I ROBOT, YOU JANE (1x08)

A slow episode that pretty much goes nowhere and makes the boring Teacher's Pet (1x04) look like an action extravaganza. The only thing worth noting is Jenny Calendar's introduction. Right away she comes onto Giles and makes it obvious that despite their difference in methods, she still finds him attractive. Their book vs. computer debate is also amusing.

But wow can those few positives not save this from being the worst episode in the entire series. There is so much bad in here I can't even begin to describe it. So I'll try anyway. The biggest problem is simply that the episode is really boring. Nothing of any importance happens and there are very few scenes between the Scooby Gang to make up for the lack of anything that could remotely qualify as interesting. Willow is somehow thrown into an obsessive love with a demon somehow affecting her through the computer. What kind of lunacy is this? What brain trust thought this drivel up? Was Whedon out of the country and in the middle of drowning during the entire process of making this episode?

You want to know what's even more sad than this episode? The fact that this would be considered an average episode by most other genre show's standards. That's truly pathetic. Anyway, all the computer stuff is completely unrealistic and the programmers come off as psycho sex stalkers rather than code geeks. With so much taking place on computers you would think that they would have tried harder. The 'program' that displays instant messages as giant text in the middle of a black screen is a joke for 1997. As I watched this episode I thought it couldn't get any worse. That was until the demon got itself an uber corny robot body to tell them it loves them before snapping their necks. Uh huh. If you're ever introducing someone to the show, for god's sake please skip this episode.