#btvs 1x08

[bethnaberrie]

so...was anybody going to tell me about the bulletin board with “romania” on it in jenny's classroom? or was i just supposed to notice it for the first time when rewatching i, robot... you, jane (1.08) for the sixth time? because the foreshadowing is so small but SO loud when you finally see it.

[dailybuffysummers]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 1.08 “I, Robot... You, Jane”

[buffysource]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 1.08 | “I, Robot... You, Jane”

[liam-summers]

Happy love day to them and them only ❤️‍🔥

[danielslaw]

“you know what makes it new? I trust him. I know him.“ ANGEL:“that's great, it's nice you moved on; I can't. You found someone new; I'm not allowed to, remember? I see you again, it cuts me up inside, and the person I share that with is me. You don't know me anymore, so don't come down here with your great new life and expect me to do things your way. Go home.”

THE VAMPIRE ANGEL IN ANGEL SEASON 1 EPISODE 19: SANCTUARY.

[buffycapss]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER — 1x08: I, Robot... You, Jane.

[whatisyourchildhoodtrauma]

ATS 1.08 & BTVS 4.15

#same energy

[hopepunk-priest]

Giles was right about information on the internet being without context and how learning should be tangible

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Wednesday, April 17

BUFFY: So, you've been seeing a guy, and you don't know what he looks like? Okay, this is a puzzle. No, wait, I'm good at these. Does it involve a midget and a block of ice?

~~BtVS 1x08 “I, Robot... You, Jane~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Disastrous Date (Buffy, Owen Thurman, Giles, PG) by badly_knitted

Numb (Buffy, PG-13) by veronyxk84

[Series: 11 drabbles added] Crossing Over - BtVS/Spuffy crossover drabbles (Ensemble, xovers w/ various shows, G) by julikobold

Love Language (Xander/Spike, not rated) by forsaken2003

Who the Hell is Lindsey McDonald? (Lindsey, Leverage xover, G) by nival_kenival

Spike x Female Reader Pt. 1 (not rated) by crowwritesaway

[French language] Des fleurs pour la St Valentin (Buffy/Spike, G) by MissKitty28

To the ghosts between us (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by will_

[Chaptered Fiction]

You’re my always, Chapter 4/4 (Willow/Tara, T) by ronanceisrxmance

Six Inches Between Us, Chapter 3/3 (Buffy/Giles, E) by AddieH

Staying Afloat, Chapter 21/? (Willow/Oz, T) by dwinchester

[Spanish language] Me haces tanto bien, Chapter 4/? (Buffy/Spike, M) by Nigthmareintheheaven

With Arms Wide Open, Chapter 31/? (Buffy/Giles, E) by jaybird023

[Ukrainian language] Forward to Time Past//Вперед у час минулий, Chapter 37/67 (Buffy/Spike, E) translation by Uraniya

Infinitely, Chapter 48/? (Willow/Tara, M) by Laragh

[French language] Recommencer, Chapter 7/? (Buffy/Faith, M) by FridayQueen

In the Dark of the Night, Chapter 8/? (Buffy/Spike, Jenny/Giles, M) by norik23

[French language] La fin des temps, Chapter 31 (Buffy/Spike, G) by MissKitty28

The Scoobies, Chapter 11 (Ensemble, T) by heckate

Faded Hope, Chapter 26 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only) by bitchee

Blood and dust, Chapters 5-6 (Buffy/Spike, 18+) by Blackoberst

What the Drabble? Vol. 2, Chapter 13 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by VeroNyxK84

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: butterflies and sleepy vamps (Buffy/Spike, worksafe) by tubesock86

Artwork: Buffy back study (worksafe) by isevery0nehereverystoned

Artwork: Dusk (Buffy, tarot, worksafe) by isevery0nehereverystoned

Artwork: dead end (Lindsey McDonald, worksafe) by genericaces

[Reviews & Recaps]

PODCAST: HELLMOUTH HOMOS: Hush by Fear Queers

PODCAST: Bonus Episode 3! Season 3 Recap by Gym Was Cancelled

[Community Announcements]

Event: Pen & Paint 2024 by SADmins

[Fandom Discussions]

I understand the appeal of fics where Spike doesn’t get his soul back, but [...] by nicnacsnonsense

[anon ask] [Thoughts on the dynamic between Faith and Dawn] answered by explosionshark

I haven’t processed that [Cordelia's fate's] not a prank yet by littled0lls

Houses are NOT safe with [Buffy]! by aphony-cree

[Buffy] loves so deeply and irrationally and makes every love a part of her by crimeboys

[About Jesse's fate] by stardust-kiddo

[ask] [Some fix-it scenarios for BtVS] answered by fox-toothed

Andrew Wells’s monologue about Faith by coraniaid

BTVS opinion : 4x09 [Spike seeing Willow's pain] by nevereverthem

The Romani still hold onto their vengeance but not a transcript of the dang curse by thisisgoing2far

Faith's more of an Angel than a Spike by LightBlueSky55

“Hell-Bound” in Angel is such an underrated scary episode by Eagles56

Vampires and their mothers by failed_asian

Did they purposely write Buffy as being slightly less cool when Faith came along? by Tsole96

Oz & Early Faith by Neat-Biscotti-2962

Which half of BtVS do you love? by Kindofaddictedtotv

What do you think is the best three episode streak in the whole series aka your "holy trinity"? by incendio1897

Tell me why you love Buffy! What does the show bring to your life? by secyning

Faith and Wood? by Slayerette444

Which 1-2 episode character would you have liked to see join the scoobies? by dragonsrawesomesauce

Who do finance the watcher's council? by Imcyves

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

CONVENTION: David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, and Julie Benz in Orlando, Sept. 2024 by Fanboy Expo Orlando

CONVENTION: James Marsters to Attend Ultracon of South Florida 20-22 Sept. 2024 by James Marsters News

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Join the editor team :)

[bangelgifs]

Hi! I love your gifs and I wanted to request a gif set with big gifs, and this quote on the gifs: if love would have saved you you would have lived forever. With a mix of happy bangel scenes like ats 1x08, btvs 2x09 and 2x13 then with moments where they “died” like 2x22, 5x22. I hope that makes sense? Let me know if u need more specifics, and bangel forever!

The set is finally up here, Nonnie. Apologies for the long delay!

- Rachel

[salvatoreselena]

Top five female characters or if someone asked that already top 5 fav ship moments !

these are both so good so I’ll answer both

female characters

buffy summers (btvs)

prue halliwell (charmed)

elena gilbert (tvd)

regina mills (ouat)

kate beckett (castle)

fave ship moments

buffy and angel in ats “I will remember you” 1x08 when he was human briefly i will never get over it

damon and elena’s kiss at the motel in tvd “heart of darkness” 3x19

beckett telling castle in “always” 4x23 “he got away and I didn’t care. I almost died and all I could think about was you. I just want you.”

nathan and haley’s first kiss in oth “the search for something new” 1x08

oliver meeting felicity for the first time in arrow “lone gunmen” 1x03

ask me top 5 anything

[the-shadow-of-your-heart]

Buffy Season 1 Ranked (Best to Worst)

Prophecy Girl

Nightmares

Angel

Witch

Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

The Pack

Welcome to Hellmouth

The Harvest

Out of Mind? Out of Sight

I, Robot, You, Jane

Teacher's Pet

The Puppet Show

[dailybuffysummers]

It's great. It's your best hair ever! 

[belfryprepz]

Okay but like Xander said he would make fun of all the people that wouldn't talk to him. This is giving me more fuel for my bi Xander theory if I am greatly misinterpreting things for my own agenda no I am not <33

[swim-forthemusic]

btvs rewatch: I Robot...You Jane (1x08)

Things involving the computer fill me with a childlike terror. Now if it were a nice ogre or some such, I’d be much more in my element.

[blorgon-schmorgon]

Btvs rewatch 2k19/2k20 (1x08, I Robot, You Jane)

Continuing my not-so-weekly rewatch of buffy with my partner, we just watched I Robot, You Jane… we actually watched Never Kill A Boy On The First Date, The Pack, and Angel a while ago and I do indeed have Thoughts written out in note form on my iPhone…but I have yet to put them into any coherent form so I might return to them at some point.

For now, I’m going to try to make sense of what is supposedly another contender for the worst episode of BtVS.

On transmediation and digital fears:

If there is anything to take away from this episode, it is its commentary on media and transmediation, fitting for the genre-bending, postmodern pastiche the show would evolve into. From the start, the show has been riffing on horror tropes and movies, but this is the first episode that actually explores what media is, does, and can be – these ideas will be explored with much more finesse and deftness in later seasons, with episodes like Once More With Feeling, Storyteller, Buffy vs Dracula, Restless, Superstar and I’m sure many others that I can’t think of right now. In doing so, this is arguably the first episode to look at itself, a self-awareness that will continue to define and shape the series in years to come. This is after all, the episode with the line: “Besides, I can just tell something's wrong. My spider sense is tingling . . . Pop culture reference, sorry.” This is also one of the most widely reviled episodes – The Passion of the Nerd’s review only offers a drinking game for everything the show gets wrong about computers, it is widely critiqued for being a terrible Willow episode, morgue calls out its bizarre tonal shifts and boring monster, and criticallytouched comments on its absolute bungling of digital horror and its lack of subtlety with regards to those themes. Its last scene, however, is widely loved for the self-aware moment in which the Scooby gang commiserate over how they’ll never have a healthy relationship, which morgue refers to as a moment in which Buffy is placed firmly into the “post-modernist mode of self-aware 90s entertainment, and combined into one scene they come close to breaking the fourth wall and knowing they are characters in a TV show”.

This post-modern self-awareness pervades the episode though!  The monster in this episode is essentially a transmedial monster, moving from interface to interface, attempting to become flesh again, moving from book to digital space to a robot body. It is a pity this episode is so clunky – this is a fascinating concept! A network monster! My partner called this proto-proto Black Mirror, and in today’s renewed moment of digital pessimism, it’s interesting how much this episode’s technophobia continues to resonate. Even the men controlled by Moloch seem to be the precursors to the Trio in season 6, who are now read as the precursors to contemporary incels.

The episode itself is intimately concerned with media – the thoroughline to this episode is the introduction of Jenny Calendar, a technopagan who spars with Giles over the promises and drawbacks of the digital age. Jenny argues that technology democratizes knowledge, evidentiated by her own participation in a technopagan online community, with magic no longer bound up in the musty books of a handful of white guys (her words!). Giles on the other hand, abhors the way this democratization loses the specific quality and texture of knowledge found in books, losing the unique “smell” books possess, stripped of sensory and material pleasure. The show takes a few potshots at itself as a TV show in the process – at one point, Jenny refers to TV as “the idiot box” as opposed to the “good box” that is computers; at another point, Jenny tells Giles he’s been watching too many movies.

The unbinding and democratization of knowledge is reflected in the actual unbinding of Moloch, and their inability to return him to a book, which today feels like a commentary on how the Internet unwittingly creates platforms for ancient evils to re-emerge and take new forms in a Hydra-like manner. As noted earlier, this calls to mind the creation of the incel ideology and newfound fascisms that have taken root in online spaces, recalling the fascisms of the 1920’s. Moloch himself, as a demon feeding on love, is an ideological monster, making him particularly apt for a digital monstrosity that creates cults and followers. While the intended metaphor was about the dangers of online dating, the contemporary resonance of this episode is far more about the dangers of online cults, which I find a far more interesting story to chew on. Another thing this episodes hints at is the emergence of fake news – throughout the episode, background characters are overheard noticing odd things about the digital sphere, like a nurse saying someone’s records had been changed. It’s not a particularly interesting development, but it is an interesting historical moment to think over. With the introduction of new information technologies, anxieties over fake information always emerge, which also happened with the introduction of the printing press in 1440. Amusingly, Moloch is binded before the printing press, during the time in which each book was actually individually printed and bound, speaking to Giles’ taste for the unique and specific.

The episode ends when Moloch is finally bound to a robot body, making him killable – the corollary is that if he had remained in the Internet, it would have been impossible for a Slayer to defeat him. True to form, the show will struggle to depict these kinds of networked monsters that exist beyond a specific form, and will only really return to this concept with The First Evil in season 7 (and arguably The First Slayer in Restless). These monsters, which cannot be fought in hand-to-hand combat, provoke a unique conundrum for the show to depict satisfyingly. Moloch is a far more deadly creature on the Internet than he is in a robot body.

Am I overthinking this episode? Probably! But it is an interesting historical artefact (more than it is an interesting Buffy episode), and in the context of a show concerned with media and postmodernism, it has a surprising amount of insights and leads to follow. It’s a pretty meh showing for the characters and dialogue, and definitely nowhere near as good as the show will get, but it’s not as terrible as people make it out to be!

A few other notes:

           This is one of the only early episodes to play on surveillance themes – these themes will emerge again in season 4 and 6, as detailed in impalementation’s imagery series of the show.

           Morgue’s review argues that one of the reasons this episode doesn’t work is that it ventures too far out beyond the high school scale – yet what I really like about this episode upon rewatch is how creepy it makes the computer lab and the girls’ locker room – these are very specific places to make scary, and goes beyond just the creepy classroom aesthetic that defines some of the more high school Buffy episodes! The specificity of making the computer room scary really appeals to me.