Rating: 6/10
Teacher's Pet has a peculiar storyline. The theme of feelings is expressed from beginning to end. Xander expresses his feelings toward Buffy. Willow toward Xander and Buffy toward Angel.
The opening sequence was Xander's dream. It was clearly his dream from the first moment. Even though it was obvious, it gave me a few laughs. Especially his solo.
What disappointed me besides the weak storyline was that there was no contribution to The Master. Even though their was an absence of The Master, this episode had a strong, solid villain, Natalie French. Yes, the idea of a human sized praying mantis is odd, but they pulled it off nicely. As a she-mantis, she takes the form of an attractive woman, uses a chemical attraction to lure virgins, mates with them, and then eats their head. This is shown through the death of Dr. Gregory (Buffy's biology teacher). Miss French kills him and leaves the remaining body in a refrigerator. This raises a strange question. Why would she put him in a fridge in the school cafeteria. Maybe it has no explanation. The body of Dr. Gregory was very unrealistic. It didn't look like a decapitated corpse. it looked like a bloody suit.
Another problem I'm having with this episode: Why would Miss French turn her head 180 degrees around her students? One of them could have seen her. It doesn't make sense. It was a bad way to raise suspicion.
Just like Angel's appearence in "The Yoko Factor", I think "Fork Guy",or as Xander says "Silverware Man", was unnecessary and was just there to take up air time. Even though he did contribute to the conclusion in finding Natalie Frecnh, I still feel there was no need for him in this episode.
As I mentioned earlier, this episode is surrounded by feelings.
Buffy meets with Angel in the beginning of the episode. He gives her his leather jacket as a sign of affection. When they meet again, Angel lets Buffy keeps it and responds, "It looks better on you". This is the strating point of their relationship.
This episode can be considered a "Xander" based ep. Xander doesn't express his feeling toward Buffy openly, but the audience knows about them from his dream and the scene with Miss French in her living room. After he drank a martini and babbled on (which added to the humor of this ep), Xander said, "Buffy...I love Buffy". Even though he was intoxicated, we know he meant it.
Xander also starts to express his feeling toward Angel. He sees Angel for the first time and instantly becomes jealous. This foreshadows how their relationship will be in the future. Not only does he bicker at The Bronze, he makes an amusing comment to Buffy. He asked, "What kind of girly name is Angel anyways? It just bugs me". That line was very humerous.
Willow's feeling were also exposed to a certain extent. She was worried when she discovered Xander was in danger. You could tell this wasn't a friend worried for another friend. It was a girl worried about her one true love.
The conclusion of "Teacher's Pet" lacked an entertaining fight scene. The fight between Buffy and the She-Mantis was short and slow which only a kick or two involved. The part following this event made up for it. Willow, Giles and Buffy revealed that the She-Mantis only chose virgins. Willow mentioned that she thought it was sweet to be a virgin. This was another hint that she has feeling for Xander. This information embarressed Blaine and started an outburst. "If anyone speaks a word of this again, my dad will sue you!", Blaine exclaimed. Xander replied with a simple "Shut up".
The last scene with Buffy putting away Dr. Gregory's galsses was touching. His death is just the beginning. It has prepared her for the future. As Buffy closes the closet, a group of eggs appear. This raises another question: Where are the other She-Mantis'?. The writer wanted to have a "good" ending that makes you go "Oooh!", but I personally thought that was a bad way to end.
Great Buffy Moment: The revealing of Blaine being a virgin in front of Xander.
In a nutshell: A silly concept leads to an episode lacking a major storyline, but gets pulled off with comedy and slight drama.