With Buffy heading into its fourth season, the time has come for reflection on the past. Season three put Xander through a lot: a steamy love affair with Cordelia, a fling with Willow, and fifteen minutes of passion with Faith. Brendon truly had his chance to shine in "The Zeppo", an episode focused almost entirely upon Xander and the character's growth. But the actor's real trial came with "The Wish", which threw Cordelia into an alternate universe where Sunnydale was overrun with vampires -- and Xander was one of them.

"It was cool," the actor says, of his turn to the dark side. "Except for the fact that, when you become a vampire, you have to get a full face cast. It's like having an arm cast all over your noggin. And they give you two holes for your nose. It's on for like forty-five minutes, and it's hardening, so they can get the cast. And I was crying. And then I was in the chair for like two and a half hours to become a vampire. So it was fun playing that guy, but that process of it, of being in make-up for two hours, [I] couldn't stand. I'd do it again, but I wouldn't do it every week."

As it turns out, Brendon nearly did have to do it again... or planned on subjecting his identical twin brother, Kelly, to the make-up chair.

"They were gonna do a doppelganger episode, but they did it with Alyson," he says, referring to the third-season episode "Doppelgangland," where Vampire-Willow was pulled into our dimension through magic gone wrong. "So once I got that script last year, it was pretty much them saying, 'No, he [Kelly] won't be in the show.' So no, Kelly will not be on the show. Though actually we're going to do a photo shoot for that People Magazine 'Sexiest Men Alive' thing. [And] it looks like we're going to be doing three or four more years, so... I'll get him on there."

But perhaps the most-discussed aspect of season three wasn't the show itself -- it was the WB's handling of it. The episode "Earshot" was postponed, as it was set to air mere days after the Columbine shooting, and the episode dealt with weapons in school. Then the series finale, "Graduation Day, Part 2", was postponed as well.

"They didn't tell us until the day before," Brendon explains of the "Graduation Day" postponement. "They'd already aired the first part, [and] it was a two-parter. We were pissed. I understand, it's sensitive, but it's kind of like... get your heads out of your asses. If some kid watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then blows the high school up, then goddamnit... start parenting better."