GOT SPUNK?

In the pilot episode of 'Ugly Betty', Betty Suarez was first denied a job interview at Meade Publications because of her appearance. But she wouldn't take "No" for an answer. She kept climbing those marble steps, determined to present the reasons as to why she should be hired. Anybody else might have just given up right away, but Betty persisted, calling upon some inner strength.

And where did she get this wellspring of spunk?

"So here’s the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power… now? In every generation, one Slayer is born because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men.

This woman is more powerful than all of them combined. So I say we change the rule. I say my power should be our power.

Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of the scythe to change our destiny.

From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer.

Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up.

Slayers… every one of us.

Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?"
- Buffy Summers
'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'

It's the Toobworld conceit that Willow's spell was far more powerful than in just creating Slayers. The spell endowed all girls to face insurmountable odds and overcome all obstacles.

'Veronica Mars' is another girl who has tapped into her Slayer potential; channeling it so that she can bring justice to the guilty. For instance, she was empowered to face a gang of Fitzpatrick family bikers with aplomb, despite the overwhelming odds. Had they been demons, she would have faced them with equal bravado.

Dr. Allison Cameron, a member of the medical team led by Dr. Greg 'House', realized her full Slayer potential recently when she took the life of Dr. Ezra Powell. True, the man was dying anyway and every breath was an agony, so that her death-stroke deliverance of a fatal injection of morphine could be seen as a blessing.

But she may have been responding to a deeply-buried need to administer justice as well - Dr. Powell had irradiated babies in the name of research back in the 1960s without regard for notification of their parents. Despite how many lives his research may have saved, he also exposed those babies to deadly health risks down the road in Life.

And it's the Toobworld belief that Willow Rosenberg's spell was so powerful that it permeated the dimensional weil to affect young women on all the myriad Earths of the Multiverse.

This is why Rose Tyler was the first truly strong and independent female Companion (from Earth) to travel with the Doctor in all the years of 'Doctor Who'. (Toobworld Central already decreed that the adventures of the Ninth and Tenth incarnations of the Doctor take place in an alternate dimension from the main Toobworld.)

Of course, the argument could be made for Ace as well, who accompanied the Seventh Doctor back on Earth Prime-Time. If so, perhaps Willow's spell transcended Time as well as Space and Ace was imbued with its power while the TARDIS traveled through the time-stream during its issuance.

Who else in Toobworld might have gained the potential of inner strength from Willow's spell? Perhaps Harriet Hayes, one of the players in the 'Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip' repertory company?

How else to explain that everyone considers her to be talented and funny, when she has so far failed to demonstrate that she is?

It could only be through the overwhelming dominance of her will power, thanks to Willow's spell, that "Harry" has been able to get as far as she has in show business......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby