The local reporter, Tracey, states that she is from station KTLA and cuts to "Hal" in the studio. KTLA is the Los Angeles affiliate of The WB, the American television network which ran "Angel," and Hal Fishman has been their evening news anchor for decades.
When Angel says he's "working on" being human, he's referring to the Shanshu Prophecy first mentioned in To Shanshu in L.A. (2000).
The events of this episode occur at approximately the same time as Buffy and her gang are preparing to fight The First Evil, but no mention is made of Jasmine. Presumably no one left in Sunnydale by this time was watching television, or more likely, there was no electricity to do so. Oddly, Jasmine herself does not seem concerned about The First (who claims to be older than beings such as Jasmine) rising up and destroying her paradise.
Jasmine says she wants to make this "the best of all possible worlds", a phrase coined by Leibniz, whose works bear heavily on the problems of evil and freewill. The phrase is much parodied in Voltaire's Candide.
Lorne mentions Night of the Comet (1984) when describing the deserted hotel. Joss Whedon has cited the film as one of his influences for the creation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).