Currently on BtVS Buffy is training Dawn to be a slayer. Or, more accurately, a more competent Scoobie. This involves going to the cemetery and having vampires try to kill her and then stepping in. Which is scary but not as scary as... cutaway to a ribbon cutting ceremony and the reopening of Sunnydale High School. The terror begins.
Okay, by characters, Anya is getting flack because she just can't get into the swing of the vengence thing. Her numbers are down and it's affecting everyone up the chain. The other demons have to take up the slack, her boss has to explain why he's not making quota and it really is just a sales result meeting from hell. (Nice to see my quarterly review on TV.)
Xander is getting up there in the construction business. He wears a suit, goes to meetings, has a hard hat a different colour from the other guys, gets to play with the big roll of blue prints and is supervising construction crews.
Willow and Giles are in England, at the coven in Westbury. Apparently the coven went to see Spider-man over the summer and discovered that "with great power comes great responsibility" and have decided to teach Willow about the responsibility bit. Which, truth be told, was sadly lacking in her past. She is now more attuned to the earth which is good until she starts picking up the parts of the earth that are dark and nasty and have teeth.
Spike is back, living in the warrens of the Sunnydale High School. He's into bad hair, self mutiliation and cryptic speech. He is aware of what's going on but is powerless to stop it or help because he's a tortured soul right now.
The main plot: Dawn starts high school while Buffy roams the halls looking for monsters to jump out. They do. Dawn is attacked by a ghost/zombie which is an excuse to go to the bathroom where she finds another girl who sees dead people. They fall through the floor of the girls room where they find a boy who had snuck off to get a smoke and, you got it, saw dead people. Dawn whips out a cell phone and calls Buffy. Buffy finds the ghost/zombies, finds Spike, finds out there is a talisman that summoned the ghost/zombies, finds Dawn and the Legion of Substitute Scoobies and finds time to phone Xander and tell him to destroy the talisman which he does. Show semi-ends with the new principle, Mr. Wood, offering Buffy a part-time job as counselor. She takes it because it's an excuse to be at the school all the time and ensure that Dawn's social life is totally destroyed.
Show really ends with a melody of the past six seasons Big Bads chatting to Spike with a guest star at the end.
2) Umm... Spike's hair? Now we know where the ER hairstylists went.
3) Dawn's Legion of Substitute Scoobies (hereafter called LoSS aren't exact copies of Xander and Willow. Outcasts yes but not the "clean cut brainy dressed in Sears by her mom" and "white trash loser with the heart of gold" that were Will and Xan six years ago.
4) Six years and they finally go wireless. Welcome to the 21st century. Can you hear me? Good. How about now? Can you hear me? Good. How about now? Can you hear me? Good.
Giles: "You want to be punished?"
Willow: "I want to be Willow."
Anya: "What is this, an intervention? Shouldn't all my demon friends be here?"
Halfrek: (looks around) "They are."
(Thanks to Cory for Halfrek's name which completely fled my memory.)
Buffy: "It's about power."