kevin Bacon?

• Justice League: Andrew is referring to the first story JLA by Grant Morrison. In the story, white martians are infiltrating Earth in the form of a new superteam who are showing up the JLA. They're later discovered to be setting up the planet to be enslaved. This was also used in the first story-arc of the Justice League cartoon series.

Andrew: Where would the Justice League have been if they hadn't put their differences aside to stop the Imperium and his shape-shifting alien horde?

• Thunderdome: The thunderdome was a caged deathmatch arena used in the Mel Gibson sequel, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The tagline, which Andrew says, is "Two men enter, one man leaves."

Buffy: Welcome to Thunderdome.

Memorable Moments

• Buffy fights the demon in the construction site while the others look on.

Quotes

• Rona: Um... why is that guy tied to a chair?

Xander: The question you'll soon be asking is, "Why isn't he gagged?"

• Torg: You broke my heart, Anyanka.

Anya: Don't be so dramatic, Torg. You don't even have a heart. Six spleens, two stomachs, half a brain, maybe, but no heart.

• Beljoxa's Eye: The eye sees not the future, only the truth of the now and before.

Anya: Yes, we've all got that - it's called memory. Can you help us out with something a little bit more demony?

• Beljoxa's Eye: The First Evil did not cause the disruption, only seized upon it to extinguish the lives of the chosen forever.

Giles: Then what has caused the disruption? What - What is responsible for letting this happen?

Beljoxa's Eye: The Slayer.

• Giles: It's not because she died. The Beljoxa's Eye was quite clear about that... in its enigmatic way. It's because she lives. Again. Buffy's not responsible for that.

Anya: Oh. No. Willow and me and Xander and Tara. We're the ones who brought Buffy back. We're the reason The First is here, the reason those girls were murdered. No, it's our fault. The world would've been better off if Buffy had just stayed dead.