A Fan-Favorite Buffy The Vampire Slayer Villain Group's Rejected, NSFW Team Name

In season 6 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Sarah Michelle Gellar's Slayer did battle not with any super-powered vamps but three Dungeons & Dragons players. The former Sunnydale High School students became known simply as "The Trio" but they were almost given a more risqué name. During the planning stages for "Buffy" season 6 (which featured a particularly miserable death), a writer suggested the name "The Threeway" or "The Threesome," without initially realizing the connotation. Thankfully, those suggestions were swiftly vetoed.

In season 1 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the titular Slayer and her pals faced off against The Master, a powerful vampire with plans to ascend from the underground to unleash hell in Sunnydale. As the show went on, each season's villain — or "big bad" to use the phrase originated by the show itself — followed a similarly horrifying rubric. Sunnydale's mayor became a demon with apocalyptic intent in season 3, before the zombie demon android known as Adam (George Hertzberg) attempted to create an army of undead android soldiers in season 4. In the next season, a goddess known as Glory (Clare Kramer) menaced Sunnydale. By the time the show came into its sixth season, then, Buffy had defeated ancient vampires, giant demons, zombie robots, and even a fully-fledged goddess. What could the writers possibly come up with to top that? A group of nerds.

"Buffy" season 6 saw the arrival, or rather return, of Jonathan Levinson (Danny Strong) and Warren Mears (Adam Busch), who'd previously been fellow students of Buffy's at Sunnydale High School. In season 6, the pair — alongside a fellow misfit — became the primary antagonists, though they were hardly as imposing as previous villains, which as it happens, was by design. Had they been called "The Threesome," however, it might have been a step too far.

The Trio were familiar to fans of the series. In fact, the Slayer had even saved Jonathan on multiple occasions, including an episode that the WB chose to shelve due to its controversial subject matter. In season 6, however, Jonathan, Warren, and Tom Lenk's Andrew Wells (younger brother of former Sunnydale High student Tucker Wells) team up to form the big bad. The group were decidedly less horrifying  than any previous villains — though they were ultimately superseded in that regard by Dark Willow, who emerged after Warren killed Willow's girlfriend, Tara (Amber Benson). The triumvirate's initial lack of any real menace was, however, intentional.

As detailed in Vulture's oral history of "Buffy," the writers were keen to lighten things up with season 6 seeing as Buffy had died in the season 5 finale. As supervising producer/writer Jane Espenson remembered it, Tucker Wells actor Brad Kane was unavailable, which led the writers to create a brother character that would ultimately become Andrew. "I said, 'His name should start with an A,'" recalled Espenson. "Because if you have Jonathan and Warren, then they can name themselves JAW as an acronym." In Espenson's recollection, Joss Whedon loved the idea. "We never ended up using JAW, but that's why his name starts with an A," she added.

According to writer/director/producer Doug Petrie, however, Espenson was remembering things all wrong. "Nobody supported that idea, I can tell you that right now," he said, before recalling one of his own pitch for the name. "I did pitch — now I'm going to do my version of it — that we could call them the Threesome or the Threeway. And I literally didn't think of it that way. And they were like, 'Um, that's going to be a problem.'"

"Buffy" ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003 and became a cult hit that still boasts committed fans to this day. Sadly, loving "Buffy" has become complicated following accusations against showrunner and creator Joss Whedon of emotional abuse and running a toxic set that had a huge impact on star Sarah Michelle Gellar. But "Buffy" will always belong to those fans who spent their formative years watching the Slayer and her Scoobies battling the forces of darkness amid the sun-drenched environs of suburban Southern California. Part of the reason the show became so beloved by those fans was its effortless balancing of humor, horror, and drama, with "Buffy" episodes ranging from heartbreaking to hilarious.

The Trio sort of represented that balance in a way. What started as comic relief for a season overshadowed by the death and resurrection of the Slayer actually morphed into something a lot more dramatic as the season went on. By the time Warren killed Tara, things got downright dark. Which is why it's a good thing nobody said yes to "The Threeway" or "The Threesome" as a name. Though it certainly would have been a good way to heighten the comic relief, it would have made it tougher to believably transform the group into something more sinister as the season went on.

That didn't stop Doug Petrie from trying to push through his idea, though. "I double-downed on it," he recalled, "and I said, 'They should say, 'It's an awesome name,' and not understand why everyone's laughing at them when they say, 'We're the Threeway!” That got no traction whatsoever. Who knew that that many people would say no to a threesome? But live and learn."