I'm sure you guys have already covered this

Actually, I've been waiting for someone to bring this up. I was kinda scared to...

I think he misunderestimated us, damn it.

I think that it's funny. I like that Joss knows that the viewers will pay attention and will notice what's going on. One of the things that we like about the show is that we never know what will happen, and if the little clues/misdirection help make the surprise, then great.

It was clumsily done. But at least the characters wondered the same thing we did.

If Giles had actually been written well I don't think I'd have been as irritated.

That wasn't Giles.

Don't care what the scripts say, I can believe it if I want to.

Yeah, I think the fact that there was so much else wrong with Giles made the is-he-or-isn't-he-touching-anything thing more annoying than it probably deserved.

(That said, "because we like it when the audience's heads explode from frustration" is really not a very good solo reason for writing anything.)

If you're going to misdirect, more power to you. But when the misdirect is revealed, it still has to make sense in the story context.

Like, for instance, when Dawn is going out doing terrible vandalish things, and you think the boys are a bad influence on her, and it turns out they're actually vampires, that makes perfect sense. Vampires would have good reasons to lure girls away, and would very likely be a bad influence.

But when Giles ostentatiously doesn't touch anybody for, what, six episodes, and there is NO IN-SHOW REASON FOR IT, that's not a misdirect, that's cheap. If he'd revealed that "My God, I'm recovering from a terrible skin disease and physical contact hurts", that would have been fine. But there were places where the character Giles should have hugged people, and he didn't, and, as ita said, that's bad characterization unless there's a reason.

But when Giles ostentatiously doesn't touch anybody for, what, six episodes, and there is NO IN-SHOW REASON FOR IT, that's not a misdirect, that's cheap...

...and, as ita said, that's bad characterization unless there's a reason.

Yeah, that was really why the NotTouchingStuff!Giles turned out to be so annoying. He was so unlike himself, it really seemed they were doing something with it. That he would turn out to be Pod!Giles, or Ethan, or anything.

Instead, he was just oddly out of character.

I was not at all surprised by that, actually. Look at Spike and the soul. (Not to mention the great asspull in The Gift, though to be fair that one I think they just did a bad job of setting up rather than setting out to fool the audience.)

I can't really say I was surprised, either. Just... disappointed, I guess.

Though, again, me being disappointed in Buffy is, in my book, higher praise than gushing effulgent at almost any other show on TV.