Trivia
Pop culture: The conversation about The Captain and Tennille refers to a famous pop duo whose career began as backing singers for the Beach Boys. In 1975 their Neil Sedaka-penned song Love Will Keep Us Together became their first hit as a duo, selling more than a million copies. Their singing career flourished for nearly five years before they moved into television, where they had their own series.
Stepford Wives: The 'Stepford' mention refers to The Stepford Wives, the story about a town in Connecticut where all the women, who lead lives of blissful domesticity, turn out to be robots. Ira Levin's novel was turned into a film in 1975, starring Katherine Ross and Paula Prentiss. It spawned two awful TV movie sequels.
We are the robots: Ted is the second major robot to feature in Buffy, following the cybernetic casing built for Moloch in I Robot, You Jane. Still to come are such favourites as cyborg Adam, Warren's love machine April, and the sadly-missed BuffyBot.
Golf crazy: Ted takes Joyce and the Scoobies for a game of miniature golf, a treat Mayor Richard Wilkins III also offers Faith in season three. It's odd, then, that Willow tells us that Sunnydale doesn't have a miniature golf course at the end of When She Was Bad.
A little bit Country: Ted is played by John Ritter, famed star of US sitcom Three's Company - a show based on British comedy hit Man About The House. He's the son of (apparently) legendary country singing musician/actor Tex Ritter.
Freudiana: "I think maybe we're in Sigmund Freud territory." Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud is considered to be the father of modern psychoanalysis. Introducing to the world such concepts as unconscious repression, the ego and the id, his ideas and theories revolutionised the field of psychiatry.
Achey Angel: At the beginning of the episode Xander asks how Angel is, referring to the events of What's My Line Part II. Apparently he's been recuperating, although Buffy's smile as she says that he's better suggests that he's up to some action at least. She still has to nursemaid him though, explaining why he's not in most of this episode.
Geek central: Willow's computer nerd credentials are thoroughly established by her conversation with Ted. "I like my new nine-Gig hard drive," she confesses to him. As well as telling us a lot about Willow, the comment also dates this episode. Nine gigs was pretty hefty back in '97 but it wouldn't get you very far today.
Like a fairy-tale come true: The story of Ted is reminiscent of classic fairy-tale Bluebeard, about a lord who is constantly marrying. Despite being warned not to, the latest in his series of wives opens a cupboard whilst Bluebeard is away, to discover the bodies of all his previous brides.
