Unhappy with the film, Whedon later revived for television the concept of an adolescent girl who is given superhuman powers by mystical forces to defeat evil.

[1] Originally trained as a dancer who toured and appeared in music videos with Prince, Robia LaMorte won the part of Jenny Calendar.

LaMorte had appeared in contemporary television series such as Beverly Hills, 90210, but remarked specifically that she knew at once the material given to her to read in the audition for Buffy was different: "Sometimes you get scripts, and you just know.

Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), one of Buffy's friends, is spending time online with someone she knows as Malcolm, who turns out to be a demon named Moloch the Corrupter.

Jenny challenges his traditional approach and helps him to solve the problem of how to find and kill the demon when Giles reveals himself to be a technophobe; she both frustrates and flirts with him in the process.

[5] Jenny's character was not intended to be recurring, but the chemistry exhibited between LaMorte and Head encouraged the writers to make her a regular member of the cast.

[6] Jenny's role as a recurring character was cemented in "Prophecy Girl", where she acknowledges that she is aware of the many evil forces in Sunnydale and indicates she is willing to join the Scoobies in their fight against them.

[7] Jenny frequently helps through her access to, and knowledge of, technology; she and the related role of Willow represent the marriage of science and magic on the series.

[13] Jenny and Giles begin dating in the episode "Some Assembly Required", and his attempts to ask her out force him into facing issues far more frightening than the monsters and demons with which he is familiar, and bring her into direct conflict with her secret reason for being in Sunnydale.

[18] According to Lorna Jowett, Jenny Calendar—and later, Olivia (Phina Oruche)—serves to assure viewers that Giles, despite being a bookish man who spends most of his time with adolescents, is heterosexual and has no sexual interest in the teenage characters.

[19] Author Tracy Little asserts that in addition to the theme of love vs. duty, "you are not who I thought you were" applies to the second season, and notably, centers around Jenny Calendar.

Enyos does not tell her a significant element of the curse: should Angel ever experience even one moment of true happiness, his soul will again disappear, making him "Angelus", the evil vampire he was.

Angelus' first act is to kill Enyos, thus revealing that Angel already knew Jenny's true identity and motives prior to losing his soul at some point.

By the episode "Passion" it has become clear that Angelus is targeting Buffy's friends and family and has, in Giles' words, "regained his sense of whimsy", demonstrated by petty cruelties that keep the group unsettled and frightened.

Steve Vineberg, a film and theater professor, asserts in a 2000 article in The New York Times that the character's death marked "the most terrifying and upsetting phase of the show".

[23] Similarly, author Kathleen Tracy states that "Passion" is, among the first two seasons' episodes, the most "viscerally disturbing" not only for Jenny's death and its brutality, but because the series killed off a regularly recurring and sympathetic character, something which was unprecedented in television history.

[26] Jenny furthermore argues that traditionally, knowledge has been kept from people as a result of systemized patriarchy, and she champions computers and the Internet because she believes they will create a new society.

In sharp contrast to all other Gypsy portrayals, she is technologically savvy, and, instead of resorting to incantations or obscure rituals, is able to create a computer algorithm that would make possible the restoration of Angel’s soul.

Willow attempts to learn more about magic in the fourth season by joining her college Wicca group, only to be met by women who are ineffectual, whom she labels "wanna-blessed-bes".

[27] Jenny appears twice more in the series, first in "Becoming", as part of an illusion the vampire Drusilla (Juliet Landau) creates to beguile Giles into telling Angelus, who is torturing him, what he needs to know.