'Reginald the Vampire': Jacob Batalon & company gush about that date from hell in Episode 3

In the this week's Reginald the Vampire, showrunner Harley Peyton and his team may have arguably given us one of the very worst first date scenarios ever witnessed on television. In "Hypnos," it was supposed to be Reginald's (Jacob Batalon) do-over with Sarah (Em Haine), after Maurice (Mandela Van Peebles) glamoured her memory of Reg's first, terrible botching of their first date in the pilot. But who could have expected vampires LeBron (Sean Yves Lessard) and Penelope (Georgia Waters) to wreck their meal in the most outlandish way possible?

Well, Peyton did, as he tells SYFY WIRE in this week's exclusive post mortem that taking rom-com tropes and playing them through the world of vampires was something he wanted in the DNA of Reginald the Vampire from the start. "It's interesting, because I love rom-coms," he admits. "What's so great about genre is that you can take things like rom-com tropes, and either turn them on their head, or just filter them through this new and different world. As a writer, it's just so much fun."

In the early episodes, Peyton says he's gotten particular delight in messing around with Reggie's secret in plain sight with Sarah. Thus, the dinner scene from hell was born. "The idea that, obviously, he has a secret that she may or may not find out plays out," he laughs. "But everybody has secrets in their relationships, right? The metaphors to the larger world are always going to work for us in that way. The thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I love so much is that sometimes your boyfriend turns out to be a monster, literally."

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Or maybe the peers of your potential boyfriend are vampires who can't behave in a public restaurant? Sarah actress Em Haine says that whole sequence remains one of her very favorites of Season 1. One, because it's such a sweet scene establishing the potential between Reg and Sarah. "To connect with Jacob is just so easy," she enthuses. "He's really this genuinely kindhearted, welcoming, inclusive guy. To sit there with him and have to share first date moments, I feel like I could do them in my sleep."

But secondly, the whole date fiasco reminds her of the classic Monty Python "Mr. Creosote" sketch, about the diner who eats so much he explodes in the restaurant. "I think the network actually was like, 'We need to do less vomiting because it's too disgusting.'" Haine laughs. "I was holding back true nausea. And poor Georgia and Sean! I only got in a couple shots of that because the smell itself for me was so gross. But it's so funny. And it's just legendary."

"I wish they had shown more of it," Batalon adds. "I understand why you couldn't, but it was pure comedy. I've never laughed so hard at something in my entire life. I don't even laugh at slapstick comedy like that, but that was funny as hell."

New episodes of Reginald the Vampire gush on to SYFY every Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET.