"The Replacement": An Unsatisfying Surprise

As someone who never watched Buffy before this class, I had never seen “The Replacement” before today. However, judging from its title, and the screen shot of the two Xanders on the title page, I thought I had a pretty good idea what it was going to be about. Xander, directionless and living in his parents’ basement, is dissatisfied with his life, but seems unable to change it. Suddenly, he is “replaced” by a demon that not only has his face, but is also better at his life than he is! I imagined a sort of Tom Sawyer-meets-A Christmas Carol situation, in which Xander watches his life proceed without him, and comes eventually to realize that, despite needing to be so often saved by the Scooby Gang, he does have something unique and valuable to offer the world. Of course, that’s not what happens, and I couldn’t help but be a little annoyed when Giles announces that both Xanders are the “real” Xander. The foreshadowing that the Suave Xander was some kind of imposter was so heavy, that I don’t see how the audience could have come to any conclusion, without Giles’ revelation. Now, I’m all for surprises, particularly in television, movies, and literature, but I feel that surprises are most satisfying when we can go back and look at the text and see that we were in fact lead toward the surprise, though we did not know it at the time. Otherwise, we feel cheated. In the case of “The Replacement,” I felt cheated.