Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Nightmares

Season 1, Episode 10, Aired 5/12/97

Episode Summary

When strange things start happening to the students at Sunnydale High, it seems that everyone is living their worst nightmares. Buffy and the gang must hold together to stop the phenomena before reality and the nightmare world become one.

8.7

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Cast & Crew

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Sarah Michelle Gellar

Buffy Anne Summers
Nicholas Brendon

Alexander 'Xander' Harris
Alyson Hannigan

Willow Rosenberg

Fan Episode Reviews (35)

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Great stuff!

8.0

"Great"

By joxerlives, Jan 09, 2012 Report Abuse

The Good;
Buffy's dreams of the Master are truly terrifying as is his burying her alive which of course she'll experience for real in Bargaining. Giles' fear of not being able to read and Buffy dying are also excellent. Willow's stagefright and Cordy joining the chess club/bad hair brigade are utterly hilarious. It rather reminded me of the ep of Sabrina;TTW where Sabrina places a spell on her arch enemy Libby the haughty cheerleader turning her into a nerd only for Libby to become Queen of the nerds and start mocking the less clever. Semi-naked Nic Brendon who in the great comedy tradition wears embarassing boxer shorts. Some great CGI giant wasps. The Joyce/Buffy scenes. The tough guy whose mum turns up at school (don't know who he is but he resembles a character from Grease?)

The Bad;
The scene with Buffy and her dad is just too cruel. Apart from that, not much.

Best line;
Almost Xander's; Your balloon animals were pathetic!
But the winner is Joyce; Your father loves you dear but no more than I do

Observations and questions;
Xander suffers clourophobia (fear of clowns) whilst Willow suffers arachnaphobia (although she faces down a giant spider in season 7). He also fancies a teacher called Miss Tishler demonstrating his fondness for older women again. Willow says that there is marital tension in her House (and as we later learn in Xander's also). The Master says he met the last Slayer, did he kill her?
Here we have confirmation that Buffy was born in 1981 and is 15 turning 16 in this ep (so shame on you if you fancied her up to this point ) This begins the long tradition of disasterous birthdays for Buffy. First appearance of Hank Summers in the show. The only time we'll ever see Buffy as a vamp but she's still Buffy. You wonder if this is because it's just a nightmare and she's not truly been sired or even if a Slayer becomes a vamp that they're not evil, they're still the Slayer?
Great ep, 8 and half out of 10 again
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You were a lousy clown! Your balloon animals were pathetic! Everyone can make a giraffe!

9.5

"Superb"

By Phunner1416, Sep 17, 2011 Report Abuse

This episode is one of the most original episodes that comes from Buffy, which is saying something, I'm pretty sure that a little boy getting beaten by his little league coach and being put into a coma, bringing the nightmare world alive is pretty original. This episode also shows some revealing things about the core four, such as Willow's stage fright, Xander's fear of clowns, Buffy's fear of being alive and becoming evil, and Giles' fear of losing Buffy, and how all of their fears can coincide with each other. It's also the first time that Buffy and the Master meet, and it foreshadows The Master easily beating Buffy, and then her coming back from the dead. Where's Paul Reveire when you need him, "The apocalypse is coming, the apocalypse is coming!"moreless

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Buffy is worried about an impending visit from her father, but soon has more to worry about when the nightmares of the students of Sunnydale High start coming to life. A filler episode; I'm the odd one out here my least fave ep of the first season...moreless

5.5

"Mediocre"

By Jay-Spacedust, Apr 03, 2011 Report Abuse

This review contains spoilers.

Okay, I'll put my hands up straight away on this one I'm seemingly the only person who didn't particularly like this episode.
Reading the other reviews, I'm pretty amazed everyone seems to have found it wonderful, some citing it as a "classic" and even "the best of the first season". But personally, I found it to be a knocked-together filler episode, with little of real interest.
So I know straight away I'm the odd one out here; but part of the appeal of 'Buffy' is that it has different episodes for different tastes, so I'll run down why this one didn't work for me.

First things first, this is one of the numerous first season episodes not to feature Angel, but it does at least feature the Master (who, on hindsight, was maybe underused through the series to build up to inevitable season finale showdown). Buffy even gets to finally meet him in this one. Sort of. Or was it a dream? More on this in a bit.

This one just cries to me of a last minute "We need an extra episode to bump up the count. Hey, let's do something about people's nightmares!". Which could be fun. If it were given the usual BtVS unique spin. But for the bulk of this one, the characters just seem to wander around from one nightmare to the next, with little real structure of the story, other than the realisation that it all revolves around Billy, the young boy in the coma.

Now I'll confess something embarrassing: When I first watched this episode, on BBC Two way back when (about 1999ish), it took me a great portion of the episode to work out that Billy wasn't in fact Collin, "The Anointed One". I thought it was all part of some plot by the Master; I didn't work out until later on that Billy was a different person! Okay, I was young and not paying full attention, but they certainly do look similar.

Anyway, back on course, I'll say again how *amazed* I am how popular this episode actually is. Although some deride them, I personally even like things such as (the much knocked) "Me Robot, You Jane", or "Teacher's Pet" over this episode; at least they had intriguing plots. For me, just watching characters "walk around in nightmares" for 45 minutes got a little tiring after a while, I'm afraid.

There are some fair moments, although I'm a little lost why some deem this story to be "hilarious". Willow being thrust on stage for a performance she doesn't know the words to (the weird noise that comes out of her mouth is very funny), and, of course, Buffy being buried alive and coming back as a vampire. But these are good moments too few and far between; the concept needed more of a structure to pull it all together. And why did it all centre around the Highschool (and oddly, a cemetery that had appeared across the street)? As far as we know, Billy didn't even attend there. Why did it not affect a larger area of Sunnydale?

That thing I mentioned with the Master earlier... well that's another niggle. It is never explained what is real and what was an illusion (i.e. never happened) at the conclusion of the story, and who does and who doesn't remember what from it. Buffy and co. seem to recall it all, but Buffy's father arrives as if nothing happened, so presumably he was just an illusion earlier? We are never given any clue as to who else remembers what, including if Buffy did in fact meet the Master or not.

Well, I think you get the idea. Sadly, not one of my favourite episodes; in fact, possibly my least favourite of all, up until the sadly much weaker sixth season. It just reeks of a filler instalment to me, with some unanswered plot questions, and personally has little re-view value. I hadn't seen the first season for quite a while, and thought previously that "The Pack" may have been my least favourite episode from season one, but "Nightmares" sadly takes that award hands down. I know I'm gonna really get some "disagree" votes for this, but sadly, I can only bring myself to give "Nightmares" a *much* lower than usual 5.5.moreless

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Buffy Kruger

6.0

"Fair"

By Thestorysofar, Apr 02, 2011 Report Abuse

So this is all about dreams and bad things happening to people.

We get to see what the characters are afraid of,
spiders, being naked in class, singing in front o f a crowd.

There was a good oppurunity here for character development. but it was skipped for a weird looking guy with an arm that looked like it came from an octopus. If you ever want to see good example of an episode like this that has some one in a coma and creating dreams. watch the fairy tail episode in season 3 of Supernatural. Now that was awesome.

At least the Master got to get out of the cage fora bit.moreless

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Season 1, Episode 10.

9.0

"Superb"

By Wanted23, Apr 02, 2011 Report Abuse

Not a bad episode at all. Buffy's dad is supposed to come! Woohoo! The spiders being released were weird. It was mad creepy. I think Wendell is weird. Frankly, I don't care if spiders are arachnids or insects. The students' nightmares begin coming true. Yikes! I wish some of my dreams came true, just not my nightmares. How did Buffy do bad in history if she was barely in class? Well, whatever. The point is, the episode was enjoyable, which is important, especially since it's nearing the end of the season. It took me a while to realize that Buffy's nightmare was failing a history test. Anyway, good episode! :)moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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Trivia
ADD TRIVIA
- First Time You See Buffy's Dad in the show, he appears 4 times in Season 1 Episode 10 Nightmare, Season 2 Episode 1 When she was bad, Season 5 Episode 21 The Weight of the World, and his last appearance is in Season 6 Episode 17 Normal Again. Edit
- Aldo and Willow were attempting to preform the famous duet from Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Willow was dressed to play the title character Cio-Cio-San and Aldo was playing her new American husband Pinkerton. In the actual duet, Cio-Cio-San does not come in until after Pinkerton's first five lines (where Willow asked if it was her turn). The first prompting look Aldo gave her was factually inaccurate. Edit
- At the beginning of the episode, an exterior shot of Sunnydale High is shown for a few seconds. This shot was taken from "Teacher's Pet" (1x04). You can see Willow sitting on the bench wearing her red shirt and plaid pants from when she first met Ms. French in "Teacher's Pet." However in the next scene, which takes place only a few seconds later, Willow is wearing a black and brown shirt and a flowered skirt. Edit
Notes
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- Featured Music: Vieni La Sera from Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini - The opera duet that Willow is supposed to perform Edit
- According to the first Watcher's Guide, Joss Whedon stated this is the episode where Xander "officially" grows up, due in large part to his punching out the clown. Edit
- It was Alyson Hannigan's idea for Willow to suffer from stage fright, which is how the writers decided to make performance anxiety her biggest nightmare. Edit
Quotes
ADD QUOTES
- Cordelia: (to Wendell) Hello? Doofus! You're in my light. Xander: Wendell, what is wrong with you? Don't you know that she is the center of the universe, and the rest of us merely revolve around her? Edit
- Master: Fear is a wonderful thing. It is the most powerful force in the human world. Not love, not hate... Fear! We are defined by the things we fear. (goes to the large cross) This symbol, these two planks of wood, it confounds me. Suffuses me with mortal dread. But fear is in the mind. (puts his hand on the cross and holds on while it burns) Like pain. It can be controlled. If I can face my fear, it cannot master me. Edit
- Joyce: (to Buffy) You just have to remember that your father adores you. No more than I do, by the way. Edit
Allusions
ADD ALLUSIONS
- Billy: I had the strangest dream. And you were in it, and you... This line is very similar to what Dorothy says at the end of The Wizard of Oz, when she wakes up from her dream. Edit
- The Master: A dream is a wish your heart makes. It's amusing (and slightly ironic) that The Master is familiar with Walt Disney. This is a line from a song in Disney's 1950 movie Cinderella. Edit
- Xander: Your balloon animals were pathetic. Everyone can make a giraffe! Balloon animals refers to the practice of twisting long balloons into shapes representing animals. The giraffe is a particularly common balloon animal. Clowns often do balloon animal shapes. Edit