Trivia / Buffy the Vampire Slayer S4 E10 "Hush"

• Based on a Dream: Whedon claims he got the idea for the ghouls from a nightmare, and recreated it on-camera by describing it to the show's makeup artists.
• Blooper:
  • As everyone is taking their seat for Giles's projector presentation, Anya walks to a seat and pulls it down to sit. She has nothing in her hands, and there is nothing on the seat, yet after she sits down as the camera angle changes, she is suddenly holding a bag of microwave popcorn.
  • At the end of the scene where Buffy and Riley are fighting the Henchmen, Buffy throws one of them into free standing metal shelving against a wall, knocking it and its contents on the floor. At the start of the next scene, the shelving and its contents are still standing as though nothing happened.
  • As Spike takes the "Kiss the Librarian" mug out of the refrigerator, it's full of blood almost to the top of the rim. Just before drinking from the mug, Spike tilts it toward him at an angle that should cause blood to spill onto the floor, but no blood pours out as the blood level in the mug is suddenly lower.
• Cast the Expert: All the actors playing the Gentlemen had experience as mimes.
• Completely Different Title:
  • French: Un silence de mort (A deathly silence)
  • German: Das große Schweigen (The big Silence)
  • Portuguese (Brazil): Silêncio (Silence)
  • Spanish (Latin America and Spain): Silencio (Silence)
  • Hungarian: Csend (Silence)
• Corpsing: Spike, lying on Giles's sofa eating biscuits, hears Anya complain that Xander "[doesn't] care about me, you just care about lots of orgasms!", causing James Marsters to struggle to hide a smile. When he sits up to look over the back of the sofa, he's not smiling, so it wasn't an intended expression.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Joss Whedon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan and Nicholas Brendon all named this as one of their favourite episodes.
• Deleted Scene: This exchange was cut:
  Cheryl: Well, you missed last week. We did a healing chant for Chloe’s ankle. She said the swelling went right down.
  Nicole: What’s she doing on a mountain bike anyway?
  Cheryl: She was trying to impress Justin.
  Willow: I was actually talking more about real spells.
• Enforced Method Acting: Due to the Self-Imposed Challenge of an episode without dialog. Normally, when recording film or television, a huge amount of the work for when to hit a mark or a physical beat is dictated by dialog. You know where you need to be, what to do, and what to say because it's all coordinated using the scripted dialog. Without that, the actors had to learn the acting equivalent of sign language. On set. While making it up as they went. A lot of early takes had to be discarded because, to paraphrase Whedon, "Everyone did everything at the same time". As you can tell by popular and critical reception, they fucking nailed it.
• First Appearance: Of Tara Maclay.
• Hey, It's That Place!: Several scenes in this episode are filmed on the same street used in Desperate Housewives. Many of the characters' noticeable homes can be seen. The two shows would share many actors over the years, most noticeably Nathan Fillion and Julie Benz.
• Inspiration for the Work: Joss Whedon cites the inspiration for this episode as the Space: Above and Beyond story "Who Monitors the Birds?", which is largely devoid of dialogue. The star of that episode, Rodney Rowland, would later guest star on Angel.
• Looping Lines: Buffy's scream was performed by another actor.
• Non-Singing Voice: According to Word of God, Buffy's scream at the end was dubbed by another actor.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The episode's gimmick came about when Joss Whedon heard that the dialogue was the most praised part of the show. So he opted to do an episode without any.
• Stunt Double: Lampshaded by Joss Whedon in the DVD Commentary.
  Whedon: Oh, looks like Buffy's got her fightin' boobs on!
• Surprisingly Lenient Censor:
  • Buffy makes a gesture to indicate staking the demons responsible, which Xander mistakes for a masturbation gesture. On the DVD Commentary, Joss Whedon says he can't believe they let that one in.
  • Other things that surprisingly made it to air were Anya's "let's go have sex" Hand Signal and Spike's V-Sign.
• Technology Marches On: The humor of the protagonists trying to communicate would be very different had the episode aired even five years later. Everyone would be texting or communicating through social media. There's also Giles using an overhead projector for his exposition-via-drawings as opposed to a slideshow on a computer or digital projector.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Buffy and Riley were originally going to make love in this episode, but Joss Whedon realized it was too soon for them.
  • At the time of Tara's introduction in this episode, she and Willow were not planned to be a couple. It was after one more episode aired that the decision was made to make their relationship romantic.

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