the one that hit me hardest was the girl who stood up with the "you will not hit me again" look on her face.

absolutely! and I also loved that she was not a size 0. (nothing against naturally thin women :) )

I guess the potentials storyline didn't bother me all that much, I kind of liked it. Once I got past a few plot points concerning them I was alright with them. Wasn't it mentioned that several of them, possibly all of them had watchers at some time or another that were killed by an agent of the first? Or was that just me remembering wrong? Buffy never had a watcher until she was approached on the step of her school, and the show would lead you to believe that she was officially crowned the new slayer then. Also if it was so easy for the first to find all these potential slayers and kill them why weren't the forces of good (COW) rounding them up and shipping them all to Sunnydale for a huge on hand army at all time. Training with the active slayer when you could possibly become one seems logical enough to me.

The biggest one was the spell in Chosen. If this spell was possible(yes I know we never had Axe-calibur before this) why didn't they do it already to save many unneccessary solo slayer deaths. But then I guess we really wouldn't have had a need for a show focusing on the life of a chosen 'one'.

several of the women admitted to crushes on Micheal Landon

I had a crush on Manny (or, Manly, as poor, embarrassed, googley-eyed Laura once called him. Dear lord, I actually remember that? That's a little weird, even for me), and I kind of think it might be the same actor who ended up playing Hank Summers. I have not researched this. I really shouldn't now. But I might, because, as far as connections go, this would be a neat one.

And I just caught that 70s thing that VH1 does this past weekend (I don't have cable, but my mother, whom I was visiting, does). LOVED that trip down memory lane. Hysterical.

ETA: Man, I love the Web. OK, and this is probably not news to anyone else, but, yes, Dean Butler played Almanzo Wilder and Hank Summers. Cool -- a connecting actor between two fangirl shows decades apart.

X-post with Vortex (and to synchronize spelling)

Jen, my curiosity got the best of me, and yes, you were right Dean Butler played both Almanzo Wilder on Little House and Hank Summers.

such a small world . . .

The actor who played Hank Summers also played Almanzo Wilder aka Manly. In the series this was a nickname that only Laura calls Almanzo but if I remember the books correctly everyone called him that including his family. Also in the series he calls Laura "Beth" (her middle name is Elizabeth) but in the books he just calls her Laura. However in real life he called her Beth because there was another Laura in the family.

At least, if I've got all my facts straight.

Yes, I am a big freak for knowing all this, but I guess I've been an obsessive fan girl since the beginning and a collector of random useless facts.

Yes, I am a big freak for knowing all this, but I guess I've been an obsessive fan girl since the beginning and a collector of random useless facts.

Well, check it out -- same corner!

And I just caught that 70s thing that VH1 does this past weekend (I don't have cable, but my mother, whom I was visiting, does). LOVED that trip down memory lane.

It's not a memory lane thing, for me, since I was 4 years old at the end of 1979. But seeing how the cultural memory reinflects itself every few years is sort of funny. I might wish the segments were more in depth, more thoughtful, but then, this is VH1.

I will say, Miguel Ferrer hit the nail on the head, describing Starsky and Hutch as a show where, the moment they put down the cameras, you expected the leads to start kissing. I sort of hadn't realized that the general culture had the competence to read that subtext, in the 1970s. (Well, they still don't, if the mass viewers of Smallville are a measure.)

Okay, that wasn't about Buffy at all. But considering that they're running out of decades, no doubt we'll have "I love the 90s" any minute now, and then we can felicitate Buffy's emerging into the zeitgeist all over again.

Hey, I read all those books when I was growing up. You're not alone here.

The biggest one was the spell in Chosen. If this spell was possible(yes I know we never had Axe-calibur before this) why didn't they do it already to save many unneccessary solo slayer deaths. But then I guess we really wouldn't have had a need for a show focusing on the life of a chosen 'one'.

The short answer would be that a) the Council never really looked into the source of the slayer's power, b) they weren't big on thinking outside the box generally, and c) their own role and status would be so threatened by such an action that it wouldn't have been pursued even if they had come up with it. There's more to it than that, but basically, it's simply not the way the Council works. And until Buffy, there wasn't anyone except the Council with any knowledge or ability to do anything about it.

Buffy never had a watcher until she was approached on the step of her school, and the show would lead you to believe that she was officially crowned the new slayer then.

In the movie, IIRC, it was wanked that the potentials were identified by a birthmark which Joyce and Hank, being the superficial LA types they were, promptly had removed. I'm not sure it was ever addressed in the series, though. Kendra certainly seemed to have been with her watcher a long time before being called, though I guess Faith might be a little blurrier. So we have canon for the Council being able to identify some, but not necessarily all, potentials before they were called. Which seems about right in terms of how the S7 potentials were presented. But it would have been interesting to get a little more detail on how they found them, and whether they took an active interest in all of them or had some sort of way to evaluate who they thought might be likely to be called.

The only time in S7 that I got really pissed about a story line was in "Get it Done". I just left me with a big old "that's it?" for the creation of the first slayer mythos.

Also if it was so easy for the first to find all these potential slayers and kill them why weren't the forces of good (COW) rounding them up and shipping them all to Sunnydale for a huge on hand army at all time. Training with the active slayer when you could possibly become one seems logical enough to me.

and

c) their own role and status would be so threatened by such an action that it wouldn't have been pursued even if they had come up with it.

Yes. I think it was all about the power. Think how they were trying to get "hand" - even when they knew a Hell God had manifested itself in human form. Think about the Cruciarmentum. Think of their headgames with Giles. Think of their attitude when Angel (whom they knew had been ensouled and was fighting on the side of good) was dying. Think of their "keep it secret; keep it safe" rules on slayer identity. Think of how they must have known what Faith's life was like to some extent, but never stepped in to help her until they had their own purpose for her. Watchers and their forerunners - the shadow men - were very early on corrupted by their power over this powerful woman.