The Dark Age
Original
Airdate: November 10, 1997
Writers:
Dean Batali & Rob Des Hotel
Director: Bruce Seth Green
Like many kids, the gang doesn’t think much about the lives
of their elders before they came into their lives. As far as they know, Giles has always been a
stuffed shirt; a British guy who was proudly unhip, dedicated to work and in control. However, in “Halloween” we got a taste that
there was a dark side to him, and this episode gives us more detail. Ultimately, when they return and wreak havoc
on his stable life, we see that Giles is flawed with past regrets, although it
may not be deep enough to make a lasting impact on Giles’ character.
With the hints of a dark side, the pay off feels slightly
toned down. Perhaps it’s because Giles’
past pales in comparison to his demonic counterparts. Angel’s mass murderer; Giles summoned a demon
to get high and had to kill one of his friends when possession became permanent. His liking the Bay City Rollers almost sounds
darker (Bay City Rollers? Really, Giles?) It
could’ve been darker had we learned that Eyghon had
some bigger plans besides killing those who summoned him twenty five years
earlier.
This episode also establishes the use of demon possession as
a way to keep a couple apart, which was first used in “The Pack”. Things seemed to be going well for Giles and
Jenny, complete with heavy flirting and PDA.
It was cute to see Giles get the girl, but nice relationships rarely
last long on “Buffy”. So to enforce the
idea of Giles’ past coming to haunt him, they have someone he cares for pay the
penalty. Although Jenny under possession
was a bit hot (not with the Eyghon make up of
course).
It was neat to have Ethan return. His character serves as a model of what Giles
would be like if he had not tried to make up for killing his friend. Ethan is selfish to the point where he would
mutilate Buffy to save himself, whereas Giles has many people close to him and
would sacrifice himself to save them.
Although one nitpick; did Ethan know about this
in advance, since he got another month’s lease on the costume shop? He would’ve left town otherwise. Did he know Eyghon
was back and wanted to be in close proximity with another potential victim?
Another problem, albeit minor, is that for some reason they
to made the metaphorical “scent” of the Mark of Eyghon
literal. How exactly is a tattoo going
to produce a scent Eyghon could use to locate
them? Unless the searing flesh is a tell, this just came off as sloppy. It would’ve worked better had Eyghon scanned Ethan with his/her eyes before figuring that
he didn’t have the mark.
This episode brings up the concept of Buffy’s friends as
Watchers in training. It certainly feels
fit at this point in the show. With
Giles out of commission through most of the episode, the three in the library
have to step up the usual research.
One element that felt undercooked was vampires seizing the
human blood delivered to the hospital. For
creatures that don’t object to feasting on human beings, Angel excluded, it
seems odd that they would go through the effort to take donated blood. Only Angel gets packaged blood because he
doesn’t want to directly harm someone to get his sustenance. Since one of the vampires referred to the
blood as “product”, perhaps they spike the blood with something for vampires to
use like drugs. Blood intoxication has
been mentioned in “School Hard”.
This episode, a bit like its predecessor, could’ve been a
bit better. The exploration of Giles’
dark side is intriguing, but doesn’t go much deeper than his “lost
weekending”. Even throughout the series,
it is only a motivation here and there.
With the spin off series “Ripper” scrapped (as far as I know) this may
be one of the few examples of this dark side, which makes Giles a little
incomplete.
Overall
Score: 7/10