John Ritter’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer Character Was A First For The Series

Despite the campy tone and supernatural subject matter, Ritter was a huge fan of the writing on “Buffy” and admired the way that his episode’s narrative gradually unfolded his character’s secret. “The first half you think ‘Hey Buffy, just relax, give the guy a break’ — he’s almost too good to be true,” the actor explained in a behind the scenes interview for season 2 featured in the DVD extras. “And there’s something about Buffy that I think she sees her mom reacting to this guy in a different way and it threatens her, but then there’s just something about the guy, he’s just too perfect.”

The first time Buffy attacks Ted, she thinks she really killed a person. It isn’t til later that we learn that Ted is actually an android. For series creator and episode co-writer Joss Whedon, the episode was an opportunity to explore what it would be like if Buffy murdered someone — without actually taking it there. “We were able to get into the issue of, you know, what happens if Buffy kills a guy, a human guy,” Whedon added. “And even though, you know, he had revealed himself to be genuinely creepy by that point, it was still a human, and so that was something new for her to go through. To bring him back and show that he was in fact a murderous robot is just fun.”

This issue is revisited later through Faith, who accidentally kills a human being (working for demons) in season 3. In both of these episodes, the show managed to avoid compromising Buffy’s moral fiber too much while still touching on the thin line between noble slayage and senseless killing.