Talk:Sunnydale

"Cold Case"

Having watched the latest episode of "Cold Case" for Sunday, December 9th 2007, it apparently takes place in Sunnydale, California. While more than likely a spelling error of Sunnyvale, I thought it worth mentioning in this talk page. - anonymous (actually unable to login due to a forgotten password, oh well)

Number of High Schools

I think its unlikely that Sunnydale has only one high school. Sunndydale Highschool was destroyed at the beggining of season 3 and didn't re-open until the beggining of Season 7. Its possible that all high school aged children had to leave the town each day for three years. But I don't remember that ever beeing explicitly stated, I don't know if its ever been explicitly stated if there were other high schools or not. Saul Taylor 08:26, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There are two high schools. Just rewatched "Some Assembly Required", and there were three dead girls from Fondren High. BUFFY: You know what this means. XANDER: That Fondren might actually beat Sunnydale in the cross-town body count competition this year? The use of the term "cross-town" strongly suggests there are exactly two high schools in the town. So we can surmise that Fondren picked up the extra students in seasons 4,5,6. Lawrence King 10:15, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I find it more likely that Fondren High might be a private school. Otherwise Sunnydale High would probably have a different name, or maybe an extension like "John Smith High School in Sunnydale" (which is never stated). It has always been my opinion that the Sunnydale students attended a nearby high school or a regional school. They may have even had "split sessions" (a morning session and an afternoon one). (This was done once in my town when a local high school was unavailable. We have two high schools, but all the students had to for two years attend one, so half went 5-11 and half went 11-5.) -- Che Nuevara, the Democratic Revolutionary 05:28, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's possible. Of course, it's difficult to extrapolate from "real life", but in real life the vast majority of public high schools in California are Catholic schools, and they are almost always much smaller than the public schools, and therefore they do not play each other in sports -- because sports leagues are based on school size. If we assume that Xander's remark about the "cross-town body count competition" was a sarcastic reference to actual sports competitions, that might weigh against your theory.

Of course, my whole argument is based on the obviously-false assumption that the writers thought carefully about this line. I just did a search of the transcripts at buffyworld.com and Fondren is mentioned only in this single episode. And when Faith wakes up from her coma she asks about "the high school" without further clarification....

Hmmm -- Sunnydale is clearly isolated from other towns (Hush and other episodes make this clear), so high-school age students went somewhere. We saw Dawn's junior high in The Body -- any chance that the high-school students were sent there for a few years? Lawrence King 10:49, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Supporting data

Since it's not clear that fictional places belong in Wikipedia anyway, I didn't want to clutter the article with more geek data. But it seemed right to specify what episodes are being used to prove the statements in the main article. So I'm putting it here.

• The population is given on the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign that Spike crashes into (Episode 2.3, School Hard, and again in 3.8, Lover's Walk).
• The woods are named "Miller's Woods" (Episode 3.5, Homecoming). In the two-hour premiere of season six, and when Willow took her revenge on Warren near the end of that season, the woods were large enough to get lost in.
• The port was shown in season two (when Angel goes there to intercept the Judge's arm), again in season three (when Buffy confronts Faith on the docks), and probably other times as well.
• The beach was shown in the episode about the swim team (season 2).
• The ocean cliffs are the location of Willow's terrible spell, on "Kingman's Bluff" (Episode 6.22, Grave).
• Giles drove Buffy to the desert in season 5, and drove with the Potentials to the desert in season 7.
• The airport was shown when Giles flew away in the season 6 opener. They showed the control tower from Burbank Airport with "Sunnydale" photoshopped over the word Burbank.

Lawrence King 10:32, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I added most of this information to the footnotes. Lawrence King 06:28, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Additional

A number of the facts are missing or just plain wrong in the main article.

• The population of Sunnydale was lower at the end than it was in the beginning - By Season 7, Episode 7 - Conversations with Dead People it was down to 32,900 people . According to the Welcome to Sunnydale sign we see Jonathan and Andrew drive by.
• There were 12 cemeteries in the Sunnydale city limits, not 19. ( Episode 3.07 Revelations) And 43 churches (Episode 2.10 What's MyLine Pt.2).
• The motel Faith stayed in was the Downtowner Motel/Apt. (Episode 3.12 The Zeppo and others)
• The airport first appeared in Season 2 in What's My Line Pt. 1 (Kendra arrived by plane). There was also a bus station - One of the Order of Taraka arrived by bus. And a train station (Episode 5.14)
• In addition to Crestwood College, 3 other schools in the Sunnydale area are mentioned during Season 2's Reptile Boy. A fourth is mentioned in Season 4 in Dead Man's Party
• The Bronze was not the only club in Sunnydale. It was apparently the club that was popular with high school students. There were also a number of bars and places to eat. Some seen, some just mentioned.
• Over 200 unique locations are shown or referred to in the 144 episodes. More if you count the different locations shown in and around Sunnydale High School.
• The fictional history is very superficial and seems to be missing several major facts - like what happened to Buffy between dropping out of college and her job at the Double Meat Palace. Or even why she dropped out of college.

[No signature -- comments above from 69.241.51.98.]

I can make this updates (if no one objects). However, I don't want to add more Buffy stuff to the fictional history section. If this belongs on this page at all, it needs to be a fictional history of the City of Sunnydale, not of Buffy and her friends. Of course, some incidents in the show (such as the destruction of the high school) would belong in any "History of Sunnydale", but someone dropping out of college does not. Lawrence King 21:46, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pne asked about the 19 cemetery number. I'll clarify this when I make the updates I promised above, which I will do next week if no one objects (or does them first) in the meantime. Lawrence King 07:02, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I added most of your information to the footnotes. I can't find any justification for the "nineteen" number so I dropped it.

However, I was only able to find one named high school in the Reptile Boy transcript, and no named high schools in Dead Man's Party (3.02), so I didn't include these. If you have details on them, let us know!

The airport bothers me. Kendra arrives on a 747 and there's no way they have those at Sunnydale Airport. Given the first three seasons and nothing else, the simplest explanation was that this airport was not in Sunnydale. But we see the airport in season six. Lawrence King 06:32, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In School Hard another bar called "The Fish Tank" is name-dropped. Does that matter? - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.158.47.68 (talk • contribs)

Since there isn't a list of bars in the article, I don't think this needs to be in the article. - Lawrence King 05:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Earthquake

There is no mention of the 1930’s earthquake which buried a number of building, (the church which held the master, the mission where the chumash vengeance spirit was and the temple on Kingman’s bluff) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.19.35.235 (talk • contribs) 08:01, 22 April 2007)

I added this to the history. It turns out that there were at least two earthquakes: the one that buried the mission was in 1812, the one that buried the temple was "1932" and the one that buried the Master was "1937". I left open the possibility that the '32 and '37 quakes were the same and someone got the date wrong. (Logically this would be Anya, who was speaking off-the-cuff, and not Willow, who had just done research, but I think asserting this would count as speculation. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 21:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Errors

• "Sunnydale was made unholy ground by Wolfram & Hart, by a villain who would later appear in Angel's season 5."

Cannot locate a reference to this statement in any episode of Angel in Season Five. Author might of confused it with the deconsecration of the Wolfram and Hart building outlined in Hell Bound. This is an extract from the Wolfram and Hart Wikipage.

"The Los Angeles branch was founded in 1791 over holy ground deconsecrated by the blood of murderer Mathias Pavayne who was able to survive as a spirit in the building for over 200 years." Chanlord 05:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Based on Sunnyvale?

The article on Sunnyvale, California says that Sunnydale is based on Sunnyvale. Does this sound plausible? Andjam 09:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There's no direct connection, but a fake website created by Rebecca Rand Kirshner used the zip code of Sunnyvale. I've updated the Sunnydale, Sunnyvale, California, and the Cassie Newton pages to reflect this. Lawrence King 14:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

suburban?

The first sentence describes Sunnydale as "suburban", which feels wrong to me. There are no other cities nearby; and more importantly most of it seems to be within walking distance. —Tamfang 04:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

There are several possible definitions of "suburban". Originally, it referred to a physical proximity to a city. It doesn't have to be a different city -- that's a misconception. A large city like Los Angeles contains the urban center as well as suburbs, even though they're all part of the same political city.

But today -- at least on the West Coast -- "suburban" tends to refer to a certain kind of neighborhood, with tract homes and no big industries.

I guess the problem is that Buffy really doesn't make sense. Where do all the folks in Sunnydale work? Aside from the docks, we have seen virtually nothing that could be called industry there. We have seen various abandoned locales, though -- a factory, some docks, etc. Now, if this were real life, the people who live one block from a factory would not be living in nice houses like Buffy's. They would live in dingy apartments. That would be the "urban" part, compared to the more upscale "suburban" part.

And as you say, everything is in walking distance.... because Buffy doesn't drive. On the other hand, UC Sunnydale is "five miles" from her house, and the airport and the docks and the bluff must be at least that far. So it's not really believable that Buffy walks all these places! Lawrence King 06:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Sunnydale Syndrome

I think this section needs a little rewriting. At the moment, it looks too much like another article that got merged in (which is what I presume happened). For instance, given that it's in the Sunnydale article, it's not really necessary to explain what it gets its name from. 67.10.175.242 04:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The subsection Examples in other series could stand some explaining. Moriguchi is another example of what? Another Hellmouth, or another city whose inhabitants live in perpetual denial? —Tamfang 00:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing about Sunnydale Syndrome in this article at all! 122.164.223.182 (talk) 18:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

It was recently removed as unsupported. —Tamfang (talk) 05:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It might be nice if references to it elsewhere, e.g. Whoniverse were also removed. Before someone tells me to be bold and do it myself, I'm not a concerned wikipedian, just a confused reader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.155.144.173 (talk) 09:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The references to that subsection are still around and that's definitely confusing. Also the examples given indicate that this fictional phenomenom is observed in quite a few shows so maybe it should be featured in its own entry. 87.122.45.90 (talk) 23:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

A reference to it exists in the Torchwood Weevels article 24.188.207.20 (talk) 20:01, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Weevil (Torchwood)? I don't see it. –?– —Tamfang (talk) 17:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It's in the sentence "features call-ins from Cardiff locals who have begun to notice the existence of the Weevils." 129.15.127.253 (talk) 15:46, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge with "Buffy's residence"

I suggest this merge would be a bad idea.

First, if we consider how Wikipedia treats real locations, a house in a city and the city itself are never merged as articles. Buckingham Palace should not be merged with London.

Second, if we consider their role within the Buffy mythos, they are very different things. Sunnydale is a city with a long history, which pre-dates Buffy Summers by a long time. In the history of Sunnydale, for example, Richard Wilkins is a much more important figure than Buffy Summers.

Third, if you want to merge Sunnydale with Buffy's residence just because it's in that city, then does that mean you would also merge Sunnydale with The Bronze, Hellmouth (Buffyverse), The Magic Box, Sunnydale High, and Sunnydale High School library? All of these are in Sunnydale as well.

Now, there is a viewpoint that Wikipedia shouldn't be full of articles about individual persons, places, and things found in works of fiction. At this point, I consider that viewpoint effectively dead: it's too late to impose that, even if we wanted to. So all the information in all these Sunnydale-related articles belongs in Wikipedia. And I believe they therefore should follow standard Wikipedia policy on locations, which is that a building important enough to have an article is not merged with the city it's in. - Lawrence King 01:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with Lawrence King that this proposed merge is a bad idea. There is also so much specific, and for me interesting, information about Buffy's home on the Buffy's residence page that I feel this Sunnydale page would become bloated if a merge occurred.CMLB 23:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it has been over three weeks and no one has spoken up in favor of the merge. I was going to ask the person who added the merge tag, User:Koavf, if he would speak up in favor of the proposal. But according to his user page, he has been "permanently blocked" from Wikipedia -- I have no idea why.

So I will remove the "merge proposed" tags. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 05:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Sunnydale Location notes

Removed the following from "Fictional Environs," as it was already listed under Maps section.

"In Season Three, the mayor's office is shown with a giant map of "Sunnydale County"; this map is an actual map of Santa Barbara County with a new name pasted over it. In other episodes, actual street maps of Santa Barbara are used to represent the town."

Thanks -J Salem Gourley

Office buildings in 6.21

At the end of the truck-and-police-car chase in Two To Go (6.21), the lights from some tall office buildings are visible in the background. These appear to be at least ten stories tall.

(These are visible from 12:01 to 12:39 on the Region 1 (American) DVDs. (The UK and Australia/New Zealand DVDs have the scenes from previous episodes at the beginning but run 4% faster, so their clocks are different than the Region 1 DVDs.)

I'm wondering if these office buildings should be mentioned. We have never seen any buildings of this size in Sunnydale. My personal opinion is that these were visible by accident (because of course the show is filmed in Los Angeles), so these are not "canon" even though they are visible in the show. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 06:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

How tall is the CRD building in I Robot You Jane? —Tamfang 04:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There's also an establishing shot of a tall hospital, i guess in "Graduation Day". —Tamfang (talk) 20:32, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

"CSI:Hellmouth"

Did you ever wonder why Sunnydale didn't have the best, & biggest, CSI unit in the U.S.? (Thanks to Tanya Huff for making me think of it.) Trekphiler (talk) 08:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The Mayor would block it. —Tamfang (talk) 08:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

corruption and incompotence

I'm undoing this recent addition:

The political offices are shown as corrupt and the Police are highly incompotent.

Political corruption is implied elsewhere in the article. What we see of the police suggests that they're as professional as any, but out of their depth, and (probably) deliberately kept ignorant, with respect to the Hellmouth. —Tamfang (talk) 08:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Uh dude. in the first season after the science teacher is killed by the praying mantice lady, Buffy walks into class the next day and his eye glasses (A MAJOR PIECE OF EVIDENCE) is found lying on the floor.

I'm still on season 1 and I'm convinced SunnyDale doesn't have a police force. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.43.36 (talk) 05:53, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

A police chief appears at the end of "School Hard". Spike rescues Buffy from arrest in "Becoming". —Tamfang (talk) 23:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Environs section - strike the first line?

The first line of this section reads as:

"Sunnydale's size and surroundings are implausible but justified given its origins - to sustain a human population for supernatural evils to prey upon."

I don't think the "implausible" needs to be there. I live in a city roughly equivalent (Quincy, IL), population about 40,000 and the only things we don't have that Sunnydale has are the military base and a port. The port is easy to write off as we're not a coastal town, and the military bases are frequently arbitrary in placement. With 40,000 people, we have 2 high schools, a liberal arts university, and nearly 1,000 acres of parks. There's also a small castle, much as Sunnydale has (Season 5, Episode 1).

Anyway, I just think that portion is inaccurate and should be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.23.115.217 (talk) 04:07, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Evil working better?

Is it part of canon that evil simply works better in Sunnydale? What about the bit where demons come because the Hellmouth makes them feel awesome? If confirmed, these things should be mentioned in the article. Lots42 (talk) 13:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Deleted "The Sunnydale Effect"

Just noting here that I did a wholesale deletion of the section headed "The Sunnydale Effect," because it was very clearly original research that cited zero sources and was well outside of scope for Wikipedia (and all these things tied together enough that I didn't think there was any way to salvage it). Obviously, feel free to revert or edit further if you find a better solution! Aerothorn (talk) 02:37, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

"Sunnydale Syndrome" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Sunnydale Syndrome. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 25#Sunnydale Syndrome until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 20:08, 25 July 2021 (UTC)