Guest Starring: 
     
 Danny Strong: 
 (Jonathan) 
   
 Emma Caulfield: 
 (Anya) 
   
 Amber Benson: 
 (Tara) 
   
 George Hertzberg: 
 (Adam) 
   
 Bailey Chase: 
 (Graham) 
   
 John Saint Ryan: 
 (Colonel) 
   
 Erica Luttrell: 
 (Karen) 
   
 
 
  17. Superstar.  
   
  Jonathan Levinson, the high school nerd, is a super-hero.  
   
  Great quotes:  
   
 
Jonathan is Bond.
  • Willow sees vampires eating: "I don't care if it is an orgy of death, there is such a thing as a napkin."
  • Spike: "Wonder Jonathan and his fluffy battle kittens."
  • Buffy describes Riley's drugs as "The Initiative's technicolour food of strongness."
  • Anya is reading Jonathan's autobiography: "I was just at the part where he invents the internet."
  • Buffy questions Jonathan's perfectness: "He stared in 'The Matrix' but never left town, and how'd he graduate from med school? He's only 18 years old." Xander: "Effective time management?"
  • Anya: "You could have a world without shrimp, or a world with nothing but shrimp. You could even have a freaky world where Jonathan is some sort of non-perfect mouth-breather if that's what's blowing up your skirt these days. Just don't ask me to live there."
  • Xander on Jonathan: "He blinked? The man moistens his eyeballs and we're having a conversation about it!?"
  
  Fantastic moments:  
   
 
Jonathan the crooner.
  • The new opening sequence with Jonathan as an all action hero is just about the most fabulous piece of imaginative television the production team ever came up with.
  • The music throughout the episode has a 'James Bond' feel to it that gives everything a surreal finish while making Danny Strong look very cool. Mostly the music accompanies 'cool' stuff like Jonathan throwing knives at apples on soldiers' heads or him appearing in front of some very Orwellian posters of himself.
  • There's a good moment when Xander accidentally sets a book on fire by reading a spell, Giles tells him "Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the books."
  
  Duff Bits:  
   
 
  • It seems unlikely that Tara would be at the Scooby meeting so soon after being introduced to Buffy. Do they invite all of their mates to their 'secret' meetings?
  • Spike pronounces the word 'semi' with an American accent.
  • Giles has the Jonathan swimsuit calendar handily underneath something else on the table.
  • The monster should have been much more dangerous. If this thing is meant to be an opposing force to Jonathan's new status as a living god then it should at least have killed someone.
  
  Dean's comments:  
   
 
Jonathan the general.
This episode has a fairly wild concept, the entire premise of the show has changed for one episode and the audience is expected to go along with it. This says a lot about the credibility that the writers give to their viewers. The work that has gone into producing this show is staggering, all the props (Jonathan crisps, Jonathan trading cards, Jonathan posters, Jonathan swimsuit calendar etc) and sets as well as filming the shots of Jonathan accepting awards and playing music must have taken forever. This is proper science fiction though, giving the lead role to a guy who was originally an extra was a bold move and Danny Strong's performance won him a place as a semi-regular character in season 6. Jonathan is a paragon of everything good and great in Human beings, caring, kind and able to help people through their problems. The mini conflict between Buffy and Riley is over in a moment as a result of uber-Jonathan's intervention, he even realises the folly of what he is doing an helps Buffy to kill the monster rather than hurt her in a futile attempt to hold on to his fantasy. Jonathan places an important piece of information in Riley's head, that of Adam's nuclear power source. This is an unfortunately dull macguffin, but at least we get the comedy of Jonathan being a 'tactical consultant'.		 
   
 9/10 
 
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