I, Robot... You, Jane

"I, Robot... You, Jane"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Buffy, Willow and Xander realize they'll never have normal relationships
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 8
Directed by	Stephen Posey
Written by	Ashley Gable Thomas A. Swyden
Production code	4V08
Original air date	April 28, 1997 (1997-04-28)
Guest stars
Robia LaMorte as Jenny Calendar Chad Lindberg as Dave Jamison Ryan as Fritz Pierrino Mascarino as Thelonius Edith Fields as School Nurse Mark Deakins as Moloch Joss Whedon as Newscaster
Episode chronology
← Previous "Angel" Next → "The Puppet Show"
List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes

"I, Robot...You, Jane" is the eighth episode of season 1 of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode was written by staff writers Ashley Gable and Thomas A. Swyden, and directed by Stephen Posey.

Willow flirts with a mysterious boy, Malcolm, over the internet. Meanwhile a demon, Moloch the Corruptor, has been freed after five centuries.

Plot

The episode begins in a castle in Cortona, Italy, in 1418. Carlo, a young Italian man, looks at a horned demon: Moloch "the Corruptor", his master. Moloch coaxingly promises Carlo everything if he gives Moloch his love, and as Carlo promises his love, Moloch kills him. In a monastery, a circle of priests trap Moloch in a book using a magic ritual. The book is sealed in a box, with the head priest expressing his hope that the book will not be read, lest the demon Moloch be released upon the world.

In the present, Buffy finds the book in its box, and Giles tells her to add it to a heap that Willow has been scanning into a computer. Ms. Calendar and Giles trade jibes about the need for modern technology. Willow scans Moloch's book, then leaves the library. The text "Where am I?" appears on the computer screen.

A week later, at school, Buffy questions Willow about her missing a few classes. Willow confides she has an online relationship with a boy named Malcolm. As Buffy tries to warn Willow about the dangers of rushing into a relationship with someone she has not seen, Fritz (a computer geek) is instructed by Moloch, via the computer he is working on, to keep watch on Buffy. Ms. Calendar questions Fritz about the unusual amount of time he and Dave are spending on the computer, and receives an ambiguous answer. Later, when Xander asks Willow if she will accompany him to the Bronze, she passes, wanting to talk to Malcolm. Buffy accuses Xander of jealousy, and Xander denies vehemently, claiming he is just worried about Willow, because they have no idea if Malcolm is who he says he is. The scene cuts to Fritz mumbling "I'm jacked in" as he carves the letter "M" into his arm using a scalpel. As Willow is late on the next day, Buffy finds that she blew off classes to talk to "Malcolm". When Buffy asks Dave for help in finding out Malcolm's real identity, his angry response causes her to think that he is Malcolm. When Buffy asks Giles for help, he confesses he cannot help her much as he finds technology to be intimidating. His only idea is for Buffy to follow Dave. As Buffy follows him to the CRD building, a security camera points at her, and a message appears on a computer screen Fritz is looking at: "kill her".

When Buffy goes back to Giles and Xander, Xander unexpectedly knows that CRD is "Calax Research and Development", a hi-tech company which shut down. When Xander assures Buffy that it is suspicious, since he would know if CRD re-opened, they decide to break in. When Ms. Calendar interrupts them, Xander and Buffy leave. Willow becomes suspicious of Malcolm after she learns that he knows Buffy was kicked out of her old school, and logs off the conversation. Back at the library, Giles's and Ms. Calendar's verbal sparring leads them to discover that Moloch's book is empty.

Outside of school, Dave tells Buffy that Willow wants to talk to her in the girls' locker room, as a plot to electrocute Buffy. Dave changes his mind at the last minute, and his warning combined with Buffy's slayer reflexes save her. When Moloch hears of it, he begins writing Dave's suicide note on the computer, and Fritz kills Dave by hanging. In the library, Giles tells Buffy and Xander that demons can be imprisoned in books; if the books are read aloud, the demons are set free. Giles also explains that Moloch is an extremely powerful and seductive demon who "preys on impressionable minds", winning his victims over with false promises of love, glory and power; Dave and Fritz being two of his disciples. Together, they realize that Moloch has gotten into the internet - the scanning of his book being close enough to "reading" it to set him free - and is causing chaos from there. When Buffy tries to delete the "Moloch" file, his face appears and tells her to stay away from Willow, and Buffy realizes Malcolm is Moloch.

Buffy and Giles realise that there is no limit to the destruction that a demon could do through the Internet. After they find Dave's body, Xander and Buffy go to Willow's house, and Buffy tells Giles to ask Ms. Calendar for help, hoping that between his knowledge of demons and her knowledge of computers, they can reimprison Moloch. Willow is kidnapped by Fritz. Giles seeks help from Ms. Calendar, and is surprised that she is already aware of the demon in the Internet; she explains that she is a "technopagan". Buffy and Xander, guessing that Moloch had Willow kidnapped, rush off to CRD. Buffy calls Giles, and they coordinate plans. Inside CRD, Moloch's robotic body is prepared, and he is happy to see Willow. Moloch kills Fritz as a demonstration of his power and tries to entice Willow into his clutches, but she resists him, disappointing him. Buffy and Xander break into CRD as Giles and Ms. Calendar start preparing the binding spell. The binding spell does not complete, but casts Moloch out of the internet and traps him inside his robotic body. Enraged at losing his "omnipotence", Moloch crashes through a wall and attacks Buffy, Willow and Xander. After a brief battle, Buffy tricks Moloch into punching an electrical power line, causing his robotic body to explode and, presumably, destroying him for good.

The next day, Buffy, Willow and Xander joke about how the Hellmouth is screwing with their love lives, laughing about how none of them will ever find true happiness; suddenly, realising what they are laughing about, it ceases to be funny.

Production details

• "I, Robot… You, Jane" features the first appearance of Jenny Calendar. Although her first name was not mentioned, the script called her Nicki. However, the name was then changed to avoid confusion on the set, where the cast and crew all call Nicholas Brendon by his nickname, Nicky.^[1]
• The episode reached a Nielsen rating of 2.3 on its original airing.^[2]

Trivia

• We can notice that Willow has a picture of Giles and herself in her locker. Much later on, in season four's "Where the Wild Things Are", she'd confess she had a crush on him during this period.
• When Giles listens to the radio in his office, the voice speaking is actually the uncredited voice of Joss Whedon.

Cultural references

• The title of this episode is a play on the phrase "Me Tarzan, You Jane", as well as a reference to I, Robot, a collection of science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov.
• "My spider-sense is tingling": This is the phrase used by Marvel Comics hero Spider-Man when he senses danger with his spider sense. The term has come into common usage meaning someone has a bad feeling about something.
• The character named Dave may be a reference to Dave Bowman, the human protagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, who shuts down the AI computer system HAL 9000. Also, when Giles and Ms Calender perform the binding ritual, the computer screen flashes a number of different colours, much like a scene near the end of the film version of A Space Odyssey.
• Giles' suggestion that they stop Moloch by means of a computer virus prompts a response from Jenny that he's seen way too many movies. This is likely a reference to the film Independence Day where the protagonists disable the defenses of alien invaders by introducing a computer virus into their system.

Errors

• When Moloch accesses Buffy's file, her birthday is listed as October 1980 and she is listed as a senior with a GPA of 3.4, then as a sophomore with a GPA of 2.8. When Chris pulls up her file immediately after that shot, her birthday is listed as May 1979 and listed as a senior.
• When Willow leaves her PC to go to the front door and is kidnapped - her computer clearly has a black screen with a message saying 'You have mail' on there - when Buffy and Xander go into her room - they find the PC screen opened, and the actual message saying that Moloch wants to meet Willow on there, instead of the rather ambiguous 'You have mail' one.

Continuity

• This episode first shows the interactions between technology and the supernatural, a theme which occurs multiple times later in the series, most notably in Season Four, with the creation of the human-demon-cyborg hybrid Adam.
• Season 5 episode "The Gift" Buffy's headstone states 1981 as her year of birth.
• This is one of only eight episodes of the series not to feature at least one vampire, the others being "Witch", "The Pack", "The Puppet Show", "Inca Mummy Girl", "Living Conditions", "Fear, Itself" and "Beer Bad"

Arc significance

• This episode introduces Jenny Calendar, who will later become the second adult member of the Scooby Gang, joining Giles. She will go on to play a major part in Season Two.
• Ms. Calender's flirtation with Giles at the end of this episode lays the groundwork for their relationship in Season Two.
• Buffy states: "Let's face it that none of us is ever gonna have a happy normal relationship." A foreshadowing of the whole series.

References

1. ^ Golden, Christopher, and Nancy Holder. The Watcher's Guide, Vol. 1. New York: Pocket Books, 1998.
2. ^ "Nielsen Ratings for Buffy's First Season."

External links

• "I, Robot... You, Jane" at the Internet Movie Database
• "I, Robot... You, Jane" at TV.com