beneath you
Season 7 Episode 2
Episode aired october 01, 2002
Plot
a giant worm-like creature begins stalking a young woman. as the gang begin to investigate, they realise it's appearance in sunnydale may be linked to anya.
Behind the Scenes
when questioned about his fondest memory of filming, james marsters explained that final scene had slight different direction and dialog, but joss whedon saw the footage and told him the scene was horrible: 'it's not your fault. it was the direction. but it's just so on the nose, and it's just cringe-worthy.' whedon then decided to rewrite and direct it, then they filmed '12 to 20 hours to begin with, which is so much longer than other shows,' marsters said. 'then, after we finished those eight days, and the main unit started a new episode, we were doing pickups and extra shots on b and splinter units throughout the next week, which was not even entirely legal. but to go back and wholesale throw away an entire day's work and begin from scratch in the midst of all that other filming was just a huge, huge thing to do. he was willing to do that.' marsters described the new direction: 'he directed me to be less emotional. to be more distant. to be hiding both in the shadows and in my feelings from buffy rather than try and proclaim them to her. i think that's the way shame works. i think there's a lot of shame in this scene. and i think, in general, we say that writing can be too much on the nose, which is kind of a way of saying it's too direct, it's too literal, it's too obvious - and that can be a very subtle difference. the writing wasn't bad originally, it was just slightly too much on the nose, and it needed to be just a little more opaque and just get that right tone.
