Overall Rating: 5.4
Pretty standard early Buffy fare minus the usual witty dialog and with some character assasination thrown in for the convenience of the plot.
Plot Synopsis:
Jenny Calendar - Sunnydale High's sexy computer science teacher - has undertaken a project to scan the pages of all of the books in Giles' library, much to Giles' adorable horror. While they trade insults about their respective information preferences, Willow scans a book containing the spirit of an ancient demon named Molloch the Corruptor into the computer and he disappears from its pages into cyberspace.
Shortly thereafter, Willow meets a mysterious online boyfriend named "Malcolm" and is pursuaded into a very serious e-lationship almost instantly. Buffy is of course immediately concerned about the changes in Willow's behavior and starts digging around for information about Malcolm. She asks a well known computer geek at the school (Dave) how she would figure out the exact location where an e-mail or text message has been sent and upon learning that she means to track down Willow's boyfriend, he tells her to back off and stay out of Willow's business, which confirms for Buffy that something wiggy is afoot. Giles is unable to advise her as the mere thought of confronting an electronic terror sends him into child-like dread. :)
Buffy decides to scope out Dave and Fritz (another creepy computer nerd at the school) and see where they go...eventually tracking them to an abandoned center of computer research called CRD. It's not looking so abandoned anymore. Dave tells Malcolm that Buffy is getting too close to their secret and Malcolm instructs him to kill her. He rigs a shower in the girl's locker room with an electrical short circuit in an attempt to electricute Buffy but at the last second, he grows a conscience and warns her to avoid the trap just in the knick of time.
Meanwhile, Malcolm has gotten aggressive with Willow and thoroughly wigged her out, so she tries to avoid him. Unfortunately, he sends Fritz out to kidnap Willow and drag her to the CRD labs where he's building his base of operations and to kill Dave when Dave refuses to take out Buffy or help Malcolm any further. As Giles realizes that Molloch has escaped onto the internet and enlists the aid of Ms. Calendar (who is not quite so clueless about the mystical world as Giles had assumed - in fact she's a techno-pagan and proves very helpful in binding Molloch to remove him from the web), Buffy and Xander track Willow to CRD. Before Molloch can be bound from the net, he tries to kill them by trapping them in a storage room and filling it with nerve gas, but they escape when he is confined to his new robot shell. Buffy tricks him into punching an electrical box and frying his own circuits, thus neutralizing Molloch. In the aftermath, Giles and Ms. Calendar come to a very sexually tense detante while Willow, Xander and Buffy relive their many horribly demonized attempts at love, concluding mournfully that the hellmouth is going to screw up any of their relationships.
Writing: 5.0
Apart from a couple of delightfully charming interactions between Giles and Jenny...the script lacks any appreciable zing. Frankly, the dialog is quite boring with only a few little chuckles and absolutely none of the tension that a story about sweet little Willow getting seduced by a demon should possess. And the reason you never get emotionally invested in Willow's plight is because her character is completely assasinated to serve the plot. Willow is way WAY too smart to get sucked in by "Malcolm" so exceedingly quickly...and worse, when Buffy - her best friend - even gently questions her, she gets over the top angry at her. I know teen love is capricious and swift from time to time, but this is jsut not believable. By now, Buffy and Willow are close enough that there's no way to buy into her reaction without a plot-based explanation (they could have at least explained that Molloch has the ability to put people into a hypnotic trance or something...but they never did that).
Acting: 6.2
Nothing really stands out, except, once again...Anthony Stewart Head and Robia LaMorte (Ms. Calendar)...who were fantastic. Partially cancelling their efforts though are the ridiculously over the top portrayals of Fritz (Jamison Ryan) and Dave (Chad Lindberg)...do we really need to make computer geeks look some completely socially inept and creepy all the time, Joss?
Message: 5.0
Continuing in its tradition of telling a moral story with a horror movie twist, Buffy warns us all about the dangers of internet dating without confirmation that the person you're meeting online is who they say they are by putting Willow in the clutches of a powerful demon. Granted, it's been done before by the same show (Teacher's Pet), but the electronic twist was relatively new back in 1997. Still...that moral message hardly seems worth it when it's paired with the unnecessary war between technology and mysticism (I don't subscribe to the theory that they contradict) and the unfortunate conclusion that someone must be a pagan to understand that technology and mysticism can coexist.
Highlights:
JENNY: You guys are here again? You kids really dig the library, don't you?
BUFFY: We're literary.
XANDER: To read makes our speaking English good. (LOL!)
JENNY: Well well...look who's here. Welcome to my world, Ruppert. You're nervous already, aren't you.
GILES: I'm remaining calm, thank you. (LOL)
and later...
JENNY: You can't wait to get out of here, can you?
GILES: I'm afraid I have even less desire to be around computers than I did before this incident.
JENNY: Well it was your old book that started this, not a computer. What do you have against technology anyway?
GILES: It's...the smell.
JENNY: Computers don't smell, Ruppert.
GILES: I know that. That's the problem. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell... musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is... it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um... smelly. (LOL...isn't Giles so perfectly British)
JENNY: You really are an old fashioned boy, aren't you?
GILES: Well I certainly don't dangle a corkscrew from my ear.
JENNY: That's not where I dangle it. (GIGGITY!! LOL)
WILLOW: The only boy who ever chased after me and it turns out to be an evil robot demon. What does that say about me?
BUFFY: It doesn't say anything about you, Willow.
XANDER: Yeah, need I remind you that my last crush turned out to be a giant praying mantis?
BUFFY: Yeah, and then there's a certain vampire that makes my knees weak?
WILLOW: That's true...
XANDER: That's the hellmouth for you...I think it's safe to say that none of us are ever going to have a normal relationship. (they laugh happily at first, then awkwardly)
BUFFY: Yeah...we're doomed...
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