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BtVS in the Media


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(edited)

Just picked up a remaindered copy of former WB executive Susanne Daniels's book (written with Cynthia Littleton), Season Finale, which covers the eleven years of the WB and UPN, up until the merger.

 

Lots of nice Buffy anecdotes (did you know that Joss used to have "wavy strawberry-blond hair flowing down to the middle of his back"?), but I think the sweetest I've found so far is right at the end of the opening prologue:

 

"It's a tragedy," a former colleague insisted to me during a phone conversation shortly after the news [of the merger] broke.  By then, thoughts of my WB days had summoned memories that ran the gamut from hilarious to hysterical, painful to embarrassing.

 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the great tragedy that killed the WB had actually taken place nearly five years earlier.  "When we let our baby go to UPN," I replied, with a mixture of anger and sadness, "it was as if we'd surrendered right then."  The news that came on January 24, 2006, was merely the formal announcement.

 

"Our baby", awwww.  I haven't read the chapter on the negotiations that led up to the network shift yet, but I'd say the book definitely merits a read.  (Or, if you find it in a 25¢ book pile as I did, a purchase.)

Edited by DAngelus
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Just picked up a remaindered copy of former WB executive Susanne Daniels's book (written with Cynthia Littleton), Season Finale, which covers the eleven years of the WB and UPN, up until the merger.

 

Lots of nice Buffy anecdotes (did you know that Joss used to have "wavy strawberry-blond hair flowing down to the middle of his back"?), but I think the sweetest I've found so far is right at the end of the opening prologue:

 

"Our baby", awwww.  I haven't read the chapter on the negotiations that led up to the network shift yet, but I'd say the book definitely merits a read.  (Or, if you find it in a 25¢ book pile as I did, a purchase.)

 

Thanks for the heads up.  It's $.99 on Kindles. 

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I'm kind of surprised that we never got a spin-off/movie. Buffy was such a big franchise, I'm surprised nobody begged Joss to do something with it. TheCW could have asked him to create a new Buffyverse series with new characters for example, but for some reason not even the tv movie idea took of. If I was some network/studio executive, I certainly would have tried to get something Buffyverse-related with Joss started.

 

We've bandied this about over on Whedonesque.com for years, and the truth is, it isn't Joss's property. No matter that he molded it into one of the finest television shows ever made, the husband/wife production team the Kuzuis own it, and they won't let him anywhere near it (still bitter, I am).

 

They tried to start up a new Buffy series or movie a couple of years ago without Joss, and the fans screamed so loudly that they dropped the project. Sarah Michelle came out and actually said "A Buffy movie without Joss? How lame is THAT?" Joss himself was classy as always and only said one thing: "I wish them well."

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There were supposedly ideas for a Faith spin-off, but Dushku instead went with Tru Calling. And there was talk of a Ripper series with ASH for the BBC. That might have run into the problems mentioned by Willowy.

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Who on Earth cares. This is the same guy who justifies S7 by saying we shoudn't demonize rapists. And he had nothing to do with Angel's characterization. That was all Greenwalt/Minear. Joss never had any interest in Angel because he had no clue how to handle a hero who is as good looking as him. Because it's an oxymoron for him. Besides I still love how they excuse the crap of the later Seasons. Spike wasn't more evolved, lmao. The writers had to figure out every Season what to do with him so he was changed for whatever storyline they had in mind. Someone needs to explain to Joss what 'evolved' means.

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4 hours ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

Colour me stunned. He destroyed the characterization of the entire main cast (Buffy and Spike themselves very much included) to make this precious 'ship a reality and it turns out he actually liked it? Shocking, isn't it?

Well this is the same guy who said his #1 priority with BtVS was to make Alyson Hannigan a sex symbol. Nuff said really.

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I really love BtVS, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse.   But the older I get the less I am mesmerized by Joss.  Don't get me wrong, I think Mutant Enemy is a great production company and has made shows that I love rewatching to this day but I don't think that's so much to do with Joss these days rather the writers and actors he surrounds himself with.   I find I rarely agree with pretty much anything he says and honestly, I've seen better tv now that it's been a decade or two. 

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14 minutes ago, Delphi said:

I really love BtVS, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse.   But the older I get the less I am mesmerized by Joss.  Don't get me wrong, I think Mutant Enemy is a great production company and has made shows that I love rewatching to this day but I don't think that's so much to do with Joss these days rather the writers and actors he surrounds himself with.   I find I rarely agree with pretty much anything he says and honestly, I've seen better tv now that it's been a decade or two. 

I agree and I'll add that I think he's totally overrated. Joss sadly seems to be removed from much of reality because he surrounds himself with people who love kissing his ass. So he thinks he's the hottest sh't this side of the moon. I'm constantly baffled when people describe him as a feminist. How on Earth? Have these people NOT been watching his shows? Or know BTS stuff.

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*small voice* I still find Buffy one of the best I've ever watched. I think because it manages to marry big themes with real drama. Usually you get excellent drama but no big themes (The Good Wife) or you get big themes that forget to be human (Dollhouse Season 1). And I did love Avengers. He has just been devolving into being edgy and pushy for the sake of it which is where the recent missteps are coming from. IMO of course.

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I still think he's great, but his ego was probably boosted way too much after The Avengers. Like many, many good writers he needs great editors and lots of critical feedback from different sources to keep up the quality. 

As for Buffy/Spike, well, he still gets (barely) a pass for not being the one to actually write them for a long while. Still, reading something like that disgusts me as a person who thinks this "ship" destroyed a good part of Buffy's characterization.

Edited by FurryFury
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Sure, we can't really know for certain what Joss is like as a person but in many interviews he comes across as a condescending jerk. Even when he says something I generally agree with, he tends to say it in a way that makes me really want to disagree.

Quote

As for Buffy/Spike, well, he still gets (barely) a pass for not being the one to actually write them for a long while. Still, reading something like that disgusts me as a person who thinks this "ship" destroyed a good part of Buffy's characterization.

You mean because he wasn't involved that much in the final seasons? But Joss was the one who wrote tons of schmoopy B/S scenes in the episodes credited to him in those seasons. These scenes were far more conventionally romantic than Noxon's "darker and edgier" saga of mutual abuse. So I can safely say that Joss's approach nauseated me far more than Noxon's, plus Joss was the one who presumably made the call of making this the show's flagship relationship, despite how character destroying it arguably was.

Quote

Well this is the same guy who said his #1 priority with BtVS was to make Alyson Hannigan a sex symbol.

Hiring a better costume designer would have been a good start. Seriously, I do believe he must have been kidding when he said that, he is not that detached from reality, is he?

Edited by Jack Shaftoe
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Spike, "more evolved"?   You mean the guy who was pretty much the same asshole both pre- and post-soul?  Yeah, right.

And it was Joss who wrote the "Fuffy says sexy things to Spike" scene in Who Are You (which he probably ordered whoever wrote Dirty Girls to quote, verbatim), who gave Spike the "you treat me like a man" speech in The Gift, who gave Spuffy their first kiss in That Stupid Musical Episode,  who said that Spike doing Buffy up the ass on the balcony in Disgusting Things was an image he'd had in his mind "for years", who had Buffy let Spike caress her face in Lessons (despite the part where, for all she knew, this was the same soulless demon who tried to rape her the last time they met), who rewrote Doug Petrie's kickass church scene at the end of Beneath You into "poor Spike, he hated that nasty sex ['service the girl'], all he wanted was love" having told JM that it was "his" episode and "I'm gonna save you", who had Buffy berate herself for "using" Spike in his section of Conversations with Dead Plotlines, who gave them the black-out sex in Chosen and made sure that Buffy's last two lines of the entire series were

"I love you" (to Spike) and 

"Spike"

which look so very lovely put next to each other, if seen through a certain set of 'shipper goggles, I'm sure.  So, yeah, not terribly surprised here.

Meanwhile, Marti Noxon made sure that she wrote as little Spuffy as possible.  In the three seasons she got an "Executive Producer" credit and was largely running the show (5-7, albeit her maternity leave in 7 complicated things), Marti put her name on 10 teleplays.  In half of these, 5 of the 10, Buffy and Spike don't even meet.  (Buffy vs. Dracula, Forever, Bargaining Part 1, Villains, and Bring on the Night.)  The self-described "Pains and Chains Girl" had very little interest in the "gorgeous story" where "we're all hoping these two crazy kids work it out" that Joss and Sitcom Jane Espenson wanted to tell, as far as I can see.

Now as for what I actually came here to post about…

On tonight's episode of Jeopardy (S33/E34), not only was Giles one of the clues ("Giles, the librarian at Sunnydale High, acts as watcher and mentor to this title character."), but they also had an answer about the Peace of Westphalia, which just has to be a Wild at Heart shout-out.  Cool to know somebody on the staff is a fan.

Oh, and one of the categories in Double Jeopardy was "Apocalypse Now", but there wasn't anything you could connect to Restless, so that might just have been a coincidence.

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Very cute!  I've never heard the "Ryan Reynolds as Xander" (or "Zander" as the idiot captioners kept writing it) rumor, but it would fit Reynolds' career (he wasn't cast on Two Guys, a Girl, and Nathan FIllion Downstairs until '98), so…maybe?

And I was totally going to give SMG a pass for not knowing the Yellow Crayon, as she wasn't in the scene where "Zander" gives the speech…but she did have the airport scene with Nick (and Michelle) at the start of Same Time, Stupid Contrivances where the Z-man (okay, I'll stop) is holding up a sign for Willow in YELLOW crayon and remarks on it, so boo for forgetting that one, Sarah!

I mean, we all wish we could forget the UPN years, but still…

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On 28.10.2016 at 6:07 AM, DAngelus said:

Spike, "more evolved"?   You mean the guy who was pretty much the same asshole both pre- and post-soul?  Yeah, right.

And it was Joss who wrote the "Fuffy says sexy things to Spike" scene in Who Are You (which he probably ordered whoever wrote Dirty Girls to quote, verbatim), who gave Spike the "you treat me like a man" speech in The Gift, who gave Spuffy their first kiss in That Stupid Musical Episode,  who said that Spike doing Buffy up the ass on the balcony in Disgusting Things was an image he'd had in his mind "for years", who had Buffy let Spike caress her face in Lessons (despite the part where, for all she knew, this was the same soulless demon who tried to rape her the last time they met), who rewrote Doug Petrie's kickass church scene at the end of Beneath You into "poor Spike, he hated that nasty sex ['service the girl'], all he wanted was love" having told JM that it was "his" episode and "I'm gonna save you", who had Buffy berate herself for "using" Spike in his section of Conversations with Dead Plotlines, who gave them the black-out sex in Chosen and made sure that Buffy's last two lines of the entire series were

"I love you" (to Spike) and 

"Spike"

which look so very lovely put next to each other, if seen through a certain set of 'shipper goggles, I'm sure.  So, yeah, not terribly surprised here.

Meanwhile, Marti Noxon made sure that she wrote as little Spuffy as possible.  In the three seasons she got an "Executive Producer" credit and was largely running the show (5-7, albeit her maternity leave in 7 complicated things), Marti put her name on 10 teleplays.  In half of these, 5 of the 10, Buffy and Spike don't even meet.  (Buffy vs. Dracula, Forever, Bargaining Part 1, Villains, and Bring on the Night.)  The self-described "Pains and Chains Girl" had very little interest in the "gorgeous story" where "we're all hoping these two crazy kids work it out" that Joss and Sitcom Jane Espenson wanted to tell, as far as I can see.

Now as for what I actually came here to post about…

On tonight's episode of Jeopardy (S33/E34), not only was Giles one of the clues ("Giles, the librarian at Sunnydale High, acts as watcher and mentor to this title character."), but they also had an answer about the Peace of Westphalia, which just has to be a Wild at Heart shout-out.  Cool to know somebody on the staff is a fan.

Oh, and one of the categories in Double Jeopardy was "Apocalypse Now", but there wasn't anything you could connect to Restless, so that might just have been a coincidence.

Wow, I didn't know much of this stuff, thanks.

And ewww, really. 

Although I don't think they had sex in Chosen? 

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(edited)

From Paste Magazine

Every Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ranked

I agree with the top 12, although I'd change the order of a few.

From The AV Club:

Adam Busch knows that Buffy fans think he’s terrible

Very insightful interview from the actor who played Warren. I also think in recent years, misogynist nerds like Warren have unfortunately gained more notoriety.

ETA:

'Buffy' at 20: Gail Berman Reflects on the Rocky Road to Air and How It Could Return

Edited by VCRTracking
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I've been listening to a podcast about this show called Buffering the vampire slayer. It's hosted by Jenny Owen Youngs, who is a musician, and her wife, and they usually do a song at the end of each podcast inspired by that week's episode. They are up to episode 2x08 now, I don't think they've had had any guests on yet but they do a pretty cool breakdown of the episodes.

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Good to see the show's anniversary and influence getting recognition. I credit it with being a large reason why lots more females got into sci fi/fantasy. It was never as few as was made out, but there was a definite upswing after Buffy. I watch Dopplegangland this morning. It's the first episode I've watched since I upgraded my TV to HD. Alyson Hannigan's hair looked amazing!

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