1.08 I, ROBOT... YOU, JANE



Willow has a boyfriend that lives inside
a computer.
Written by: Ashley Gable & Thomas A. Swyden

Summary:

Sunnydale High has a new computer science teacher, Miss Calendar who with the help of few students is scanning Giles' library into a database. Willow scans one of Giles' books and accidentally releases a demon into the network. A week later she confesses to Buffy that she has found someone through the internet, a boy called Malcolm but Buffy has a bad feeling about the blooming romance. Weird things are happening and Buffy, Xander and Giles suspect it has something to do with Willow's new friend that is revealed to be a demon that has been freed into the internet.


Judging by the look on her face, Buffy
isn't a computer person either.




Willow meets her boyfriend and he isn't
what she expected him to be.


The computer could feel Giles'
resentment towards it.

Quotes:

Fritz: The only reality is virtual. If you're not jacked in, you're not alive.
Ms. Calendar: Thank you, Fritz, for making us all sound like crazy people.

Willow: Why does everything have to be about looks?
Buffy: Not everything, but some stuff is. I mean, what if you guys get really, really intense and then you find out that he... has... a hairy back?
Willow: Well, no! Uh, he doesn't talk like somebody who would have a hairy back.

Buffy: She certainly looks perky.
Xander: Yeah. Color in the cheeks, bounce in the step. I don't like it. It's not healthy.

Ms. Calendar: You're here again? Kids really dig the library, don't cha?
Buffy: We're literary!
Xander: To read makes our speaking English good.

Giles: Well, it's been so nice talking to you.
Ms. Calendar: We were fighting.
Giles: Must do it again sometime, yes... Bye now.

Buffy (after nearly getting electrocuted): Tell me the truth, how's my hair?

Xander: Are we overreacting? He's in a computer! What can he do?
Buffy: You mean besides convince a perfectly nice kid to try and kill me? I don't know. How about mess up all the medical equipment in the world?
Giles: Randomize traffic signals.
Buffy: Access launch codes for our nuclear missiles.
Giles: Destroy the world's economy.
Buffy: I think I pretty much capped it with that nuclear missile thing.
Giles: Right. Yours was best.

Willow: I'm sorry, guys. I'm just thinking about...
Buffy: Malcolm?
Willow: Malcolm... Moloch... Whatever he's called. The one boy that really liked me and he's a demon robot. What does that say about me?
Buffy: Doesn't say anything about you.
Willow: I mean, I thought I was really falling.
Buffy: Hey, did you forget? The one boy I've had the hots since I moved here, turned out to be a vampire.
Xander: Yeah, and the teacher I had a crush on. Giant praying mantis.
Willow: That's true.
Xander: That's life on the Hellmouth.
Buffy: Let's face it. None of us is ever gonna have a happy, normal relationship.
Xander: We're doomed.
Willow: Yeah.
(Everybody laughs till the realization starts to sink in)

My review for the episode:


I, Robot... You, Jane is the weakest episode of the first season but it does grow on you. Especially when you haven't seen it in a while it does seem better than you remembered. It has its funny moments but the story still is a little weak. Considering the internet was “young” at the time, this is a warning of that you can never know who you're talking to, it could be an elderly Dutch woman or a axe murdering circus freak. But despite the setting, it is easy to get bored when much time is spent staring at a computer screen. The scoobies spend too much time away from each other and the so called nerds are a little extreme in a not funny way. Although Fritz's speech in the library was funny, I don't know what relevance with him cutting himself and repeating “I'm jacked in” had to the story since we already knew he wasn't all there when he gave the speech to Giles, tried to kill Buffy and murdered Dave.

It was great to see Willow finally find someone other than Xander, (even if the boy turned out to be a demon trapped into a computer,) but what bothered me was how easily she fell into Moloch's/Malcolm's trap. I know she is innocent and all, but she is still smart so why is she so gullible? And about the demon itself, Moloch was a little tame considering all the hype of him being the great corrupter. And if he was so evil, why bother into changing a students report into 'Nazi Germany was a model of a well-ordered society', sure it was funny but when you can do all sorts of damage why bother tampering with a high school student's homework.

And now that I've developed the taste for complaining, one more thing that really doesn't have an impact on the episode itself but what bothered me a little in a funny way. Someone who was making this episode didn't know how to count since in one of Buffy's records says she is born in 1979 and no matter how I count it, in year 1997 she can't be 16 years old if she was born in 1979. Her record is showed twice in a expand of few seconds, in the first one she is born in 1980 and few seconds later the record says 1979.

But this episode was the one that introduced Jenny Calendar to us and where she and Giles met. The interaction between those two was good to watch and the episode did have its funny moments so all in all it was below an average Buffy episode but watchable.

7



Title to Worst of the 1st season


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