It's the day of Xander and Anya's wedding and Xander is having a hard time already without an old man turning up claiming to be him from the future. Will he go through with the marriage or will he believe that nothing good can come of it.

I've been dreading this episode since the season started and I found it a real disappointment. It does Xander a disservice, it plays for the lowest common denominator laughs and it's predictable throughout. The second the old man says 'You don't recognize me then?' I thought 'Oh God, not future-Xander'. Now, admittedly it turns out that's not the case, but it doesn't make it any better an idea in the first place; the visit from future self warning of unhappiness has been done so many times it's untrue. The fact that Xander also runs out on his wedding without much prompting, believing that he actually has it in him to beat Anya when we all know him better than that, is a grave miscalculation. Just because his father is so horrible, it doesn't mean he'll turn out the same way.

As for the predictability, the Harris family, having lived in Sunnydale for years, seem perfectly happy to accept that all Anya's family are circus folk and that tentacles, horns and other appendages are perfectly normal. Why can't they just be told that their son is marrying an ex-demon? Surely it's unlikely to shock them by now, and even if it does, don't they have a right to know? You also get the attitude of 'Demons. Aren't they funny?' playing Anya's friends for laughs when the opportunity is there to show how much better some demons are than humans. We also have to finish on 'Demons are evil' as well, with D'Hoffryn offering Anya her powers back rather than a shoulder to cry on. Now, assuming the writers take the easy way out, this plotline has been rumoured since the start of the season and would be a bad move because it's the kind of thing there's no coming back from for Anya and she'd have to die.

The point is that the whole situation should not arise. Xander shouldn't act like he does; he should tell Anya he's simply not ready yet and they need to work more at their relationship before getting married rather than throwing it all away. Anya still seems happy to marry him until the last, so I can't believe that she has so much hostility towards him that she would seriously consider vengeance against him. Far better that she tells D'Hoffryn that he knows nothing about love and goes to Xander to win him back and put his fears to rest. And how come Xander and Anya's kids might be part-demon? I thought the whole problem for Anya was she was purely human now; there's no demon side left in her.

It's not all bad news. The acting is very good, with Willow and Tara getting closer again being cause for celebration and nicely understated, Nicholas Brendon and Emma Caulfield doing some great work, and even a touching scene with Spike and Buffy that shows how far they've come and that there may just be a future for them after all. It's just a shame that wedding episodes either end up with happily ever after or a hideous catastrophe and I rather hoped this one would go off hitch-free. Which it does, but that's not what I mean. I just hope the writers have plans for the aftermath of this that aren't obvious. At the moment I can't see what else this season has to offer, and that's sad.

**

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