Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Okay never done this before and not sure it is going to work, but attempting it anyway. Thanks in advance for indulging me. ;-) I call this my frustration management essay. Spoilers to Home and Chosen only. With the well known casting spoiler that only people living under rocks don’t know. ;-)

(*A NOTE, or rather, A WARNING REGARDING CITATIONS: Although I’ve planted footnotes where appropriate, there is a full bibliography at the end. Apologies for any errors in the footnotes. They appear as endnotes at the end of each section b/c I couldn’t figure out how to post them as footnotes at the end of each page. Also since I couldn’t figure out how to get the little raised numbers to appear on the internet, I put the numbers in parenthesis like this (1). So suffice it to say this is the last time I attempt footnotes for an internet essay - I’ll leave footnotes to the tech savvy from now on. Since I haven’t written a footnote since 1994 when I graduated from law school, I think I may have abused the footnote. In fact after this essay you may come to the conclusion that I should be banned from using footnotes in the future. ;-) Even more annoying, I can’t remember where I got everything from and since I’m not being paid for this and it isn’t being published in an academic journal, hunting down and verifying every single statement is not something I feel overly inclined to do. So you’ll just have to give me the benefit of the doubt on some of the stuff, most of which is pretty widely known anyways and has been discussed on the internet ad nausem - so shouldn’t be a problem. Thanks for your indulgence.)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer and The Pitfalls of The Television Medium

(This essay is something I’ve been playing around with off and on for two months - more as frustration therapy than anything else. It was inspired by a few posts on the Angel After Spike board and criticisms on assorted fan boards and in articles of BTVS and/or ATS. It includes a bibliography, footnotes, and arises from my own study of television. It is also incredibly long and split into 6 sections with an Introduction and Conclusion. The focus of the essay is on the pitfalls of the process of making a television show not on the inner meaning of the content or metaphors within the shows - an important distinction and one that distinguishes this essay from all my others. Have no idea where to post it, it is a critique of the television medium and BTVS/ATS yet also oddly enough a celebration of them - hope here is fine. Thanks again!!)

First a couple of relevant quotes to get things started, these quotes introduce several of the themes I’ll address in the essay:

"Do you judge a show based on its potential or only on what you’ve seen in the first episode or so? The great thing about TV is that a show can always get better or worse, often when you least expect it. But to cut a show too much slack just because it may improve in the future would not be a very useful approach to writing a review, I think."From TV Critic Matt Roush, The Roush Room.

"One of ME’s strengths is finding good actors to bring their characters to life. That’s why they reuse the good ones they find." Cheryl, Atpobtvs.com Discussion Board.

Jane Espenson during her interview with Hercules on AICN: "I think it’s very natural that TV is better. The system of making television allows for strong individual voices, like Joss’s. Movies are always made by committees, and the writer is not at the head of the committee. Thus, mush."

"Collaboration; the art off passing off work to someone else." The audience applauded and laughed as David [Fury] gave them an example. "I’m in the midst of episode two right now of our next season. Mr. Edlund here, I was having so much fun, I had to bring someone else into it. And I think Ben here is going to help me do it. Basically, when we’re in the room we are going off a general idea that Joss has. He’ll have maybe one small story point or some emotion that he wants to bring out in the episode and then it’s up to us in a room trying to brainstorm a bit and trying to figure things out." From the Angel the Series Writers’ Panel Discussion at Comic Con, courtesy of cityofangel.com

"We were working on the very first presentation," Anthony Stewart Head told the convention-goers, "which was the half-hour version of the first episode. It felt like it was going well, but it wasn’t going brilliantly - because Joss had the crew from hell. None of them wanted to be there, they were all mid-season workers who hadn’t been picked up by any of the regular shows, so they all had quite an attitude. But I remember saying to Joss, ’This is going to go. I think it’s a brilliant script and I think [the show] is a goer.’ And Joss said, ’Oh, yeah, it’s going to go. It’s not going to go because the TV people get it.’ Which was certainly true because the WB didn’t get it and Fox definitely didn’t get it. He said, ’The fans are going to get it. It won’t happen immediately, but it will be world-wide and it will slowly build. The word-of-mouth will just spread and spread and spread’. I still get little chills because he’s just such an extraordinary man." Anthony Stewart Head from Moonlight Rising, Epitaphs: Life After Buffy by Matt Clark.

"The words aren’t mine, the camera placement isn’t mine. There are so many things that make me look cool and I’m not doing it." James Marsters, Epitaphs: Life After Buffy.

"I knew a long time into the show what was going to happen with Tara," Amber Benson said. "Joss and I had talked about the whole character and the story. When Joss first told Alyson and I were going to be lovers, we had no idea [the characters were heading in that direction]. Joss came to us and told us that he was friends with this couple, these two women who were in love and he based the relationship on them. I got to meet them, and realized that Willow and Tara cared about each other the same way these two friends of Joss’ did. The bond between them was really strong and really special. And when it came to the point where Tara was killed - Adam Busch is always so apologetic [for killing "Tara"], he’s such a nice guy - it was really about Willow’s addiction. Most people understand about obsession - we all get obsessed with something and the only way to come back down is to have the rug pulled out from under us. And the only way Willow was going to hit bottom was to have her lover, her soulmate, taken away. And as much as we all cried and didn’t want it to happen, story-wise, I knew it was the right thing to do."

Benson continued, "I don’t think Joss really expected the ramifications of it, or that he’d get faxes up to about last week. It didn’t come from a bad place, but a lot of people were really destroyed by it. For me, I didn’t want her to die for selfish reasons. One, I really loved working with everyone and two, I really cared about Tara. When you spend three years as someone, they kind of become part of you. And she really did, in an odd way, Tara was me and I was her. She was special to me. And the day she died it was devastating to me. Actually, the day we shot my last scene, they brought out this cake shaped like a tombstone with ’Tara McClay, Rest In Piece’, and that was the last straw. Sarah lost it, Michele lost it, I lost it. We were all these girly-girls crying our eyes out. I don’t think anyone on the show realized what the relationship was going to mean to a lot of people out there. I feel really lucky - Alyson felt really lucky - to have set a precedent [for lesbian characters]."

"I didn’t really watch much of the final season," Amber said. "I knew what was going to happen, Joss told me the whole story, I knew all the plot twists, and I didn’t want to get sad and cry. It’s the reason I didn’t want to come back as Tara on season seven. I’d really debated, though. I knew that they were having the story with The First, and that Tara would only be back as The First in disguise and I thought that would be very upsetting, for me and the fans. [Tara’s death] was so upsetting, I didn’t want to go through that or put people through that. I was miserable after [Tara died]. People really cared about this character. So in the end, it was mutually decided that it would be easier to just let her, let her rest in piece. Bringing her back in the future is definitely an option - though I don’t think Tara would work real well on Angel. I think she’d just get really annoyed by everybody. [laughs]" Amber Benson at Moonlight Rising.

******************* Introduction

God, I hate TV sometimes. Give me a good book that I can flip to the end of or a movie that lasts two - three hours or one of those cool plays that Shakespeare or Euripides excelled at, because television unlike those mediums is at the mercy of so many variables. A play is just the writer, the cast, the director and the crew. Each time it is performed it is a different experience, and as much as the actors may affect what we see on stage, they are replaceable if the play has any lasting quality. The actors do not make the play, they don’t inhibit the characters to such a degree that the audience will accept no substitutes, because the audience usually just sees the play once. If we get new actors - that’s a whole new audience. And if someone is re-watching it? They come to it prepared to see a whole different piece. A book? The writer is the king or queen - s/he controls the characters, the plot, the set, everything along with the reader - who envisions it in their head. We can cast anyone we dream of in these parts. We can place the piece in the set of our dreams and direct it ourselves. In a book - the writer and reader are the kings and queens. We also can read the book backwards, forwards, in our bed, upside down, or aloud if we so wish. We can start at the end and work our way towards the beginning or just read the last chapter first. Movies? Director is king/queen, with the actors, then writers coming in second and third. The fans don’t really affect movies or plays or books. They may participate by watching them or reading them or just by going to them and reacting. But they do not change the plot arcs or cause actors to decide not to reprise characters or cause writers to insert problematic scenes. The fans/audience/reader of plays, movies, and books stay firmly in place behind that fourth wall - exactly where they belong in my humble opinion. Not rearing their ugly heads and poking their noses where they don’t belong.

Another wonderful thing about movies, books and plays is that they are wonderfully self-contained. In most, not all cases - we don’t have an on-going serial that could be disrupted mid-flow. Actors are contracted to finish that film - which takes place in a short workable period of time and once they are cast the plot is thoroughly written without too much disruption. We don’t have someone suddenly jumping ship after the first hour of the movie, saying uhm I’m sorry, but I have this great gig in Australia and you just have to work without me for a week. (Oh some try to do that - but believe me, it’s rare and usually results in very nasty consequences and awfully long court cases - the most famous being the case against Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor for Cleopatra.) We don’t have network brass or executive producers telling the author, s/he has to change a character mid-story because ratings are dropping or they are worried about ancillary products. How much you want to bet - J.K. Rowling’s editors did not interfere or make her change Order of the Phoenix mid-stream because it got too dark? Daniel Radcliff didn’t come up to J.K or announce in the press - he’s unhappy with how dark Harry is becoming, or that he feels Snape is coming out better than he is - resulting in poor JK inserting a new scene with Snape and re-writing two chapters. Nor do we end up with JK or the latest director of Harry Potter and Prison of Azkaban having to write out Dumbledore because Richard Harris died or changing another key character because the actor decided he wanted out.

Also in movies the actor is cognizant of all the things he has to do in a film. If he has to rape the lead? He knows about it before he signs the contract or even auditions for the part. Rarely is an actor surprised by film. He knows where it’s going. Actors have been known to get out of films it they differ from what they contracted for. (1) In TV, the actor seldom knows what will happen. The part they audition for may change over time. They can in fact be forced to portray a role they would turn down elsewhere. (2)

Editors do change books and try to make them more commercial. Executive producers and celebrities change movie scripts and directors and actors change plays but somehow it’s not quite as drastic as it is on TV. Television is a very special medium in of itself. Perhaps the most collaborative of all the current mediums we have, and certainly the most inter-active. With the internet - fans have instant access to television writers, each other, and an ability to influence their favorite shows. Oh they can try this with books, plays and movies too - but the fourth wall is more firmly intact there, these mediums are a little less dependent on things like ratings to determine how many viewers watch each week. (3) They have nifty things like actual dollars and sales figures. But a network television show unlike a book, movie or play - has one purpose to draw the largest audience possible to advertisers. (4) Advertising rules TV. It does not rule books, movies or plays. And through advertising - fans/audience influence what is on TV, they always have - as early as Father Knows Best when they sent mail to the advertisers begging the show be renewed. Based solely on those letters - a new advertiser decided to sponsor Father Knows Best and it survived the ax. (5) Other more modern examples include "Save our Shows" campaigns for Cagney and Lacy, Party of Five and most recently Angel the Series. These campaigns, if the program is just teetering on the ledge, often succeed in saving the show. They also demonstrate the amount of power fans truly have both to the writers and the fans themselves. While I love the fact that viewers can prevent their favorite shows from being prematurely completed, I am not fond of the fact that fans, even more so now with the advent of the internet, can influence the framework and internal story of the show. Call me crazy, but I prefer the fourth wall intact. Too many chefs in the kitchen ruin the stew. And I have yet to see a TV show survive this problem. Sooner or later, the mighty advertising dollar coupled with fans will influence the writers of a show.

Most of the critiques I’ve read regarding Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s final seasons (6) - have more to do with the opportunities and limitations of the medium this brilliant show is in than people may realize. In fact, every single criticism may be a result of those opportunities and limitations - a direct result of this marvelously frustrating, at times brilliant and at times quite pedestrian medium called television. I hope to address some of those complaints/criticisms in this essay.

Even though the main thrust of this essay regards how BTVS operates as a TV show, I will briefly address issues such as the genres it operates within and how successfully it operates within those genres. (While I’ve set up the essay so that you can read and respond just to sections of it, I strongly suggest you read all of it before making any response, especially the conclusion.)

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1.Interview with Anthony Stewart Head, IGN : in film Metal God, when Head’s role was truncated, the director contacted him and asked if he still wanted to do it. Interview with James Marsters for SFX Aug. 2003 edition - Marsters saw the entire script to Venetian Heat ahead of time prior to signing. He knew he had to get past his own reservations playing a gay lead. 2 James Marsters Interview in The Official Buffy Magazine #8, June/July 2002, pp.20-21: "In Voices in the Dark, I played a serial killer who has a 10-minute fight scene with a woman. I dragged her across the stage by her hair, she dropped me off a 10-foot drop into a spa. That scene is the end of the play, and you get an emotional release. If you do movies or plays, you choose what kind of projects you would be willing to do." James is against doing rape scenes and traditionally will turn down any role that does not punish the perpetuator immediately after-ward. He can’t watch films where women or children are hurt. "On a television series, however, actors are bound to perform the scripts as they come in." According to other assorted interviews and online posts, James did not know about this scene until he came to work that day. In Interview with Anthony Stewart Head, IGFN, 1/6/03, Head mentions going out for drinks after work with Nicholas Brendan (Xander) and discussing where the show will go next and always being wrong. 3 See The Business of Television, Blumenthal & Goodenough, 1998, pp. 402-415 for more on ratings. 4 Blumenthal, p.402 : "the effectiveness of an advertisement is based upon the estimated number of people who saw the advertisement. To be more precise, it’s not the total number of people that matters. Instead, it’s the total number of people within the advertiser’s demographic that matters." P. 2, "Each [network] is a giant company with a single goal - to supply the largest number of desirable viewers to the advertisers who provide the networks with revenues and thus the programs." 5 Brilliant But Cancelled Documentary - Trio Network 6 Reviews on the internet, specifically 3Strikes, cjl, Darby, Kds, Shadowkat’s Season Seven Critique, RabidRaen, Spoilerslayer, Slayage.com, amongst others. See atpobtvs.com archives, www.spoilerslayer.com season 7 review, www.slayage.com article archives, and Angle After Spike archives.

Part I. Tragedy, Television and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I don’t believe Mutant Enemy’s ( the writing staff and producers of BTVS and ATS under and including Joss Whedon, hereinafter ME) goal was to do a classic tragedy per se, regardless of the medium, although the medium may have had a role in this decision. ME’s writers are first and foremost television writers - they know the medium, they’ve done a bulk of their work in it prior to BTVS, they know what works and what doesn’t from those past experiences. Heck, Whedon is a third generation television writer, I’d say he’s an expert or the closest we’ll get to one. (7)

So why not do classic tragedy on TV? Is it because the modern audience is intolerant of tragedy? If that were the case we wouldn’t have tragic movies and books - go to your bookstore some time, check out all those contemporary novels - I bet you’ll find a few classic tragedies amongst them. Same with the cinema-plex. Also Shakespeare? Still popular. And Medea? It was quite successful on Broadway this year, thank you very much. The Greeks and Elizabethans? Experienced more tragedy than most of us sitting nice and comfy in our little homes will ever experience. They were lucky to make it to 30, we complain if we don’t make it to 100. Tragedy was part and parcel of their lives. We, having only experienced it through television sets via the news, books, theatre, plays and the newspaper - are a tad desensitized to it - it’s not real to us, not in the same way. (Speaking generally here, I’m well aware of the fact that there are folks out there who have experienced tragedy first hand - but these people are the exception not the rule in our society. And in some ways, they seem to experience and look at fictional tragedy the same way the Greeks did, with a deep abiding appreciation. Preferring it to the more gratuitous and somewhat exploitive newsreels.) No, the reason is far more simple - advertisers don’t like to have their products associated with tragedy. Honestly, are you going to go out to McDonalds after watching Xena get her head chopped off? Or buy that new Lexus convertible? I don’t think so. You might think about eating that box of Rocky Road ice cream in the fridge though. There’s also that teeny little problem of coaxing the viewer back the next week. The Greeks didn’t really have this problem, nor did Ms. Bronte. Their story was done. They don’t have to coax the reader back again. Television? Unless you don’t plan on doing an episode next week, have a spin-off, or a franchise of ancillary products - you want and need people to keep watching. We want you to tune in again - we also want you to watch us in syndication and re-runs. So if we give you deep dark tragedy this week? We promise next week it will be lighter and somewhat fluffy. Everything will come out swell in the end…trust us. That’s the reason Fox, The Kuzuis, the WB and UPN don’t want ME doing anything too tragic. It is not, however the reason ME decided not to do tragedy.

Whedon and the other ME writers have stated in numerous interviews and commentaries that they took items from numerous genre’s, subverting and twisting some in the process.(8) Because Btvs has elements of each of these genres (fantasy, gothic, horror, science-fiction and noir/pulp) within it - it doesn’t really fit the model of any single one exactly. Trying to press it into that structure is akin to pressing a square peg into a round hole, believe me I’ve tried it. By using a hodge-podge of techniques, ME have oddly enough appeared to create a new genre, something that stands a little apart from the others. I can see why people may think that Btvs is meant to be a classic tragedy or just a tragedy - but it’s not really. (9) Btvs while incredibly "tragic" at times is hardly ever a "tragedy" in the classic sense nor has it ever been one. Ats is actually more in keeping with the styling of classic "tragedy" but it’s modernized and comes across more as "neo-noir tragedy". In Noir, a sort of subversion of the classic form, created in the 1940s and early 50’s - the tragic hero is less a hero than an anti-hero, he is not necessarily likable, yet we root for him or her (usually a him except for a few neo-noir films in the late 80’s, early 90’s where it was a she) and the ending is always a tragic one, the best we can hope for is he survives. Unlike the classic tragedy, the tragedy in neo-noir is not the hero’s death per se but his failure to reach his goal - a failure often caused by hubris, just like the classic form. Examples are Kiss Me Deadly, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and The Killing (a Stanley Kubrick film that satirizes the form). (10)

Xena: Warrior Princess was actually more of a classic tragedy, which is something that is incredibly difficult to pull off on television. For how difficult - just look at the negative fan response to Xena’s end or for that matter Nick Knight’s in Forever Knight.(11) Both heroes died tragically as a result of their own fatal flaw and the episodes were not well received. Most gothic dramas are styled in this manner by the way - from Wuthering Heights to Ann Rice’s Interview With A Vampire. Why didn’t fans react negatively to them? Well how do you know they didn’t? The difference is Wuthering Heights is a book, Xena is a cult television show. Same with Gone with The Wind - Rhett Butler could tell Scarlett to go to hell in the book and movie - these mediums did not depend on fans coming back to see episode two or watch in perpetuity in syndication. They do not depend on the all mighty advertising dollar, product endorsements, and ancillary products. Same with Euripides and Shakespeare - you know each audience will be different and the audience for a play or movie? They have no problem being hurt - their investment in the characters is short lived - it began at the start of that three-hour movie and ended when they left the theater. Oh they may dream and fret over Scarlett and Rhett, but they can’t influence the writers, they can’t un-see it. The money’s been spent. If they despise it? That means it dies never to be seen again. But it doesn’t change the story. They aren’t like the nutty television fans who get to see a new chapter in their characters’ lives every week - just making them more obsessed. Sooner or later you’re going to get tired of rewatching the same three-hour movie. But a TV show with a spin-off, movie possibilities, and ancillary products?

Btvs wasn’t meant to be a tragedy. We know this from the very beginning - re-watch Prophecy Girlwhich we are mislead to believe will end in tragedy yet ends in triumph. The Gift is hardly a classic tragedy per se since Buffy by dying saves the world. She goes to a better place. Becoming II isn’t really true tragedy, the only major character that dies is Angel - who comes back, and while it’s tragic she has to kill him - it’s not tragic on the scale it would be if this was "classic" tragedy or pure tragedy. Also in both The Gift and in Becoming, the character returns from the dead the very next season. Fans only have to wait six months. (The same can be said of Spike in Chosen, who apparently will be resurrected in some form for Angel S5. Tara was one of the few characters in BTVS history not resurrected in some form and that was partly due to the actress’ unavailability. )

According to the rumor mill, Whedon’s original intention was to end the whole series with pure "classical" tragedy. I’m not sure how much of this is true and how much is just fan speculation: In Season 5: Glory was supposed to kill Tara, Willow was supposed to go dark and be overwhelmed with vengence. Xander was supposed to be the one housing Glory not Ben. Giles kills Xander to defeat Glory. Anya dies trying to save Xander. Spike dies trying to save Dawn from Willow. Buffy dies to save the world and preserve Dawn. Leaving Dawn and Giles and the cast of ATS the only survivors. Sunnydale would be sucked into the hellmouth. The only portion of this that I’ve seen validated in interviews was the Willow bit. (12) I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he said - if this happened, over a 100,000 BTVS fans would be asking for prozac.

So why did Joss change his mind? Several reasons - Btvs is not just his creation, it’s a collaboration. Heck he even got voted out of the writers’ room once. (13) If you look at the credits of each episode you’ll notice how many executive, co-executive, supervising producers there are. Also the writers change each time. As do the directors. Then of course there’s all the camera people, the stunt people, the makeup people, the set designers, the assistants...in short unlike a book - this baby has more than one mother and father. (14) Marti has stated in interviews that she told Joss he wasn’t allowed to kill everyone in The Gift - since they could get picked up for another year - also he couldn’t destroy the entire set. Joss may have wanted Btvs to end with The Gift, but Joss does not own the rights to Btvs, the Kuzis and Fox do. Joss may have creative control over who is cast, general story arc, who writes the episodes, and produces each episode - but the executive producers still have some say in the proceedings. They still get to okay whatever appears on screen as do the network brass. They don’t like something? It does not get aired. Just look at what happened to Firefly. Also, even though Whedon may run it like the military (15) - these are still artists not soldiers - they bring whatever is inside them to the piece and he has made it clear he’s open to that.(16) In fact from what I’ve read - it’s clear that Btvs is NOT tightly plotted. They figure out the general arc each season, make sure it builds from the last season, then writers pitch ideas for specific episodes.

Examples: Jane Espenson came up with the idea of Wood being Nikki’s son. Oh Whedon wanted Nikki’s kid to come gunning for Spike - they just didn’t know who it would be until episode 9. (17) The whole Kennedy arc they came up with around CwDP after Amber Benson nixed coming back. Amber Benson was chosen as Tara in S4 by Marti not Joss. Same with Buffy and Spike - also from Marti’s experience. (18)

Whedon was probably told to scale back his original concept by assorted players: Fox, Kuzuis, his writers, the actors, etc. Then of course, BTVS was renewed after Season 5 and Joss under his contract with Fox and UPN was honor bound to keep producing it for another two years, hence the decision not to end with a complete tragedy.

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7 Interview with Joss Whedon, June 2003, on IGFN web site. Whedon states he’s a third generation television writer. His father and grandfather wrote for assorted situation comedies including the Golden Girls, Benson, Dick Cavette. Whedon got his first job writing for the Roseanne Show. 8 See Whedon Interview with IGFN cited above. Also End of the Series Whedon Interview on Salon.com and Joss Whedon Interview: Ending Buffy at http://actionadventure.about.com/cs/weeklystories/a/aa041903.htm#b. (Note the second one is free, the salon.com one requires you subscribe.) 9 See the thread "Tragedy and BTVS & ATS" by WtP from The Stakehouse, posted by Rufus on AASB board on 8/1/03 1010 Film Noir Reader 2, Alan Silver & James Ursini 11See www.atpobtvs.com - discussion board archives, Xena’s end or Forever Knight’s. http://www.atpobtvs.com/existentialscoobies/archives/may03_p27.html 12 Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Exit Interview with Entertainment Weekly, March 2003; Marti Noxon’s Interview in SFX regarding Season 6, Dec. 2001; In the SMG Interview - Gellar states Whedon put off killing Tara and turning Willow, because he fell in love with the Willow/Tara relationship and wanted another full year of it. But Willow was supposed to turn dark ever since Season 3. It was pre-planned. According to Noxon - Whedon had planned to destroy Sunnydale in Season 5, but they begged him to leave some of the set in case they got renewed. 13Not sure which interview this came from - my guess is salon.com (which I can no longer access) or about.com (the actionadventure.com site referenced in note 8). If I’m completely off? Be a sweetie and let me know. ;-) 14Interview with Anthony Stewart Head for IGN, Head relates a story about a costume designer who created his look for two seasons and informs the interviewer that due to lighting and camera problems, they had to place everyone around the table in the library, the lighting and camera angles were horrid everywhere else. 15IGFN Interview with Joss Whedon 16 Interviews with Anthony Stewart Head for IGN and with Danny Strong, IGN; James Marsters Interviews on http://www.visimag.com/starburst/284_feature.htm, Demon Lover: "Joss Whedon is letting (producer) Marti Noxon come more into the fore with this story. And her crucible of experience - one she’ll always go back to as a writer - is in issues that relate to people in their mid-twenties. It’s brilliant that although Joss is still very much in charge of the show, there’s another voice that’s coming in, using the metaphor to her own ends." 17 The Official Buffy Magazine #8, June/July 2003, Writer Revelations: Espenson states -" We’d been talking quite a while about what if Nikki had a daughter who survived and came to Sunnydale seeking vengeance. Then I had a literally sit-up-in-your-bed brainstorm, where I went, ’She didn’t have a daughter, she had a son - and we’ve already met him. It’s Principal Wood." 18 IGN Interview with Joss Whedon; Commentary to Hush, Josh Whedon, S4 BTVS DVD; James Marsters Shore Leave Q&A regarding Buffy/Spike relationship : "I am really serious. I don’t think Joss went there, I think it was Marti. She has a dirty mind. How much heat was there last year? Whoa! That was Marti’s year. As much as we talk about Joss, Marti is the Bomb! She is, like all the writers, using her personal life and she is incredibly brave about what she admits has happened to her. She has lived the life." http://www.slayernews.com/Actors/Marsters.php

Part II. The Pitfalls of Plotting Television Shows

So how much of BTVS is truly plotted way ahead of time? How much of any Television show arc is plotted ahead of time?

Alarmingly little, believe it or not. I know that’s hard to believe when you watch shows like BTVS - but that’s b/c the show is done that well. All tv shows are done in this manner. Very very few can be tightly plotted ahead of time and even those? Get screwed. This where the opportunities/limitations of the medium come into play.

Plays and movies - are one self-contained two to three hour drama or comedy, cast well ahead of rehearsals, the play script or movie script may be written by one or more people. In some cases plays and movies are re-written for the cast. But the main thing is that the story is generally plotted in advance. They usually have a complete outline and sketches of each character. The actors meet to discuss the script and scenes. Cast/Actors do affect movies and plays but not quite in the same way they do TV. (19) Fans? Almost zero effect on what happens - just on whether it makes any money and lives to see another day. Although preview audiences can affect these mediums to an extent, they rarely come into play until after the entire thing is done. (20) We usually don’t get some fan group or network producer screaming at the creator to change the story after chapter one of a book or act one of the play has aired or been published, usually the whole thing is published or aired at once - there’s no changing it in mid-stream. Not so with TV - which is more akin to a work in progress - each chapter airing as the writer begins writing the next. (21)

TV - the difference between a television series and a book or movie or play is simply the fact it is an on-going series with new episodes once a week with no more than a month or two in between during a seasonal arc and three - five months between seasons.

A book that is an on-going serial - is dependent on just the writer continuing it. A movie? On actors, director, writer, producer, distributor, crew continuing - but, it is usually self-contained enough that if someone doesn’t want to come back, they can handle it. Example: Halle Berry doesn’t want to do X-Men 3, fine, just write the next movie without Halle Berry in it. Doesn’t really hurt the franchise. You might even be able to recast her if you want. Or you can stop the franchise...and the fans are satisfied, story self-contained. Example: Amber Benson doesn’t want to do Buffy S7 because she hates the script or isn’t being paid enough or feels it would hurt the fans, oops big problem, we wrote this whole Willow story arc around her, dang it. Have to change the arc and gut that whole story. In fact the arc may have been considered way before they killed her.(22)

On top of this - we have the problem that the series is on network television not cable and not a movie - this means advertisers, this means censors, this means the network on your ass, and this means ratings. With a movie - it’s box office, but you don’t have to worry about advertisers or censors or those pesky ratings or fans doing mail-ins for the next episode. You don’t have to worry about someone throwing a hissy fit because Spike isn’t wearing his leather jacket. (23) In a movie or book - it’s done. In TV? You can be forced to change it to accommodate others.

Then there’s the whole money factor - each episode of BTVS costs approximately 2.3 million dollars. (24) A third of that goes to the cast, (25) the rest to writers, special effects, crew etc. Movie budgets can be increased as filming goes. TV? Nope. That budget is set in stone during the contract phase. So say you want to hire Amber Benson to do S7 of BTVs and Amber has raised her asking price? You can’t do it. You also can’t hire this other person you have your eye on. You’re stuck. You can’t make new deals with the contracted actors, producers, or ask them to lower their price like in a film - their salaries are written in stone. In a movie? You can do all this negotiating. TV - not after you did the initial stuff.

So you have this budget written-in-stone and a cast written-in-stone. No, wait they aren’t. Seth Green took off in S4 and he had a contract. Lindsey Crouse also took off. Amber didn’t sign a new contract after S6. Emma Caulfield announced she’s done after Season 7. And the star, Sarah Michelle Gellar? She’s not sure she’ll sign for another year. Joss Whedon? He’s sick of Btvs, wants to do something new after S7 (26) …but hey you can continue without him, just not the cast. In a movie - they’d have replaced Whedon, Seth Green and Lindsey Crouse probably would have taken off, filming would stop, or they’d be recast and they’d re-film the scenes, or they’d wait for them to return or they’d sue them. In TV not so easy. Books? You’re the writer, you’re god, not a problem. And if you decide to call it quits? No one sees the book. Only person who hurts a book by calling it quits is the writer - and you can always hire a new writer - if s/he doesn’t own the rights to the characters and story.

So you’re a TV writer, you’ve plotted out your arc - five years complete. But wait, the lead? The network brass doesn’t like him. He’s not charismatic enough. No chemistry. Too stiff. They want a name to carry it. Or you’re cancelled. Dang. Got to do a little re-writing here. (This is what happened to the creator of Bablyon 5).

Or you’ve decided to do that series - with the vampire with the soul, a half-demon companion and the cheerful cheerleader, only one problem the actor you wanted for the half-demon? He’s in jail. So you find another actor. But whoops he has a substance abuse problem...so you re-write and bring in someone new. (This happened to Angel The Series in Season 1).

You can’t plot out your entire story ahead of time. Too many movable parts - too many things can go wrong. You have to make it flexible. There is no way Whedon and his writers would have been able to plot all of S7 - they had too many uncertainties. If it had been a book or a movie? No problem. But not a TV series with 22 episodes on a struggling network with financial problems. UPN had major problems last year - they lost money on Buffy just as the WB had before them, the only difference is UPN was paying more and was at the bottom of the network ratings game.(27)

So if you think BTVS was plotted way ahead time? Hate to burst your bubble, but nope. What they did do, was build off of previous episodes. (28)They took elements from Restless and built stories from those elements and themes, so that it appears to the audience that the show was plotted to some extent in advance. Whedon and Fury and others have admitted in assorted interviews that they took elements from S5 and S6 and took the characters emotional arcs from there. (29)They did not figure out S7 or S6 prior to writing S5. Whedon didn’t know what he was going to do with Buffy past S5, prior to The Gift. He figured it out after The Gift.

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19 See James Marsters Interview in SFX Aug. 2003 edition, specifically on the play to screen edition of Venetian Heat; Anthony Stewart Head’s IGN Interview 20 See Adventures in The Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell, both by William Goldman 21See David Fury Interview on City of Angel website; Joss Whedon Interview with IGN; Tim Minear Interview in SFX December Edition - 2002: the scene where Angel attacks Darla sexually was changed by network brass, as was the scene where Kate pukes in Epiphany. 22 Joss Whedon IGN Interview; Amber Benson Q&A at Moonlight Rising 23 See Tampa Vulkon Q&A with James Marsters at www.morethanspike.com , where Marsters mentions WB freaked over the fact that Fox sold Spike’s leather jacket on Ebay. Also fan speculation on www.atpobtvs.com discussion board - archives, that the jacket came back due to network complaints. 24Consoli, John "Moonves to Creatives: Days of Big, Fat Paychecks Are Over" JULY 15, 2001, http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1541956; " Ironically, it was UPN, which Moonves now oversees since both UPN and CBS are under the Viacom umbrella, that prior to Moonves assuming oversight over it, paid more than $2 million per episode to acquire the rights to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, when the WB refused to pick it up for that price." ; See also: Francis, Rob, "News - 23rd April : Buffy Wrestles With Her Future", http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/news/archive/archive35.shtml: "According to the American press, UPN has agreed to a two-year, 44 episode deal for the series, reportedly paying US$ 2.3 million per episode." 25In articles archived on www.slayage.com in fall 2002, Sarah Michelle Gellar was reported to be pulling in a paycheck of $735,000 per episode, in a recent article in the Dublin Times, Alyson Hannigan admitted to be pulling in $200,000 per episode for Season 6-7. 26See assorted Joss Whedon interviews including IGFN Interview with Joss Whedon in June 2003; salon.com’s exit interview with Joss Whedon; NyTimes Interview with Joss Whedon and interviews archived on www.slayer.com and whedonesque.com. 27 See Consoli, John "Moonves to Creatives: Days of Big, Fat Paychecks Are Over" JULY 15, 2001, http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1541956 "UPN has lost a sizable amount of money on Buffy, about $1 million per episode by some industry estimates…"; See also: Battaglio, Stephen, "Buffy’s Studio Shows Its Fangs", May 14, 2001, http://www.crashdown.com/news/2219.shtml : "The two sides never even got close to a deal. The WB, which lost $ 50 million last year, stopped bidding at $ 1.8 million an episode. (At that amount, insiders say, the network would lose $ 200,000 per show.) Fox wanted $ 2.3 million—and got it from UPN. The network, which is desperate for a hit beyond WWF wrestling and Star Trek spinoffs, bought two seasons’ worth of Buffy for more than $ 100 million." 28 Interview with Marti Noxon, CBC 2003: ". So a lot of times people who see this as a grand design, an opera about good and evil. It’s just really a slowly evolving thing, and sometimes form follows function." Q&A with Joss Whedon at the Paley Festival, March 30, 2001: "Very specifically in terms of huge — arcing these things out as far in advance as we can. Some of them are fortuitous acts and as we look back and say, ’Oh you know we had this and it will connect this with this and that.’ Eventually, and some of them come from disasters. For example, one that we did on Buffy, ’Lovers Walk,’ the episode where Spike came back and Drusilla had left him. Juliet was shooting a movie and they were gonna come back together. They were Spike and Dru and we couldn’t get her and we said, ’Well, what if they broke up?’ So eventually, as I’ve said before, the story’s telling us what’s going to happen. There a symbiosis between what we’re doing and what the story’s doing to the point where when we come up with something, even if it surprises us we look back and go, "Wow, we’ve been building towards that and we didn’t even know it.’ The Xander and Cordelia romance — a long time on Buffy. The intensity of their arguments had been increasing and increasing and we had not thought about giving them a romance. When we looked back and it was like we had been trying to do it from the second episode. So it really just takes on a life of its own and some of it’s planned, some of it isn’t. Some of it comes from the trouble but it’s like riding the rapids. And we keep going and it all seems to fall together . . . sometimes." 29IGN Interview with Joss Whedon; Jane Espenson Interview with Hercules http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=15587; Sound of The Fury : Interview with David Fury, http://www.cityofangel.com/behindTh...bts3/fury2.html; Drew Goddard Interview with Succubus Club.

Part III: The TV Show Grind and Writer Burn-Out

Seven years is an incredibly long time for a drama to be on TV. Few television shows last that long and retain their worth. TV is a grind. Long hours. Lots of pressure. Not that much recognition in the industry. You have approximately 8-10 days to kick out a 43 minute episode. (30) To give you an idea what that means, it can take a day to shoot a 30 second commercial. You have what amounts to anywhere from 8 days to maybe 15 hours to write the episode. (31)The actors get the script pretty close to the time they have to perform it and they do enough takes to get the lines right. It’s not like plays and film - where you you get the script way ahead of time. The actor often doesn’t know what the script is until s/he arrives on the set. And you don’t have the time to re-do the episode if it’s horrible. Time is money. (32)

Like all TV shows - Btvs fell into some common pitfalls partly due to the grind and partly due to the challenges of writing innovative episodes over a seven-year period. (33) Writers can get tired of the same stories and characters after a while, they want to do something new. (34) Add to this actor burn-out or restlessness, partly due to normal work-place tensions, and the fact that most people in the film/theater business are nomadic by nature and don’t like doing one thing for too long. (35) They’re used to movies or plays - six months doing this, six months doing that. So due to these pressures, after about four or five years, even the best TV shows and television writers fall into the following traps:

The Very Special Episode

This is when TV writers decide to tackle big issues and be brave. What happens is they flip the show out of its genre/reality than flip it back the very next episode. As a result the audience loses its trust in the writers. Examples: situation comedies who decide to do the drug or domestic abuse or eating disorder or rape storyline. Btvs did it with Seeing Red and to an extent with Wrecked . They skirted the problem barely with Earshot and The Body by staying true to their characters and universe. Seeing Red? Well let’s just say the infamous bathroom/attempted rape scene was like watching an episode of Law and Order meets Beverly Hills 90210 not an episode of metaphorically layered Btvs. It was even filmed in the same gritty white on black, naturalistic style as Law and Order, with tight camera angles and close-ups, while the surrounding material was filmed more in the style of BTVS. The contrast jarred the audience - emphasizing the violence of the scene and the victimization of the heroine more than may have been intended. The audience was in effect no longer watching a vampire and a vampire slayer - they were watching the girl-next door and her ex-boyfriend. Other examples of the very special episode in BTVS include: Warren’s shooting of Buffy and Tara in Seeing Red and Willow’s visit to a molesting drug dealer and subsequent magic addiction arc in Wrecked. They stripped away the metaphors. Then put them back again. Just like those situation comedies do - dramatic one episode - then snap - comedy the next...the writers trust that the audience followed and didn’t just decide to jump ship.

The problem with The Message episode or Special Episode - is the writers think they are being new and innovative and shocking - truth is? The audience have seen it all before. I If you’ve ever in your life watched a prime time or daytime soap opera, an after-school special, Lifetime Original Movie, Beverly Hills 90210, Boston Public or an episode of Seventh Heaven, etc: you probably have seen the heroine almost get raped/or get raped by her date or boyfriend, usually someone the audience likes and a relationship that the writers need to break up for some reason but can’t figure out how. (36) To Whedon’s credit, he attempted to subvert the attempted rape/rape cliché by concentrating on the perpetuator of the crime as opposed to the victim. Whedon felt that too often our society demonizes rapists and/or attempted rapists by their acts, instead of treating them like human beings who made a horrible mistake and aren’t completely defined by their crime. They can be redeemed. (37) So he tried to tackle through Spike the issue of rape from the perpetuator’s point of view. The problem with doing this is two-fold: 1.) In our society most rapists get-off, rape is a very hard crime to prove and up until the last couple of years, one that wasn’t acknowledged. 2. The day-time soap operas and movies of the week already beat him to it. (38)

A recent review from film force suggests that viewers are not able to appreciate this story and it may even be offensive to some. Note the reviewer fails to recognize the fact that we’re not discussing a human character or "man" but a soulless vampire with no conscience, who because of the attempted rape, hunts a soul to become a better man - one who would never force himself on a woman. A soulless vamp who after winning his soul redeems himself by sacrificing his life for the world.

"For all of the protestations of "girl power", it was Spike, the man who attempted to rape Buffy last season, who winds up ultimately saving the day. In a true General Hospital moment, Buffy even professes her love for the vampire who tried to kill her more than once. If last season’s tryst was supposed to be about women who find themselves in bad relationships, what the hell was that supposed to be?" From the film force review of Chosen, "Buffy Gets Dusted; 24 Keeps on Ticking" at http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/408/408596p1.html?fromint=1

The reviewer refuses to see Spike’s attempted rape as the crime of a soulless vampire and suggests that the idea Spike sought a soul afterwards and could be forgiven is offensive. Odd considering people generally accept the idea that the most vicious vampire in the history of the show, someone who raped and murdered a chaste girl entering a convent, could be redeemed, that this is not offensive. If you accept Angel’s journey for redemption at all, than you should be able to accept Spike’s, but several people can’t. Why? The television rape cliché started by General Hospital in the 1970s. People viewed a violent attempted rape on their television screen against the heroine. So violent that the UK censored the scene for viewers because it aired prior to 9 pm. Some viewers just can’t get past it. No matter what the writers do. If our society had a history of punishing and rehabilitating rapists, it may work. But instead, we have a history of vilifying the victim. Odd, considering viewers had no problem forgiving Xander’s attempted rape on Buffy in The Pack, Faith’s attempted rape of Xander in Consequences, Angelus’ rapes of Drusilla, Holtz’s wife and daughter, the gypsy girl, torture of Giles, and murder of Jenny - of course a lot of people have dealt with Angelus’ crimes by deciding Angel isn’t Angelus at all. (39) Why? The reason is the naturalistic manner that the attempted rape scene in Seeing Red was filmed. (40) The writers dropped the metaphors. By dropping the metaphors so, Buffy became a victim and Spike an attempted rapist in Seeing Red - for those five brief minutes, both characters fell out of the fragile mythology the series had spent six years developing. If the scene had been filmed in the same style as the Faith/Xander sequence in Consequences or Xander/Buffy sequence in The Pack or even Angelus/the gypsy girl in Darla - or Angel/Darla in Reprise, several viewers may have reacted differently to the stimuli. (*Note I did not say all viewers reacted this way, quite a few understood where ME was going and accepted it.)

Unfortunately, there are no new interpretations when it comes to the "rape" issue, attempted or otherwise. It’s been over-done. Add to this the fact that Buffy The Vampire Slayer is a gothic horror serial that for the last seven years has used vampires as a metaphor for sexual taboos ranging from incest to S & M sex to sexual assault. Just about every vampire on the show has in some way shape or form committed a sexual assault. Angel certainly did on his show, but always within the context of the metaphor. To strip away the metaphor in a gothic horror show risks exposing other realities, such as the fact that the heroine solves her problems by slaying things with a sharp stick or her fists. Also what is ME saying about rapists in general - when all the male characters who attempt it are in fact soulless or infected with a demon at the time of the act? If they left the metaphor intact, the vampire bite, then we would have no need to ask these questions. By doing the "very special episode" and dropping the metaphorical veil, ME may have risked the fragile framework of their own universe.

The other issues ME tackled in Season 6’s version of the special episode was drug abuse and the shooting of a loved one. If you have watched any television in your lifetime, you have seen this story line, in which the main character or a regular struggles with drug abuse, addiction, grief, or insanity, hits rock bottom, slowly comes back after betraying all the other characters or losing something or someone close to them. Cheers did it with Sam Malone twice - alcohol and sex-addiction, MASH did it with Hawkeye going insane, and Family Ties did it with Alex P. Keaton and grief. (41) You have also probably seen someone get shot on a tv show. Soap operas love this plot device. Usually it happens at a huge event or a very intimate moment, the villain everyone has ignored or not taken seriously shoots two of the leads, one lives and one dies. The one who dies is usually a wonderful character that everyone adores and the most mature one in the cast. Dallas is one of the few programs that subverted this idea and shot the villain - but then the glory of Dallas was the villain was the star of the show, JR Ewing and that shooting got the highest ratings ever. Dynasty shot two characters. Beverly 90210 did it their last season. Actually they did it more than once. Melrose Place? All the time. The rape, the drug addict, the heroes getting shot are plot devices that have been used so often in TV they have almost become clichés. West Wing did the whole gunshot thing their very first season and then again in 2002. I look forward to seeing the TV dramas that don’t do it. Was hoping since BTVS is a fantasy show, it wouldn’t - but it hit the six year time span and sure enough out came the television clichés.

Meta-narration, Reunions, Flashback Episode and Clips - a TV specialty.

The day I see a tv show that does not feel compelled to bring back old characters or do clips of past episodes or even refer to them in its last season, is the day Television stops being a guilty pleasure.

a. The Meta-narration/clips Episode

Sooner or later all TV shows will fall into this trap. Star Trek The Next Generation did by referencing its predecessor and doing meta-narration on past episodes in its series finale. Instead of building on what it had - it felt the need to become nostalgic. Same with MASH. Cheers also did it. And Friends? All the blasted time. It’s a wonderfully cheap way to kill time, I suspect. But it is never as entertaining as it’s meant to be.

BTVS did it a lot in S7. Not only did we get the 15 minute previously on Buffy section, which now included bits from almost all the previously aired episodes, but we got old regenerated clips in the middle of episodes - most notably the Faith sequences in Dirty Girls.

And just in case we didn’t notice? They would meta-narrate on past episodes - using obvious mentions of the first - fifth season episodes in the narrative, something that happens a lot with Television. Movies? Not so much since they are self-contained. If part of a serial? A little just to catch you up. Although I noticed to my delight that Peter Jackson avoided doing this in Two Towers, Part II of LoR, he apparently thought it silly and demeaning to the audience to show what happened previously in the first movie. George Lucas set the precedent with Empire Strikes Back - similarly not showing what came before or dwelling on it too much. Odd that tv writers who know we watch their shows in syndication, feel the need to refer to past episodes constantly. Books also don’t really do this. JK Rowling did it a little in Harry Potter, but pretty quickly. Most? Don’t. And Shakespeare? He avoids doing it too heavily in Henry the V, the sequel to Henry the IV. Yet, most, possibly all TV shows do. Dawson’s Creek certainly did. BTVS did. And I suspect next year - Angel the Series will. It seems to be part and parcel of the form. If you dislike this, I suggest you focus your time on movies and books. TV will never change.

b. Flashback Episode

In a recent New York Times article, television critic Emily Nussbaum raves about the flashback. "The flashback episode: it’s a television specialty worth looking back on. Perfectly suited to TV’s episodic nature, flashbacks bend the rules of television time, creating an instant set of memories and allowing viewers a prison break from TV’s seemingly eternal present tense." (42) She ranks them from the previously mentioned low on the totem pole: "dumb clip-show aka filler" to the more profound "flashback episode", which is usually best done by taking the audience inside the characters heads with little more preamble than a line or scene transition. The better episodes - use the flashback to reveal something new about the characters, explain a plot point, or a long unanswered question such as how does Monica on Friends afford that great apartment? Or how did Angel and Spike become vampires?

ME may have overused this device in Season 7, Btvs. In prior years the flashback was used sparingly to explain Angel’s background in Season 2 finale Becoming. More importantly, it lent itself to whatever plot was unraveling at the time. It was not just an excuse for the writers to experiment. It did not stop the action - rather flowed from it - establishing for the audience Angel’s motivation in Becoming and the irony of his actions. Fool for Love in Season 5 Btvs is another example of the flashback working brilliantly - in this episode key information about Spike’s past is revealed which in turn shed’s light on what Buffy is up against and the central mythology of the series. Plus none of these episodes rely on previously aired scenes, instead they provide brand new ones which build on the characters. We get both Buffy’s motivations and Spike’s in the episode. Compare this to Storyteller, Dirty Girls, and Him all of which use previously aired scenes as flashbacks with comic twists akin to a blooper episode. Him flashes back to Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - succeeding only in reminding the audience of how much better that episode was regarding a similar theme. Dirty Girls flashes back to Bad Girls and Consequences, also far better episodes than how the writers twist them in the flashbacks. Storyteller uses clips from Season 6 throughout the episode. ME attempts to do it’s own twist on this form by making the clips comical in retrospect or changing them slightly, but all this does is make me miss the original version. Storyteller does introduce other sequences, several scenes of Andrew talking to Warren behind Jonathan’s back, but these don’t really lead us anywhere plot-wise or character-wise. Also they tend to be on the repetitive side - since we’ve already seen these scenes in Conversations with Dead People and Never Leave Me. They do not add to the story. We know why Jonathan and Andrew go to Sunnydale in Conversations With Dead People - Andrew’s remembered conversation with Jonathan in Mexico merely repeats that information. The knife that Andrew brings back with him from Mexico and used to kill Jonathan, which is supposed to be the point of the flashback, is never really explained or used in the episode. It appears to be a device or excuse for the writer to do the flashback between Andrew and Jonathan. Instead of using these scenes to explain who Andrew is or his family background or why he ended up with Warren and Jonathan in the first place, the flashbacks appear to provide little more than comic relief. The scenes provide no true depth, do not really tell us anything new, and just feel like more filler, creative, maybe even comical filler, but filler all the same. (43) Contrast this with Lies My Parents Told Me, which through a series of flashbacks caused by a memory device magically inserted in Spike’s brain, reveals the source of Spike’s psychological trigger and the source of Wood’s vendetta against Spike. The flashback sequences do provide depth to the characters and move the plot along. While not as strong and entangled in the plot/mythology as Fool for Love and Becoming’s flashbacks, they do serve a clear purpose outside of filler or comical clips. When done well - the flashback sequence is a remarkable device specific to the television medium; it advances both character and plot seamlessly with wit and little artifice. Done badly? It’s little more than filler.

c. Character Reunions

These are used principally to obtain ratings. I honestly think that the network brass insists that the writers insert some long-missed character in an episode, specifically one towards the very end of a series run, just to get those ratings, regardless of whether this long- missed character actually fits in the story.

Cheers did it with Diane Chambers in the Cheers Season Finale. Happy Days with Ron Howard. Btvs with Angel and Faith. Star Trek the Next Generation with characters from the first series Voyager with characters from the other series if available Xena did it with Hercules Hercules did it with Xena Spin City did it with Michael J. Fox in the last season, his character had left two years before.

Sometimes it works beautifully. But usually it feels contrived and the character that comes back or crosses over feels stiff and uncomfortable as if he/she is aware of the contrivance. I have yet to see a television writer or network exec avoid this obvious and admittedly successful ploy for ratings. It has become an expected piece of the television formulaic style. Oh and if the long missed character had been in a romantic relationship with the lead? They immediately fall into bed with them, have sex, or share a passionate kiss as if they never left and the two have been humping like rabbits for the last five years. Diane and Sam immediately went after each other and tried to get married, after barely saying a word to each other for two-three seasons. It’s like: ’ohhh look here comes h/ir one true love! Let’s all swoon.’ Please. Obvious ratings grabber and rarely done well. That said, occasionally writers pull this off. I actually liked the Sam and Diane reunion - it did a wonderful job of reiterating why these two should not be together. Of course Diane was allowed to interact with everyone, was made a central part of the episode and was not just a device, but a strategic part of a plot arc centering on Sam’s sex addiction. Also she and Sam did not immediately kiss, they worked up to it. It was earned. No one else has come close to pulling this off as well or demonstrating it as more than just a ratings stunt. ME came close with Faith on Angel The Series and BTVS, but fell short of the mark with Angel’s long-awaited cross-over to Buffy, where the character came across as slightly stiff and adolescent in marked contrast to the maturity he’d shown in his own series the week before. Also he only interacted with Buffy, no one else. Outside of the amulet - a plot device that could have reached Sunnydale by other means, Angel’s appearance did little to add to the character’s growth or the plot. He may have helped Buffy reach a sort of epiphany, but that epiphany would have just as easily been reached in a scene with Xander, Willow or Spike. Angel was not necessary. Except to make ratings climb and tease B/A fans who were oddly split regarding it. The ratings also did not climb. Barely hit 2.9 nationally. (44) Faith by comparison was redeemed by her appearance and interacted with all of the major characters. ME might have been better off letting Angel stay on his series and only bringing Faith and the amulet over.

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30 The Sound of The Fury, David Fuy Interview, City of Angel: "I’ve discovered how long it takes to write a script without killing myself, which is eight days. That’s why when I get these stories that break four days into prep, I usually have to go ’Hey Steve [DeKnight], Wanna write this with me?’"; Interview with Anthony Stewart Head on IGN: Discusses filming that took 22 hours. See also James Marsters Q& A at Chicago Convention transcribed by atzone, regarding the television show grind: "You know we worked twelve to twenty hours, five days a week. We begin on 4 am on Monday morning and we get out about 5am Saturday morning, which we call Friday night. You know it’s really fun but at the same time there is this quality of exhaustion that is behind everything. My memory of doing the show is a little hazy, frankly. Most of the time I feel like I’m stumbling around and as soon as we get the lines right, we move on and I’m always amazed by how good it looks. I read the scripts and I get these grand ideas on all this stuff I want to do and then the crush of television happens and it’s just about trying to get these scenes filmed in the time we have." http://www.atnzone.com/tvzone/features/buffycon_1.shtml 31 Documentary on Filming of The Sheild (Trio Network); The Sound of The Fury 32Although at Moonlight Rising Adam Busch told convention goers that he’d been brought back to re-do a line for a scene once. See also, James Marsters Interview, pp.20-21, The Official Buffy Magazine #8, June/July 2003: "If you do movies or plays, you choose what kind of projects you would be willing to do." But on a "television series [….] actors are bound to perform the scripts as they come in." See also the James Marsters Q& A on atzone. 33See Joss Whedon Interview on salon.com and actionadventure.com where he discusses why this was his last year of BTVS: "TV is such a grind." Marti Noxon in The Official Buffy Magazine #9: states that if they were to do a season 8 it would probably about doing laundry. 34After BTVS ended it was reported on AICN that the writers went on to other shows. Only three of the BTVS writers joined BTVS’ spin-series Angel, and one of those three writers just joined BTVS in Season 7. Jane Espenson went to Gilmore Girls, Doug Petrie to Tru Calling, Rebecca Rand Kirshner to Tarzan, Drew Greenberg to Smallville, and Marti Noxon to Still Life. At least five left before BTVS finished filming in Season 7. In numerous interviews - Whedon and Noxon state they were ready to move on, Gellar’s decision to quit came more as a relief than a surprise. Official Buffy Magazine #8; AICN interview, IGN Interview with Joss Whedon amongst others. 35 Emma Caulfield, Sara Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, and Michelle Trachtenberg all commented in exit interviews that they were ready to move on to movies. Emma Caulfield reported that five years was a long time to be in any one place - in her Interview in The Official Buffy Magazine #7 and in TV Zone. 36Here is a partial list of the television shows who did the special episodes on "rape" and how they explored the issue: According to promotional ads - Boston Public will do the "rape story line" in it’s season premiere. The episode raises the age old question is it rape or just violent sex? The witness claims it was rape. The victim claims violent sex. It’s a new twist torn from the headlines. This week according to TV Guide there’s a made for TV movie on the Andrew Luster case about the Max Factor heir who was serial rapist. Currently on Television (July -September 2003) - All My Children and As the World Turns have rape storylines. It’s been a soap opera standby for over 30 years. 24 in their very first season had the wife of the lead character get raped. Beverly Hills 90210 (Kelly was the victim of a date rape towards end of series by her boyfriend)Angel The Series (see the flashback episodes Dear Boy, Darla, and Reprise where Angel is shown raping or intending to rape different women - one Drusilla - Dear Boy, two - the gypsy girl Darla, and three Darla in Reprise. He is also mentioned raping and murdering Holtz’s wife - but it’s not a very special episode, nor emphasized, more implied), Melrose Place, Dallas, Dynasty, Law & Order, All in the Family (in this situation comedy they featured and were proud of dealing with elderly rape, Edith Bunker was raped by an intruder), St. Elsewhere (major character was serial rapist), China Beach, NyPd Blue, and Hill Street Blues (Joyce Davenport was the victim of an assault). BTVS has done five attempted rape scenes/sexual assault’s in it’s history: 1) Xander attempted to rape Buffy in The Pack - she hit over the head with a desk, 2) Buffy’s date attempted to rape her in Go Fish - she punched him in the nose, 3)Faith attempted to rape Xander in Consequences, Angel yanked her off him and knocked her unconscious, 4) Spike attempted to bite Willow in The Initiative in what could be described as a metaphor for date rape. 5) Seeing Red - the infamous sexual assault in the bathroom. Apparently there are no new ideas in TV since they keep relying on what has now become a cliché - how do we put the heroine into jeopardy or show her boyfriend is dangerous? Regardless of the fact he’s a vampire? I know let’s do a sexual assault. (And they wonder why Seeing Red had such low ratings. See www.futonmediacritic.com.) The whole marital rape or boyfriend/girlfriend violent relationship drama was actually done best on a soap opera, partly because the writers had a 20 year time period to do it and the flexibility of writing the characters out over the long haul. And no, it’s not General Hospital, which did it so poorly, that years later a new writer came in and attempted to re-address it. No, the soap that did it right was The Guiding Light, when the misunderstood/villainous Roger Thorpe raped his wife Holly, out of jealousy and rage. Holly was married bad-boy Roger, but wanted good boy Ed. Out of rage and jealousy - Roger raped her. She turned him in. He escaped and kidnapped her. Ed saved her and Roger appeared to fall off a cliff. Only to return in true soap fashion fifteen years later. Holly also returns and they are forced to deal with what happened all those years ago. The two characters had a rich and complex relationship that spanned over 20 years, included a child and concluded with forgiveness and both characters finally moving on. No one else has done it as well as they did. Nor did it ever come across as believably and naturally and not as a contrivance as it did here. The writers responsibly had both characters deal with the crime in more than one way, first violently, then responsibly. Which is surprising since Guiding Light is a soap opera, the oldest one actually - started on radio. 37 Comic Con Q&A with Joss Whedon and ATS writers in San Diego, June 2003, (courtesy of www.cityofangel.com who posted a transcript): "It’s something that we had been debating for years and we figured our ambivalence was exactly what we wanted to project and we used that on the show. We knew that we couldn’t come back from an attempted rape to a romantic sexual relationship. But what we did want to say was that we could come back to a place of trust between these people. That man could redeem himself. And in time what went on with Spike and Buffy was very textured and complicated you couldn’t just say, ’Well now he’s the villain again.’ I think that does a disservice to the complexity of what went on and we went back and forth endlessly. Should they get together once, should they never get together, should she serve her emotional need, should she feel guilty bout that emotional need? Hopefully some of that spilled out into the show because it is probably the most complex question that is asked in the entire run of the show." 38 See note 36, also: General Hospital - in 1996-99 the show revisited Laura’s rape by Luke through Luke and Lucky’s eyes. It came close to destroying their relationship and tormented Luke. In this version - we were forced to relive the crime through Luke’s eyes, Laura’s husband at the time- Scotty’s eyes, and through Laura’s. It was an attempt to show a complex topic from a new angle. One Life to Live - the rape of Marty by Todd Manning, was explored through Todd’s eyes and Marty Seabrook’s. Todd eventually redeems himself by selflessly taking a bullet for Marty and in the process giving up his happy life with child and wife Blair, who had nothing to do with his past crime. Even after his redemption - he is forced to wear Marti’s scar on his cheek as a reminder. Guiding Light, 1989-1997 dealt with Roger’s remorse over the rape of Holly that occurred fifteen years ago. Rape and attempted rape storylines are soap opera stand-bys. Jack Devereux of the romantic Jack and Jenn duo on Days of Our Lives, also was a rapist, he raped his first wife way back when he was first introduced. He was also redeemed eventually. 39 See Darla, Dear Boy, Ats S2 Becoming Part II S2Btvs, Passion S2 Btvs, and Offspring-Lullaby S3 Ats which detail several of Angelus/Angel’s misdeeds. 40Finn MaCool’s media savvy post on www.atpobtvs.com discussion board in May 2003; See also KdS’ post in response to Claudia’s thread Btvs Impressions, 8/7/03, on www.atpobtvs.com discussion board: "The Seeing Red rape scene. Recent discussions here have convinced me that the brutal naturalism of that scene was a truly disastrous decision if the way Spike and Spuffy were to be developed in S7 was already planned." See also Entertainment Geekly’s review: "Sarah: Speaking of disastrous, my most hated plot device this season actually has to do with Spike, and Dan, I believe this relates directly to your lazy writing comment. There were a few elements that were obvious, "let’s get from point a to point b" type of things, but none so much so as that wretched Spike/Buffy attempted rape scene. OK, first of all, what was that? Has Meredith Baxter-Birney suddenly replaced SMG in the credits? This was probably the biggest TV movie moment ever to grace Buffy. Even worse, it didn’t make any sense. You could see the little wheels turning in the exposed writerly brain: OK, we need to get rid of Spike for a couple of episodes. OK, you know what? We really need to remind people that he’s bad. He’s a vampire! Forget the fact that he hasn’t done anything much badder than walking around with an exposed torso for a coupla years. To me, that was just a dumb, gratuitous plot device. So obvious. Really hated it. Dan: Yeah, the attempted rape struck me as cheap, unmotivated melodrama. I almost can’t comment on Spike’s development because I can’t accept that that actually happened. And I’m really not looking forward to another brooding guilt-racked vampire wandering the Buffy universe." http://www.entertainmentgeekly.com/web/general/sep2002/buffy_roundtable 41 Sam Malone - had an alcohol problem in Season 2 Cheers - where he fell off the wagon, in Season 10 he was attending sex addicts group - both were done more for laughs than pathos. Mash - had Hawkeye Pierce go through post-traumatic stress syndrome & Father Macaughy lose his hearing in the final episode. Family Ties had Alex P. Keaton go nuts over grief and have to see a psychiatrist. Growing Pains dealt with eating disorders. Blossom - drugs. 42 Emily Nussbaum, "Thanks for the Instant Memories", New York Times Arts Section, August 10th, 2003. 43 As Emily Nussbaum states, regarding the use of flashbacks by reality dating shows and sitcoms : "Prevalent in 80’s sitcoms, clip shows paste older scenes together with a corny trigger […] a narrative technique so transparently dorky that contemporary shows can perform it only with a wink. As if reality dating shows haven’t done enough damage, they’ve generated their own clip format: the penultimate-episode rip-off, in which the audience is force fed reshuffled memories from the week before, a display necessary only for a viewer with severely compromised short-term memory." See note 35 for cite. 44 See www.futonmediacritic.com which calculates the Neilsen ratings for the shows.

Part IV Difficulties of Operating Within Structure and Boundaries of Television Formula

Television serials have a basic structure and formula, which no matter how creative and innovative the writers are - they can’t really break. Advertisers and network execs won’t let you.

A. The General Television Formula

With the possible exception of reality shows, which are in a class by themselves, you have 13-22 episodes, 6 if you are in the UK, to produce a year, 43 minutes each to tell a story. The story may be told in an episodic stand-alone format, a serialized format, or a combo of the two. It may contain:

1. One central character - usually the one in the title - with a bunch of supporting characters 2. A central character, supporting and guest stars, 3. Change the lead and supporting characters each episode, 4. Just change the supporting characters each episode and have only one contracted character, 5. Have an ensemble with no one as the lead.

B. If the story has a lead or central character it will most likely fit one of the following formulas. All have been done numerous times and all are comforting tried and true methods to the network brass and advertisers. (ie. Guaranteed audience getters.)

1. The "Cursed Hero On A Quest" or "Quest of The Cursed Hero"

This formula usually has the name of the central character or their profession in the title. It is most generally a combo of episodic and stand-alone, rarely is it serialized except in a few instances. The over-arcing plot is the hero’s quest for whatever it is s/he is lacking and this part is important: the hero cannot resolve or obtain hi/r goal until the final episode of the series or it is over. In some cases the hero may never obtain it.

Requirements of the formula:

a. The hero must be stoic and brooding and the straight man, seldom is the central character snarky or amusing. They must be serious-minded and guilt-ridden.

b. Usually, not always, the hero has a dark side - a Mr. Hyde just lurking beneath the surface that makes hi/r dangerous. The villain does not want to push the hero too far. "You really don’t want to make me angry!" (David Banner, The Incredible Hulk)

c. The hero has a secret that he can’t tell anyone - something that keeps him apart from society and any potential love interest. This secret explains the Mr. Hyde persona.

d. If there’s more than one character in the cast - these characters act as the heroes support group or trusted allies in hi/r quest for whatever.

e. The hero may be an anti-hero or just misunderstood with a tragic flaw that keeps h/ir from accomplishing hi/r objective. Usually the flaw is hubris or vanity, something basic to the human condition, which the audience identifies with. But deep down, the audience must believe the hero is good. (Series where the central character’s moral condition is too ambiguous or negative rarely survive - advertisers feel uncomfortable with it. Sopranos and Blackadder are rarities and neither has appeared on US network television. The ones that have are Maverick and Nichols. Nichols was a western that aired in 1971 and barely made it to 13 episodes. The main hero was considered too ambiguous. Maverick was a Western with more than one hero.)

f. Important: while the hero can’t be too ambiguous or become evil in any way, the supporting characters can. The supporting characters can also be depicted as fools or clowns, as long as they never supersede the hero or take over the spotlight. Why? Because that would be very bad and subvert the formula and we mustn’t do that. Fans might revolt and who would buy the advertisers products? When you have a central character in the title - the series is built around them - it is essentially all about them. Veer from that formula and you might get a fan revolt and lose advertisers. Bottom line - bring as many people to the advertisers as possible that is your mission.

Examples of this formula: Angel The Series, The Pretender, John Doe, The Fugitive, Forever Knight, Highlander, Xena: Warrior Princess (which actually tried to subvert the formula and make Gabrielle the lead, but didn’t completely - everything else fits), Have Gun Will Travel, The Equalizer, The Incredible Hulk, Brimstone, Millenium, Miracles, and Quantum Leap. Genre TV loves this formula. And no, Angel The Series has not in my opinion subverted it in any way - now if Spike, Lorne, Fred, Connor or Wes took over? That would be a subversion but remember point (f)? Very bad things would happen. If they turn it into an ensemble? That would also be a subversion. If Angel became the villain? Yep, subversion. But I wouldn’t worry - it looks to me as if ME is bound and determined to continue with the formula. The most experimental they’ll get is adding a little comedy and whoops! Quantum Leap, Highlander, and Xena beat them to it.

2. The Hero’s Journey :

Basically we have a hero who has some sort of mission, be it a job, a calling, a task which they alone can do. They aren’t cursed. They don’t have a Mr. Hyde lurking beneath the surface. They just have this sacred mission.

Requirements of the formula - pretty close to the Cursed Hero actually. The hero is usually the title character. They may or may not have a bunch of sidekicks who help them. It’s important the hero/heroine themselves never turns completely evil or villainous, although they can get a little nasty from time to time. They must NEVER be happy.

a. Unlucky in love. The more unresolved the hero’s romantic life, the better. As long as the show is on the air - the hero will be unlucky in love. Everyone else in the hero’s life can be lucky in love but the hero. Often the hero’s best friend will either be married, be engaged, be happy, or have a long-term relationship in the series, while the hero flits from one bad relationship to the next. If there’s a long-term love relationship? It will never be resolved, the writers will pull out every possible contrivance to keep the two apart and preferably from having sex - since once you have sex - things tend to get dull.

b. Unrequited love triangles are really popular under this formula. Usually it’s between the hero, someone the hero wants but can never have, and someone who wants the hero but the hero can’t see because of the unattainable object. With love triangles the trick is to have no one happy. The writer’s job is to keep all three characters conflicted as long as possible. It helps if it’s a quadrangle - thus removing too much sympathy from the character who wants the hero but the hero won’t give the time of day. The hero must have the audience’s sympathy. Triangles are seldom resolved and only when the writers come up with a new one.

c. If the hero has sex - bad things happen and mostly to the significant other. They will either go evil, attempt to rape her (if the hero is a her), get killed (if a guy), sacrifice themselves to save the hero, or abandon the hero due to a misunderstanding. Rarely does the significant other get more than half a year of sex with the hero. Remember point a? Must be miserable. Woe to the character who falls in love with or gets sexually involved with the hero, they are doomed.

d. Supporting characters tend to evolve more than the hero.

e. The hero is a bit of a martyr - no one else can do their job, they are alone, they are constantly saving people but never getting any money or thanks for it. The cops or authorities are constantly against them.

f. Cops are stupid - if the hero isn’t a cop or FBI agent, but lone wolf. If the hero is a cop or agent - Cops are bright. Depends on who the hero is and who the hero’s associates are.

g. The hero has some quality that requires the audience to suspend disbelief. Superstrength, super-smarts, super-sight, etc.

h. The hero is misunderstood by their friends and feels like an outsider. (See Martyr)

i. The hero will risk h/ir life to save everyone, good or evil. The hero is the voice of reason and judgment, redeems the villain, saves the day.

j. The hero must be likable and usually has some tragic but completely understandable flaw that makes the audience sympathize with them.

k. The hero can often come across as self-involved, but never to the extent they alienate the audience. The majority of the audience must either strongly identify with or fall in love with the hero.

l. The hero must always win in the end. Rarely does the hero lose. The audience must root for the hero and want the hero to win. Mustn’t depress the audience.

Examples of the Formula: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, La Femme Nikita, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Dark Angel, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Smallville, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, and now - Jake 2.0, Tarzan, and Tru Calling.

3. The Hero as Detective

This one is usually more realistic or more based in our reality. It also tends to be far more episodic in nature with no clear plot arcs. This formula has pretty much the same qualifications as 1 and 2, with the difference being that the super-human quality is usually just super-smarts or Sherlock Holmes complex. Ie. This character can solve the crime when no one else can. Examples: Monk, Diagnosis Murder, Murder She Wrote, The Rockford Files, Columbo, and Profiler .

We also have the duo - a male/female detective team, which was created by Dashielle Hammett in the Nick and Nora Charles mysteries: The duo involves two heroes, usually a romantically inclined couple that investigate crimes, the duo can be either very bright or stupid or just of normal intelligence. They usually do it together and neither overshadows the other. The humor is their witty repartee and or sexual chemistry. In order to preserve the sexual chemistry and/or tension between the characters - they seldom are shown having sex or consummating the relationship - at least not until the series ends. Examples of this form include: The X-Files, Remington Steel, Moonlighting, MacMillian and Wife, Hart and Hart.

The important thing to remember about television dramas with a central character - is that each has a tried but true formula. A few TV shows have attempted to jump away from the formulas, examples include Xena: Warrior Princess and The X-Files. Xena did it by making the story as much if not more about the sidekick than the cursed heroine, also it killed Xena in the end, redeeming her through her sidekick. The other stretch Xena made was the love story was more between Xena and Gabrielle than Xena and Hercules, if it had stuck with the formula - Xena would have remained more or less in love with Hercules throughout, ie. The unattainable object, reason for the redemption, trophy. X-Files does it by making Mulder and Scully question the cases they are investigating. Most of the suspense in the X-Files came from the mythology as opposed to the chemistry between the actors. Viewers were more concerned about whether aliens had manipulated Scully’s brain or stolen her child than if she would have sex with Mulder. The serial nature of the X-Files took it a step beyond the usually episodic nature of the duo formula. The creator, Chris Carter, continued to subvert it by mixing comedy and heart-wrenching drama and chills. X-Files contained at least three genres within its format: the horror genre, the sci-fi, and the detective story. By doing so, it successfully stepped outside the formula. On top of this - it attempted to change the lead characters - a big mistake in this format. You can only change principal characters and leads if the formula is an ensemble and within a workplace setting, which focuses more on the procedures/ins and outs of the workplace and less on the characters- ie. Law and Order, ER, The West Wing, or CSI - the reason is the audience can accept the characters changing in these formats - they are less invested in the characters and more invested in the setting. In these dramas the setting mustn’t change. X-Files attempted to change lead characters in a duo detective drama where the audience was mainly invested in the two lead characters. As a result the last two seasons of the show dipped in ratings. By attempting this - the writers/producers subverted the formula but not in a good way. The new characters, while interesting, just left the audience missing the old ones. When you attempt to break free of the rules of your formula - you must provide the viewers with a hook or a reason to follow you. Remember they don’t have to watch and the point is to get as many of them to watch as possible.

So did BTVS subvert its "hero" formula? Not really. BTVS came close but may have missed the opportunity to truly subvert the formula. If Spike had been redeemed sans soul and had never raped Buffy? Maybe. If Willow had merely gone dark on power without losing Tara or following the route of the classic addiction storyline? Maybe. If Warren hadn’t shot anyone? Maybe. All these are soap clichés and ME fell right into them as discussed in Part III. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s television - everyone does it. It’s part and parcel of the formula. Same with Angel - if Angel starts to fall into the background? Then yes they’ve subverted the formula. If Angel goes evil? Yep. If Angel never gets redeemed? nope. If Angel gets redeemed? nope. It’s hard being different when so many people have gotten there before you. Not that you have to be of course, after all the advertisers prefer it if you’re not. Besides - you don’t have to subvert the formula to be cool and entertaining. You do have to subvert it to be legendary. But you also have to do it well and preferably without losing your audience in the process. (Which is what happened to both Xena and X-Files).

Don’t get me wrong, I love both ATS and BTVS, think they are amazing, and believe they have subverted other things, but they have not subverted the essential television formula they base themselves on. Both shows still fall victim to the clichés. They don’t really try to jump outside the box that supports them. And in a sense ME is justified in not jumping too far outside that box, ATS and BTVS have never been high in the ratings department and they are cult/genre TV shows. Cult TV shows are already on the networks hit list, they are already being subversive just by being a cult tv show, you don’t want to push your luck.

In order to subvert the formula - ME would have had to do a few things that probably would have pissed off a good portion of their fan base not to mention the networks and advertisers. Buffy did not really do anything that heroes before haven’t done. Nor did she veer in any way from the traditional hero’s journey. Also the show remained the Buffy show, it did not become the Xander, Willow, Giles or Spike show, Buffy was still the central focus. We still saw everything through her eyes. It didn’t take any serious risks against the form - ie. casting moral doubt on Buffy’s slayer calling by redeeming Spike sans soul, or ending the show with Buffy waking up in an insane asylum. Or killing off any of the principal human characters such as Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, or Buffy in the finale. No serious risks that could alienate fans or advertising dollars. (Oddly enough the risks they took that did alienate fans - were the soap opera clichés not the creative risks that other programs have taken.) Xena came far closer to subverting the formula than Buffy did and actually is more legendary due to the risks it took - risks that pissed off the fan base. It killed its heroine, it made the supporting character Gabrielle more important at the end and the survivor. Angel the Series hasn’t done anything to subvert the formula either. Not really. It’s no different formulaically than the shows that came before or will come after it. The closest Angel came to subverting it’s formula was turning the sidekick/love interest Cordelia evil, but this actually sticks with the formula if you think about it - remember the hero can never be happy? The significant other of the hero is doomed? The moment Cordy became Angel’s love interest - she was doomed. Same thing with Spike on Buffy, the moment he became Buffy’s romantic interest - he was doomed. They came very close to subverting the formula with Spike, but they pulled back. If Spike had been redeemed without a soul, if Spike had been redeemed without dying - and if they managed to pull it off without unraveling their universe or losing the audience in the process? If the show became the Willow show and Buffy took a back seat. Or Xander came front and center. Or Anya? Then yes, BTVS may have risen above its formula and the dictates of the television form. Same goes with Angel the Series. So far? Neither show has accomplished it. Not entirely their fault, they are after all slaves to the formula.

V. The Importance of The Actors: Can They Really Break or Make the Show?

"Don’t act just speak the lines." Kathryn Hepburn’s advice to Anthony Hopkins in one of his first movie roles, as Richard to Kathryn’s Eleanor in The Lion in Winter. (45)

"For me, I took a workshop with Maximilian Schell for six weeks when I was SC, and he would refer to the text of the play that you were working on as the Bible. He’d say, "This is the Bible. All your answers are here. If your answers aren’t here, then you’re going to have problems, because this is where you need to find your answers." Danny Strong Interview with IGFN (46)

"I’ve been hired to learn lines. They’re paying me to learn lines. That is the only transaction that is occurring when an actor is hired. You are getting paid to say these lines. So I need to say them as believably and as honestly as I can, and pretty much nothing else matters besides that." Danny Strong Interview with IGFN.

"Here is where I make a mistake. I imply that the success of Buffy isn’t just down to the writers (who are, of course, brilliant) but to the cast as well. From his reaction you’d suspect that I had just called his mother an old trout. James Marsters becomes vehemently defensive. "It is not. It is not. It is all writing, and a really good actor understands that. Good acting is Not Messing Up Good Words. If you can release the potential of the words... if you find yourself in the position of having to overcome the material, you’re in the doghouse. The best thing is to recognize a good script and then serve it" Yes, but without a good cast, no-one would know if it was good writing or not, I counter. "There is a lot to be said for good acting, but most actors will mess up good words. I’m not saying that acting’s not valuable, and good acting is not rare - it is. But good acting is serving good words. It’s releasing their power." James Marster’s Interview in SFX Magazine, August 2003.

I actually agree with these guys. Television is first and foremost, more producer’s/writer’s medium than an actor’s or a director’s. Writers may have more say in a television production than in a film or play, even though the print medium remains their strongest arena. Theater likewise is the actor’s, regardless of how many hours or minutes a director, playwright or producer spends on a play - the actor is in charge once the curtain comes up. (47) There is very little the producer/director/or writer can do to change a live theater performance, short of switching off the lights. Mel Brooks parodies this a bit in his film The Producers, where an actor turns the playwright’s serious script into a comedy by the virtue of his performance.

Film is a director’s medium, the director can cut out the actor’s performance, force the actor to re-shoot it, re-cast and re-film the performance, or just select a different take. The actor is a hired hand in a film and at the mercy of whomever is directing and editing it. Also as Jane Espenson notes in her interview with Hercules on AICN, "most movies are written by committee" (48), this is not entirely true - some directors write and direct their own films. George Lucas wrote and directed Star Wars. The Coen Brothers wrote and directed all of their movies. On the other hand a majority of films go through a series of writers and the producer/director chooses which sections of the scripts make the screen. William Goldman relates a particularly unpleasant story about screenwriting in Adventures in The Screen Trade. The story is about the making of All The Presidents Men. Goldman wrote the script. Robert Redford, the producer, sent the script to Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron who wrote their own script. Goldman was then asked to meld Bernstein and his scripts together. Initially Goldman had been hired to write the script based on Woodward and Bernstein’s novel and had stuck fairly close to it. Bernstein veered sharply away from the novel. After the thousandth re-write with no clear direction from anyone, Goldman gave up. The end product was based mostly on Goldman’s script but had several scenes from Bernstein’s stuck in it. (49) Joss Whedon relates a similar experience regarding the Buffy Movie, " What I started with was Horror Action comedy. It had fright, it had camera movement, it had acting, all kinds of interesting things that weren’t in the final film." The Buffy Movie was a disaster, which he mentions initially watching in tears, thinking his career was over. (50) Whedon’s vision had been greatly altered by the director. An experience he was to repeat on Alien Resurrection and X-Men, until he finally came to the conclusion that the next film he wrote, he would direct. (51)

Television? A whole different ballgame. In Television the producer and writer are more often than not the same. The writer may even be the director or at the very least is standing over the director’s shoulder telling hi/r what to do. (52) That said, actors can still make or break the show, they can throw off the story, muddy up the works, and create all sorts of headaches for everyone involved. The writer may be the General but without his soliders he has no army and in Television, no show. So even though the actors basic job is to read lines - s/he must read the lines well and obtain the viewers sympathy, otherwise no one tunes in.

"Honestly, I don’t see why they just can’t hire new actors to play all the roles and pick up where they left off. I mean really this is television - they do it on soaps all the time, don’t they?" Zachsmind commenting on BTVS’ end. http://www.voy.com/14567/618.html, Buffy Book Reviews Thread.

Why indeed? If actors are only hired to read lines well and TV is truly a writers/producers’ medium, why can’t you just replace the lead roles with new actors? If you can replace the writers who run the medium, why not the actors? (53) Certainly would solve a lot of problems. Think of what ME could have done if they were able to just re-cast Amber Benson’s role in Season 7 or Seth Green’s? So why didn’t they?

Because, the actor, like it or not, not only can define a role they are visible to the audience - even soap operas have run into this problem. Susan Lucci, for instance, has played Erica Kane for over twenty years, if she died or left the role for any reason - they would most likely have to kill her off. Same with Genie Francis who played Laura on General Hospital or Anthony Geary who played Luke. In soaps it only works if the character has had plastic surgery or the actor has not defined the role - ie. they haven’t played it on and off for twenty years. Of course that’s daytime television, it seldom works in prime time - the prime time audience is less willing to suspend disbelief. That does not prevent television producers from attempting it occasionally. The prime time soap operas Dallas and Dynasty certainly tried it. And it can work, if and only if it is done early in the character’s run, the character is a supporting player or had a disfiguring accident and if it occurs before the pilot aired. Willow was originally played by Riff Regan, but since Ms. Regan’s pilot never aired, ME was able to recast the role with Alyson Hannigan. (54) Dynasty successfully recast Fallon but the recast happened after she left for the spin-off the Colby’s - they also did it by having Fallon get in a disfiguring car-accident. Or Barbara Bel Geddes role in Dallas - which was taken over by Donna Reed and was not much more than a bit part. The bigger parts of JR’s brother and father were not recast after the actors left them. In Bablyon 5 - they created new characters and wrote the old ones out. Same with BTVS and ATS, something X-Files also attempted in its final two seasons. The problem the X-Files had was that it was attempting to replace the leads not the supporting characters. For the same reason you can’t really re-cast or replace the lead roles of Mulder and Scully after six years, you can’t re-cast or replace Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles - once the audience identifies the character with the actor playing the part, there is no going back.

Audiences tend to be more accepting of re-casts in theater - after all it’s rare you’ll get the same audience for each show. When Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left the Producers, it continued to play to sold out audiences. Same with Chicago, which has had numerous leading ladies or Caberet. In movies - the audience doesn’t know about re-casts, so there’s no effect.

So how did the actors decisions adversely or positively affect the writing and or plot arcs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel The Series ?

1. David Boreanze - The character of Angel was only supposed to last one season, but the actor playing the character, a relative unknown who had appeared in very few things prior to the role, (55) had amazing chemistry with the lead. So the writers expanded his role and took a risk, hoping he could play a prick as well as a heart-throb. To their delight Boreanze delivered the goods in a tour-de-force performance in the Joss Whedon written and directed episode Innocence. (56) Boreanze’s chemistry with the camera and ability to portray the multi-faceted vampire cursed with a soul - led ME to create a spin-off around his character’s quest for redemption.

2. James Marsters - The character of Spike was slatted for just six episodes in Season 2 BTVS. ME planned on killing the character in Innocence. But Marsters, like Boreanze before him, had chemistry with the camera, the other characters, and the lead. So the writers’ re-wrote the episodes and changed the character. Marsters ability to add depth to what had originally been a two-dimensional villain kept his character alive in the Buffyverse. (57)

3. Juliet Landau - Drusilla and Spike were considered "lightening in a bottle". These two had more on screen chemistry than just about anyone on TV and ME wanted to keep them. In Season 3 BTVS the plan was to bring Spike and Dru back to Sunnydale in the episode Lover’s Walk. The character of Drusilla had in fact been written with Juliet Landau in mind. But Juliet was unavailable in S3 so ME just brought back Spike. The character worked so well that Whedon decided to sign James Marsters to Season 4 with or without Juliet Landau. (58) In Season 4, according to Jane Espenson’s interview with Hercules on AICN, both Spike and Dru were supposed to be regulars. But again Juliet was unavailable. (59) So they created the character of Harmony. Would Harmony have become a vampire if Juliet had been available? We’ll never know.

4. Seth Green - In S4 BTVS, Seth Green made it clear to ME that he wanted to broaden his horizons. Was it possible for OZ to be placed on recurring status, just come in and out occasionally like he did in Seasons 2 and 3? ME said no, OZ was central to the group and it wouldn’t work if he wasn’t present in every episode. Green nodded sagely and told ME he wanted out. So ME scrapped the huge Veruca (Werewolf)/Oz/Willow/Tara quadrangle they had planned and went with Willow/Tara. OZ was supposed to be the character Willow lost not Tara. Tara was originally slatted as just a wiccan friend of Willow’s, an experiment, nothing more. But Seth Green’s departure changed the direction of the story and the Willow/Tara relationship was born. (60)

5. Lindsey Crouse - Professor Maggie Walsh was supposed to be the Little Bad of the Season 4 plot arc in BTVS. ME had plotted out an arc with Prof Walsh spying on and manipulating the Buffy/Riley relationship with all sorts of twisted Freudian overtones. But Lindsey Crouse wanted out to do movies and they had no choice but to kill her off. She kindly agreed to return for one episode near the end, just as Seth Green agreed to return for one or two episodes near the end of the season. (61)

6. Amber Benson - After Tara was killed off in Season 6, ME planned to bring her back in a dual role in Season 7 as both Tara and the FE. But Amber didn’t want to do it so ME rewrote the plot and did the Willow/Kennedy arc. (62) If Amber had come back in the dual role - we may never have had the Willow/Kennedy relationship.

7. Charisma Carpenter - in Angel The Series, ME had decided to make Cordelia evil, she would be even more evil than Willow was. But something happened over the summer - Charisma got pregnant. Now here’s the thing - in most jobs taking a sick day or getting maternity leave isn’t going to screw up the product. Your boss can get a temp to take your place or you can work until you need to leave. Acting? Your body is your product. From your hair to your feet. If a character is stick thin - you lose weight and become stick thin. If a character is 238 pounds or 17 stone? You gain the weight. Tom Hanks gained over 30 pounds to play the lead in Cast Away. He gained 50 to play the lead in Catch Me if You Can. Russell Crow mentions gaining weight for his current role as Captain Aubrey in Master and Commander, he stopped short of 17 stone, due to the fact that the director wanted him to be active on set and that amount of poundage weighs a bit too heavy on his frame. (63) Uma Thurman ended up delaying the filming of Kill Bill due to her pregnancy. Quentin Taratino was so found of the actress, he agreed to delay filming an entire year. Otherwise he would have had to recast the role and re-shoot the scenes. (64) In Television - the writer can’t replace the actress and is often stuck filming around her pregnancy or writing it in. Unfortunately in ME’s case they’d already done a pregnancy/baby storyline the year before and this was the year they had planned to make her evil. Charisma did not warn them ahead of time, like many actresses do, Kelly Ripa warned All My Children each time she chose to get pregnant or was considering it - providing the writers ample time to write around it, twice they wrote it in. Also, regarding sick leave? Actors often go on stage or screen sick as dogs. James Marsters had been recovering from a severe bout with the stomach flu in 2001 while filming Smashed and Wrecked - that’s why he’s so thin in those episodes. Sarah Michelle Gellar had a cold in First Date. You work around it. You dye your hair - even if it causes blisters. (65) That’s what acting on television is about. It’s also why you get paid any-where from $50,000 to $750,000 per episode (just in case you’re feeling sorry for these people, remember they are paid very well.) (66) But actors are human beings and life does not always go as planned - so Charisma got pregnant and ME had to change the story from Big Bad Cordelia to Cordelia has Jasmine. If it weren’t for Charisma’s pregnancy - we wouldn’t have the Jasmine arc. (67)

8. Emma Caulfield - Emma made it clear before the end of Season 6 that she was not renewing her contract after Season 7, she was ready to move on regardless of what they offered her. Nor did she have any interest in appearing on Angel. As a result, Whedon decided to kill off the character of Anya in S7, since she was the one cast member he knew would not come back. (68)

9. Sarah Michelle Geller - the show is called Buffy The Vampire Slayer and SMG plays the title role. Without Buffy there isn’t a show. Even though the writer is king or queen on Television, s/he can be replaced easier than the star. Why? The audience usually doesn’t see the writer unless they look at the credits and are obsessed. The audience generally remains oblivious to whomever is writing the show, but they do notice when the star of the show changes. For example: the head writers/creators of Seinfield, Dawson’s Creek, ER, The West Wing, and Roseanne have changed over time. They might do four years - then burn out. Writer turnover is big in television. ME has had numerous writers come and go over the years. Whedon handed most of the operations of BTVS over to Marti Noxon and David Fury in Season 6 and 7 of BTVS. Angel The Series was being over-seen by Tim Minear, David Greenwalt and Jeff Bell respectively. So change in writers? Not an issue. Season 7 was Joss Whedon’s last year on BTVS - as he stated in numerous interviews (69) but it did not matter - the show would have continued without him. Whedon did not own the rights, Fox and the Kuzuis did. But it could not continue without Geller. Her decision to move on to other things ended Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Even though she was only hired to read lines and perform the role - her performance defined the character to the extent that Kristy Swanson’s turn is almost forgotten. While it may be possible to recast the part in the distant future, it is unlikely the audience will accept anyone else in the role that SMG faithfully and brilliantly brought to life for seven years.

10. James Marsters, Juliet Landau, David Boreanze, Julie Benze and the redefinition of the vampire in the Buffyverse. Originally, ME wanted vampires just to be monsters - no staying power, no real depth. Staked after a few episodes. But Julie Benze and David Boreanze changed all that in Angel Season 1 BTVS - by making the vampire sympathetic and sexy. Juliet Landau and James Marsters continued the trend - creating a villainous duo that was more interesting than most heroic duos on TV. Ratings climbed and Whedon had to change his whole take on the vampires and vampire mythology as a result. If the actors playing these roles had been less charismatic and unable to add another dimension to the characters - they may have faded into the background like Luke, The Master, Trick and The Annoying One. (70)

11. Alyson Hannigan’s portrayal of Willow. Joss Whedon has openly admitted that Willow is his favorite character and he’s a huge fan of Hannigan’s take on the character. (71) Hannigan’s performance may be the reason Whedon backed off of turning Willow truly evil. It may also be the reason he could never kill Willow off.

12. Glenn Quinn and Max Perlach: Doyle and Whistler. Rumor has it that ME planned on using Whistler in Season 1 ATS as Angel’s guide with the visions. It certainly would have explained the Whistler character mysteriously introduced in Becoming Part I & II in Btvs S2. Unfortunately Max Perlach recently released from Homicide Life on The Street was in jail for undisclosed charges. ME had to find someone else to portray Angel’s half-human/half-demon sidekick - so they decided on Glenn Quinn, whom Whedon knew from his days at Roseanne, to play Doyle. Unfortunately Glenn Quinn also had a personal problem that interfered with his work, drugs and alcohol. Whedon was forced to write Doyle out after six episodes and introduce a new sidekick. Fans and critics alike continue to debate whether Doyle’s death was pre-planned by Whedon or caused by the actor’s unreliable habits.

13. Elizabeth Rohm: Kate Lockely. Rohm had gotten a coveted role on Law and Order. So ME had to write her out. She was slatted to be Angel’s love interest, but due to Rohm’s departure, Greenwalt and Whedon decided to have Cordelia take on that role instead.

Whether the writers like it or not - actors define their characters and by doing so can make or break a plot arc. This is true in movies and TV, imagine if you will what Raiders of The Lost Arc would have been like if Tom Sellack had taken the part? The difference between movies and TV is that the television serial is 22, 43 minute movies a year, not one two to three hour feature. If an actor opts out in mid-stream than so does the character, they can’t re-cast. What would have happened if David Boreanze’s movie career took off in Season 2 BTVS? Would we even have Angel The Series? Or how about James Marsters’ career? What if he hadn’t been available? The writer/producer/director may control the lines, how the actor comes across on screen and which scenes make it to the screen - but they can’t force the actor to stay in the role. Nor do they have any control over how the actor interacts with the camera. A friend of mine, who is a set designer for a soap opera, once told me - that someone who is drop-dead gorgeous in person can be ugly on camera and vice-versa. There’s really no way of knowing how the camera will react.

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45 TCM Tribute to Kathryn Hepburn August 2003 46 IGFN Interview with Danny Strong: Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Jonathan Levinson discusses his career. June 2003. 47James Marsters Q&A at Baltimore Shore Leave, 7/14/02, transcribed by Tara Dilullo for slayernews.com:" In stage, writers don’t really have a lot of power so if you go to one and you tell them their work is really top notch, it’s just really a worker to a worker." Also from same convention: "On stage, you are really in control in a way that you are not in control on TV at all. On stage, you tell a story. In film, you are just a building block for someone else to come and tell the story later on and that was kind of a hard adjustment for me." 48 Jane Espenson Interview with AICN, http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=15587: "The system of making television allows for strong individual voices, like Joss’s. Movies are always made by committees, and the writer is not at the head of the committee." 49Goldman, William, Adventures in the Screen Trade, p. 215-227, Warner Books: 1983 50 SFX Vampire Special Edition, Fall 2001, p.37; See also IGFN Interview with Joss Whedon: ". The fact of the matter is, I remember having a conversation with Kristy Swanson. She was like, "Please, tell me how to do this. Tell me what you want." I literally said, "I can’t." Because I have always treated film and television like the army, and I’m very strict about it. It was not my place. It was the director’s movie. At that point I was there to try and help the director realize her vision, and that’s all. Even though it was my script and all this stuff, the director... who had also financed, gotten the film off the ground. Fran Kuzui came in when nobody else wanted the film, said, "We’re going to put this together"... And they did. Howard Rosenman and Sandollar and all of that. Without them, there would be no film - and possibly not this phone conversation. So I didn’t agree with the way the movie was going, but I also kept my mouth shut because you respect the director." 51 Joss Whedon Interview with SFX, The Vampire Special Edition. 52IGFN Interview with Joss Whedon:"I said to one director... he said, "One of these days, I’m going to come down and look over your shoulder while you’re shooting." I brought him up to my office the next day and I said, "Let me explain something to you. It is my job to control the way you shoot, not your job to control mine. My name comes at the end of every show. You do very good work and you’re going to come back for us, but I am never going to let you do something that I don’t approve of." 53List of television shows with writer turn-over or who have replaced their writing staff: Angel The Series (David Greenwalt handed the reins to Jeff Bell in Angel S4), Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon handed the reins to Marti Noxon and David Fury in Season 6), The West Wing (Aaron Sorkin left and John Wells took over), The Practice, Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope (David E. Kelly handed the reins over to other writers), and Dawson’s Creek (headwriter and creator left after the first two years). 54See The Buffy Pilot. 55EXTRACTS of David Quotes from TV Zone #166 ’Avenging Angel’ article - By Steven Eramo (www.visimag.com to purchase) 56 Season 2 DVD Commentary by Joss Whedon for Innocence. 57 See Introducing Spike on Season 4 BTVS DVD Commentary 58 Joss Whedon at Museum of TV and Radio, Angel event, also Introducing Spike on Season 4 DVD Commentary. 59 "AICN: At the ANGEL event at the Museum of TV & Radio a few years ago, Joss Whedon mentioned the original plan was to bring Spike AND Dru back as regulars for BUFFY’s fourth season, but Juliet Landau turned out to be too busy to return. Do you think Buffy and Spike would have eventually coupled-up anyway had Dru returned? JANE: Oh yeah. Joss doesn’t like to leave any couple together too long. We’d already seen what Spike and Dru were like as a couple. If she’d returned I think we’d’ve played ’em like an interesting divorced couple — a bit of heat and love still there between them, but mostly challenged into conflict and jealousy." http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=15587 60 Season 4 DVD Commentary, specifically Wild at Heart with Seth Green, Marti Noxon and Joss Whedon. 61 Primeval Season 4 DVD Commentary. 62 Interview with Joss Whedon for IGFN, June 2003: "Amber didn’t want to do it. She wanted to do other things. I had a whole - I used to tell people, "Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to have her in a couple of flashbacks, keep her alive, and then at the end ..." I had a whole show figured out that ended with the return of Tara. I used to cry every time I pitched it. It was going to be Tara’s her one true love, people are going to be blown away, they’ll never see it coming - except on the Internet - and it’s going to be just about the biggest thing. Quite frankly, Amber just didn’t want to do it - which is her decision. I was like, "Okay, the thing where I cried, and we all cried, and I told you about? That’s gone. So, instead, we’re going to go out and find somebody really hot, and we’re going to make this about moving on, because that’s the only option we have. I don’t want Willow stuck in typical gay celibacy on TV. I’m interested in where her heart will go once she’s lost her true love, so let’s do that instead." So, you know, hence Kennedy." 63 Svetkey, Benjamin, "Rocking the Boat: Russell Crow Interview" Entertainment Weekly, Fall Movie Preview, Aug 22/29, pp. 26-27 64 Coker, Cheo Hodari, "View to a Kill", Premiere, Sept 2003.: "…there was the year long delay when Thurman got pregnant in early 2001. Tarantino says he never considered replacing the actress." 65 James Marsters’ Q&A at the Tampa Vulkon Con. 66 In articles archived on www.slayage.com in fall 2002, Sarah Michelle Gellar was reported to be pulling in a paycheck of $735,000 per episode, in a recent article in the Dublin Times, Alyson Hannigan admitted to be pulling in $200,000 per episode for Season 6-7. 67 Tim Minear and David Fury at The Succubus Club, May 2003. Original plan was for Connor to kill Cordelia, but Charisma became pregnant, so Cordelia was supposed to kill Jasmine, but Charisma couldn’t be active, the most she could do was just lie around, so Connor killed Jasmine instead. 68 Mason, Dave, "Buffy Creator Sinks His Teeth into A New Season of Angel", 7/16/03: http://www2.bostonherald.com/entertainment/television/tca07162003.htm``I knew she [Emma Caulfield] wasn’t going to come back. And if I killed any of the core group, you couldn’t consider it a happy ending,." (Whedon explaining why he killed Anya.) 69 Entertainment Weekly Exit Interview with Sarah Michelle Geller, March 2003; IGFN Interview with Joss Whedon, June 2003 70 A&E Tvography, May 2003, also available on the S6 DVD Commentary. 71Whedon’s Interview with IGFN and the Comic-Con Panel Interview via cityofangle.com

VI . The Effect of Fans: Breaking the Fourth Wall (72)

"Audience: Do you read or routinely scour the websites, because we’ve talked about stuff and then like 4-weeks later it’d be on screen? Joss: "Obviously I’ve gotten most of my ideas from you. When we go to websites what we’re looking for is a general feeling of; what’s not playing, what are people really passionate about and what are they debating and where are we getting it right and where are we getting it wrong? If you see something 4-weeks after it comes out on your website that means we’ve been working on it about 8-weeks before that, at least." Comic-Con Writer’s Panel, www.cityofangel.com (73)

The main purpose of a television show is to bring as large an audience as possible to the advertisers. To do this, a tv show must hold the viewers attention span past a commercial, it must tempt the viewer with that dramatic act break/cliff-hanger before the scene switched to commercial so that the viewer does not flip channels between acts for fear of missing a second of the next act, thus ensuring that the viewer watches the commercial. (Tivo and RealPlay devices sort of counter-act this, but that’s a whole other essay.) Television is nothing without viewers. TV shows from the moment the first crossed over from Radio are nothing without fans. And the creators of the TV shows from the network exec’s to the actors who play the parts know this by heart.

At the conventions where actors are paid anywhere from $30,000 to $200,000 to appear in front of busloads of fans, they know who is behind their fame and fortune. (74) James C. Leary and Charisma Carpenter have been known to publicly ask their fans to send post-cards regarding their characters to ME, Fox, WB and UPN in order to keep them on board. James Marsters has personally thanked his fans for Spike’s continued presence on the show, recognizing the fact that he would not have a job if it weren’t for their interest. (75) The Writers of Angel The Series informed the audience at Comic-Con that if it weren’t for the fans - they would not have jobs. (76) Angel was only renewed because of the fans support.

But how does a network or a television production company know that a TV show is taking off? That it has fans? Market analysts make their living analyzing Neilsen Ratings, scanning newspaper and magazine articles for reviews, and the internet for responses. Did you know that the Neilsen Company now has a software package that tracks which sites people visit on the internet? Now they can collect data on the top internet sites just as they currently collect data on television shows. The system is similar - they choose a random sampling of viewers/users and on a weekly basis download which sites or shows the person visits or watches. (77) The data is compiled and analyzed. If you’re interested you can check out www.futonmediacritic.com for the Neilsen ratings for TV shows. The numbers are in the millions and represent the analyst’s approximation on how many viewers each show received based on the available data. The box compiling the data is pretty sophisticated, it can tell you for instance exactly when a viewer tuned into a television show, if they taped it, and how long they watched, when and if they switched it off or turned to another channel. The data is then broken down into age demographics and in some instances race and gender demographics, this information is collected from the selected viewers prior to the distribution of the software. How many men watch BTVS/ATS? How many women? What race? What age? How often? When do they tune in? And all pulled out of the Neilsen data, which has been downloaded from a random selection of viewers in counties across the United States. That’s just one method and all it tells the advertising and/or the network/studio exec is how many people in each category are watching a specific television show. It does not tell them why people are watching the show or what it is about the show that appeals to them. It just tells them people are watching it and how they are watching it. (78)

Why do you watch a specific TV show? Or even turn on the set for that matter? I asked this question once last year on a fanboard and without exception the responses fell into one of three categories: 1) To be entertained. 2) To escape. 3) To be informed or enriched in some way. Most shows just meet one of the three requirements, but sometimes a show will come along that meets all three requirements. BTVS fit all three requirements for me. But my "individual" reasons/tastes aren’t really that important. What is important is figuring out why the "majority" of fans watched - what attracted the "majority" to the show - is what matters most to the television executives, producers, and advertisers. To determine why people watch and what it is about the show that attracts them, studio and advertising/marketing executives rely on two things: 1) television and media critics, specifically the ones being paid to write criticism about television and are established in the field. 2) online fans who post to internet posting boards, chat-rooms, set up websites, and write fanfiction. Prior to the internet, they relied on fan-clubs and fan mail. Also on conventions. You honestly don’t believe that Star Trek movie was financed on faith alone? Please - the executives knew about the Trek Conventions and how many fans out there the series had - the movies were tailor-made for those fans. Same with Star Wars - Lucas knew about his fans through the internet and the conventions. Also ancillary product purchases.

A. Television and Media Critics

Television and media critics are more often than not the voice for what works and what doesn’t work in television. They provide the studios with insight on what the audience considers quality. Not a perfect gauge by any means, since five times out of ten - the mainstream audience’s taste and the critics don’t exactly jive. But what can you do? Short of telephoning every television watcher in the country, there really is no precise way of figuring out what is working in a TV show. So network execs to a small extent follow what critics say about their television shows. In his interview with IGFN, Anthony Stewart Head stated: " the critics were always with [BTVS]. I remember the first tour that we did, the first sort of media tour, we all camped out at a hotel and you sort of field questions from various newspaper critics and TV critics, and right across the board it was unanimous that we had a hit. When I went back for the second season, the critics were actually really excited to see us, and ask us what was going to go on, and I remember vividly one critic saying, "I knew the line was crossed when Principal Flutie was eaten..."" (79) Often critical approval of a show will keep it alive even if the Neilsen ratings are low. If the show is critically panned and the ratings are down, the show is dead in the water. If the ratings are high but the critics hate it? It may last two or three seasons depending on ratings. Examples: Party of Five, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel The Series, The Practice, Once and Again, My So Called Life - all had low ratings when they started but the critics loved them so they stayed longer than expected. (80) In the case of Party of Five, Angel The Series and My So Called Life - the critics helped save the shows. Critics and fans started mail-in campaigns. Often a combination of positive critical response and fans can keep a show from being cancelled even if the ratings are below the coveted mark, which is what happened to Angel The Series. But if the show does not have a positive critical response or ratings, such as Firefly, than it is dead. You need both to keep yourself alive. Firefly oddly enough had higher ratings than BTVS and ATS (81), but it did not have the devoted fan following (it just started) nor the positive critical response. Most critics either panned it or were largely ambivalent. Without the Neilsen ratings to counter this response - Firefly did not have a chance. It did not help that the "majority" of internet fans were largely lukewarm towards the show. (82)Note, I said "majority". I personally liked Firefly, a lot better I might add than the current hit O.C., but I’m in the "minority" and in the wonderful world of television - the "majority" rules.

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72 Meaning of the Fourth Wall, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall: "The term signifies the suspension of disbelief used by the audience, who are looking in on the action through the invisible wall. The audience thus pretends that the characters in the story are real "living" beings in their own world, and not merely actors performing on a stage or studio set, or written words on the pages of a book. In order for the fourth wall to remain intact, the actors must also, in effect, pretend that the audience does not exist, by staying in character at all times and by not addressing the audience members directly. Most such productions rely on the fourth wall." By Fourth Wall - I mean the invisible wall between the audience and the show - the audience does not dictate plot, casting choices, anything regarding the show - they suspend disbelief and treat the show as operating in a reality they cannot affect or change, as real as their own. When they break through that wall - they change the plot, the characters and the cast - the audience affects it and the story suddenly becomes an "interactive work" between the audience and the performers, writers, etc. 73 See also Joss Whedon’s Interview with IGFN for his thoughts on the internet fanbase: "IGNFF: What are your thoughts on the Internet’s role in television production? WHEDON: The Internet, you know... The bitch goddess that I love and worship and hate. You know, we found out we have a fan base on the Internet. They came together as a family on the Internet, a huge goddamn deal. It’s so important to everything the show has been and everything the show has done - I can’t say enough about it. It drives me up the frigging wall that I can’t keep secrets, that I can’t keep things off the Internet. The crewmembers of my own shows are feeding things to the Internet so that people will know what happens before it happens." 74David Boreanze is making $200,000 for the UK Convention in August. Anthony Stewart Head made over $50,000 for Moonlight Rising according to convention organizers and filmjerk.com. 75 James Marsters Q&A at Tampa Vulkon, Chicago, and Moonlight Rising amongst others. For transcripts see any of the Spike centric sites: www.bigbad.net, www.morethanspike.com; or see slayernews.com. 76 Cityofangel.com transcript of the Writers Panel at Comic-Con 77 Personal experience - I recently was contacted and got one of these packages. I turned them down. While I don’t care who knows what television shows I watch, I do care about my internet privacy. A close friend and a relative had received Neilsen TV boxes - so I know what is involved in that as well. 78 See generally: Blumenthal and Goodenough, The Business of Television, pp. 402-415, Billboard Books, New York: 1998. 79 See IGFN Interview with ASH, January 6, 2003. p. 34 80 TV Guide’s Save Our Show Campaign and The Association for Quality Television - both spearheaded by media critics are campaigns geared to protect television shows adored by critics. 81 www.futonmediacritic.com - Firefly had approximately 12.2 in contrast to BTVS’ 3.8 and Angel’s 3.2. Firefly was also ranked at 129 in contrast to BTVS at 136 and Angel at 139 respectively. 82See The Firefly archives on www.atpobtvs.com and televisionwithoutpity’s reviews.

B. Fans and the "Majority" Rules

While it may be interesting to see what individual fans think about a particular character or episode, marketing/network execs could care less. They want to know what the "majority" of fans think, what the "majority" wants - because their goal is to provide their advertisers with the largest group of viewers possible. So they need to determine what works for the masses not what works for a small group of viewers or individuals. In order to determine this they hunt and/or scan for patterns. I seriously doubt they spend much time reading an analysis on the meanings and metaphors in BTVs or how Spike is a male fatale. What they notice is that the board is filled with Spike threads or Angel threads or B/S and/or B/A threads.

What they are looking for is the answers to these questions: how many people post or debate on a specific character, relationship or plotline? Is the "majority" of responses negative or positive? What is working in the story? Are people bored? Are they interested? And again - what they want to know is the majority view. So even though you, personally, may hate or love a particular character or plot arc - if the majority of viewers and critics feel otherwise, you’re out-voted. Frustrating? Yes. Right there with you. But that’s the problem with our society - majority rules especially in television. In movies - you can produce a feature that the majority of people don’t like and do okay - independent movies do this all the time. And with video, it happens even more often. Books? Same thing - you can self-publish or get a small press. Television? Especially network television, which depends on advertisers for money? Majority rules. And just between you and me? Nine times out of ten, the majority has lousy taste. If they had better taste - such idiotic programs as Who Will Marry My Dad and The Family would not be in the top ten. On the other hand, in those rare moments in which I happen to share the majority’s taste on something - I do a happy snoopy dance.

I think the fear that: 1)we’re in the minority regarding our favorite character and/or relationship, and 2) that the majority (who is for another character and/or relationship we aren’t fond of) is going to ruin the show or affect the writer’s judgment in an adverse manner (ie. against our desires) - may be the reason behind the "character" posting wars I often see and occasionally participate in (to my own incredible dismay and embarrassment) on fanboards. (83) Online fans are instinctively aware that someone is scanning their responses and in the hopes that their favorite character will get the juicy storyline over their least favorite, they religiously attempt to sway other viewers to their way of thinking. Often bashing the character they despise in all sorts of creative ways in order to promote their favorite. If you are one of these poor deluded souls? I wish you luck. Have yet to see it work. Actually it usually just pisses everyone off, causing people to come out of the woodwork or cybernet, leaping to their poor character’s defense. (84) Including the ME writers who scan the net. Tim Minear got so furious at an Anti-Spike thread on ASSB this spring that he came out of hiding and blasted the posters. David Fury made fun of the Spikehaters on Succubus Club in response to mail he’d received. (85)

On the other hand, negative responses to the character of Riley were taken seriously - but the critical elite also disliked the character. Actually I think Riley’s problem wasn’t so much hate as pure ambivalence (lack of support), but I wasn’t online at the time - so I could be wrong. More to the point though - the ratings dipped around Riley-centric episodes. Same thing happened with Connor this past year - the majority of viewers and critics found the character and his arc to be annoying. Now here’s where I fall in the "minority" - I actually liked Connor and Riley, I found them to be interesting and engrossing characters. I would love to see Connor re-appear on Angel next season. Connor is one of my favorite characters on ATS. But from what I’ve seen in the reviews of Angel Season 3-4 and the online fandom, I’m in the minority. Damn it.

Now, for the record, Vincent K. who played Connor was only contracted for two years. Minear and company planned on ending the characters arc at the end of Season 4 regardless of what happened. (86) So nothing that happened online or offline changed the writers’decision regarding that arc. If fans had taken to the character the way they took to Angel in Season 1 BTVS or Spike and Drusilla in Season 2 BTVS, then Connor may have lasted an additional season; he may still make it back - who knows. But because the writers had not planned on him lasting past Season 4 and the fan/critical majority did not fall in love with the character, demanding in a loud voice that they wanted more of him, Connor more or less ended his story in Home. (87)

In contrast, James Marsters portrayal of the character of Spike has just continued to grow in popularity since his first appearance as the character in School Hard. It’s worth noting that prior to School Hard, BTVS had lackluster ratings, it’s ratings climbed significantly in Season 2 with Spike and Dru and the Angelus arc. Fans rallied ME for more of Spike. Sending out postcards requesting ME treat Spike well. That Spike be redeemed. That Spike not be killed off. That Spike continue in either his own spin-off or join Angel. (88) Marsters appearances at all the conventions were sold out. Spike action figures and license plates huge sellers at Comic Book conventions. (89) Magazines begged him for interviews. The Offical Buffy Magazine #8 got angry letters from subscribers for delaying the James Marsters interview by a month. (90) He has more web sites than most of the other characters on the net. SFX Magazine recently ranked him as number one in the top twenty-five science-fiction characters of all time. (91) When fans heard that BTVS was ending it’s run in season 7, they raised over $4000 to put two advertisements thanking James Marsters in Industry Magazines (Variety and Hollywood Reporter) right after the Oscars telecast when these magazines would be read the most. (92) They were the first fans to come up with this idea. According to an interview with Marsters - this rarely happens. (93) Industry reps were calling Marsters’ agent asking him what he did to his fans. Fox and WB reported to fans that they had seen the ads and were suitably impressed. The ads mentioned a website which described the amount of money raised for charities in Marsters name. (94) When James Marsters indicated he may not be able to join Angel The Series due to a) not being renewed, b) financial and time considerations - fans started a post-card/email campaign to get Angel The Series renewed and get Spike on it. Most of the pre-written post-cards read simply: "I will definitely watch Angel The Series if James Marsters joins it. I am male and 18-34 or female 18-34." Or they read: " I don’t watch it now, but I will if Spike joins." (95) Once it was announced that James Marsters would indeed be joining Angel The Series, fans rallied to send thank you emails and post cards to everyone concerned. Did this work? Well, Spike was added to Angel, although there’s evidence that Whedon had always planned on adding Spike to Angel and/or a spin-off. (96) James C. Leary and Charisma Carpenter requested their fans do the same for them, stating that sending post-cards did affect their characters arcs. (97) Fans have complied for Carpenter. (98) Xander fans have also taken up the fight and started a petition to get Xander on Angel next season. (99)

A potential pitfall of this level of fan interaction with television shows is the "Fonzie Complex". The term comes from Happy Days - a 1970s situation comedy about a bunch of kids in high school, featuring Ron Howard from The Andy Griffith Show in the lead role of Richie Cunningham. The show was supposed to be about Richie, his parents, his friends, and high school during the 1950s. Up until approximately the third season, Fonzie was a peripheral character that Richie befriended - the cool outsider. After the first two seasons, network executives and producers determined that ratings climbed whenever Fonzie was featured and dipped whenever he was absent. Fans wrote in for more Fonzie. Television critics adored the character and fans mobbed the actor who played him at events. So the network executives informed the writers to feature Fonzie more if they wanted to stay on the air - remember bottom line is how many viewers can we bring to the advertisers. Many television "geeks" or "aficionados" believe this decision destroyed the show. Whether it did or not depends on your point of view, Nielsen viewers certainly didn’t agree.

When other television shows repeated the Happy Days scenario - television geeks labeled it "the Fonzie Complex." The 1990s situation comedy Family Matters fell into this trap early in its run - when the character of Steve Urkel overtook the comedy, which was supposed to be about a cop and his family not about their geeky next door neighbor. But producers quickly realized fans tuned in to see Steve Urkel not the cop, so Urkel slowly became the central focus. Some fans believe Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation fell into the trap with the characters of Spock, Mr. Data, and Worf. In the third and final season of the original Star Trek, Mr. Spock seemed to overtake the series, overshadowing even Captain Kirk. Trek not high in the ratings department may have been experimenting with ways to get an audience. Spock certainly had taken off at conventions. Same thing happened with Star Trek The Next Generation when Mr. Data, Worf, and Captain Picard quickly became the central focus overshadowingRikerand Crusher. Picard and Data are also the central focus of all the films, especially the last one. Of course the people who complained were fans of Riker and Crusher. Other shows accused of falling victim to The Fonzie Complex include : MASH - with the character of Hawkeye Pierce. Xena: Warrior Princess - the character of Gabrielle. Everbody Loves Raymond - Brad Garrett’s character. Fraiser - the character of Niles Crane. The list goes on. Whether or not any of these characters have truly taken over and hurt the series as a result - is open to debate and often the source of fan wars. What it all comes down to is the fans’ fear that their favorite character will end up on the backburner due to the popularity of another one, so they attack the show and fans that favor the popular character.

In BTVS - some fans believe Spike overtook the show in Season 6-7, regardless of the fact that he was in less episodes and had less lines than other characters. (100) In Season 5, he wasn’t even in the big Joss Whedon episode, The Body. In Season 6, Xander and Anya had the big musical number that got critical attention and the huge wedding episode, Hell’s Bells that focused on Xander. Spike was not the central character of any episode in S6, except to the degree that he affected Buffy or Xander. We also met Xander’s entire family in Season 6, that’s more than any other character on the show. Unlike Fonzie in Happy Days - the show did not revolve around Spike. In Happy Days, Ron Howard, Ralph Mouth, and Potsie left the show during the last few seasons and it really did center around Fonzie. Fonzie had the most lines. All the action and/or conflicts surrounded him. When Sara Michelle Gellar quit, BTVS ended. Spike remained a peripheral character during the show’s run - Xander, Willow, and Buffy the central focus. Willow and Xander actually came closer to over-taking the show in Season 6 than Spike ever did, the action in Hell’s Bells, Villains, Two to Go and Grave really centered more on their characters than on Buffy or even Spike, whose role was comprised of a few quick action scenes in a distant country, taking up less than ten minutes in each episode. Yet fans worried - partly do to Spike’s increased popularity, his involvement with the lead, and the diminished role of Xander in later seasons. Had Spike taken Xander’s place? It’s worth noting that fans worried about Riley overtaking the show in Season 4 and often comment about Season 4 being all about Riley, because they felt Willow and Xander were gypped. This fear may be the cause of the wars we see on the internet - and it is a valid one, since the television medium falls into this trap all the time. But did ME truly fall into this television trap? I don’t believe the evidence available supports this conclusion, although I can understand why some fans fervently believe ME did. If ME had, Spike would have been featured far more than he was and with other characters outside of Buffy, as Fonzie had been in Happy Days. If anything, Spike had a more prevalent role in Season 5 than Season 7. To say Spike took over the show in Season 7 would be akin to saying Angel took it over in Season 3 or Riley in Season 4. While these characters may have been more prominent due to their close relationship with the heroine, they did not overwhelm the show as Fonzie did on Happy Days. It really wasn’t all about Spike, it was all about Buffy and Buffy’s relationships or isolation from them.

Another example of how fans can affect a television show, from a less character centric angle are shippers, fans invested in a romantic relationship between two characters. Shippers have a history of driving Mutant Enemy and Fox nuts with email and post-card campaigns. Last year Buffy/Angel shippers not only sent post-cards, they reportedly posted an ad in Variety requesting Buffy and Angel be reunited. (101) Did ME notice them? Well, we got the Buffy/Angel kiss in End of Days. Same with the Buffy/Spike shippers - they also launched campaigns in Season 5 - 7 to get Buffy and Spike together. (102) Did it work? Buffy and Spike entered a sexual relationship in Season 6 and Buffy told Spike she loved him in Chosen and told Angel that Spike was in her heart.

On the other hand - fans did not cripple the Willow and Tara story in any way. The Willow/OZ shippers and Willow fans certainly tried, inundating ME and the network with hate mail. James Marsters relates an interesting anecdote in SFX Magazine, August 2003. Marsters states that the network requested Whedon end the Willow and Tara relationship and edit the kiss from The Body. Whedon refused. He told network executives and Fox that he would pack up his desk and leave before he would do that. Hung up the phone and literally began to do just that. Several phone calls later the network capitulated. Whedon fought to tell the Willow story in his own way. Fans did not prevent him from killing Tara, even though Tara fan boards waged campaigns against it. Whedon and his writing staff did not budge. Amber Benson may have reacted to fan sentiment by refusing to resurrect the character as the First Evil. But Whedon didn’t, except to the extent that he let fans influence him to create the Willow/Kennedy relationship and keep Willow gay. (103)

Is this level of fan participation good for a TV show? Some people love the idea that they have a say in how their favorite TV show progresses. Others hate it. It’s one thing to push for a favorite character’s longevity or continuation in the series. It’s another to keep characters trapped in a romance, even when the significant other has moved on to his own series, a movie career, or the great beyond. Has ME capitulated to fan and network pressure? Not really. Spike died in Chosen. Buffy and Angel are not together, if anything they are even further apart at the end of Chosen, then they were before it. Whedon gave both the B/A and B/S shippers a moment. He doesn’t promise there will be more, but he wisely gives them just enough to tune in next year to see. The savvy writer keeps track of what hi/r fans want, what works, and manipulates it in such a way that s/he only gives hi/r fans enough to stay obsessed. He is wise enough never to give them exactly what they want, if he did he’d only satisfy a portion of them, but by providing everyone with something to whet their appetite- he keeps their interest alive. Sort of like dangling a carrot in front of Bugs Bunny and Roger Rabbit. This is why Whedon has obsessed fans - he knows how to keep their interest.

Fans also don’t have complete authority over which characters continue. If Whedon and ME did not like Marsters, he would not have lasted past Season 2. He’d be gone. Look at Charisma Carpenter - a fan favorite who has even had an ad placed in a magazine - but ME still dropped her from regular status for S5. We may never know exactly why. But one thing we can be certain of - the decision had nothing to do with the fans. Faith was a fan favorite and she didn’t come back full time. Yes, Whedon loved her, but Eliza Dusku, the actress playing Faith, had a movie career. Whedon wanted to do a spin-off with Faith, but Eliza preferred the show that Fox offered her, Tru Calling. Same with Amber Benson whom the fans adored - Whedon killed her off anyway. He loved Amber, he knew the fans loved her - but he did what was best for his story. The fans response to her death - did motivate him to write the Kennedy/Willow romance instead of bringing back OZ or building a romance between Xander and Willow, alternatives that he may have been mulling over in case Amber was unavailable in S7. But it did not keep him from killing the character. Any more than fan response to Angel kept Whedon from turning Angel evil and keeping Angel and Buffy apart. The fan response did motivate Whedon to give Angel his own show but not to have him mope for Buffy all the way through it. Nor did fans prevent Whedon and ME from doing the attempted rape scene in Seeing Red ( a scene many fans believe ME did just to punish them), or anything else in Spike’s general arc. If Whedon had gone with what the majority of fans wanted - Spike may have been redeemed sans soul, not been redeemed at all, never raped Buffy or had sex with her for that matter, and not died in Chosen. So while fans may affect some of the choices ME makes, they do not affect all of them. ME does not enlist the help of fan focus groups like many daytime soap operas do. They do however test the fan base to see what will take off and what won’t. And they aren’t always right in their estimations: the Cordelia/Connor arc in Season 4 being a good example.

Just as it is difficult understanding and predicting the majority of fans’ tastes, it is equally difficult to predict how studio executives and producers will respond to those tastes. Do fans adversely affect what appears on the screen? There’s no way of telling. I’m not sure we can blame fans for what we liked or did not like in a particular season any more than we can blame an individual actor or character. The fault may lie with the creators of the episode and, even in that case, it’s hard to judge since so many factors come into play. It’s a collaborative process after all. Can we blame Seth Green or Lindsey Crouse for the plot-holes in S4? No - since the writers could have filled those in with other characters, in the case of Green they did. Can we blame or credit Amber Benson for the Willow/Kennedy arc? No again, since Whedon came up with Willow/Kennedy not Amber and he could have found an alternative. Can we blame or credit Spike or James Marsters for being the main focus of S7? No, again that was the writer’s decision. Marsters just did whatever was on the page. Can we blame Nicholas Brendon (Xander) and Emma Caulfield (Anya) for not having a stronger arc or Spike? Nope. The writers weren’t interested in Xander and Anya’s story. (104)

I feel for marketing executives who attempt to understand and analyze fan responses. I really do, because I remain bewildered by them. I’ve been posting and lurking on BTVS and ATS internet fan boards for almost two years now and I have yet to figure out fans. Why does poster X hate Spike as much as they do? Yet love Angel or Xander and/or Willow? Why does poster Y love Spike but hate Angel? And why does poster Z love them both? And how can someone who supports the B/S relationship see Spike as overrated or hate Buffy? Recently on ATPO board, a poster named KdS hosted a thread on Character Impressions 1997-2003 for BTVS. I went through this thread, which had approximately thirty-two responses, and tried to tabulate the likes and dislikes of the posters in hopes of coming up with a formula or pattern. After taking down all the data - I quickly realized it was an exercise in futility. (105) People will have their opinions and there’s zip I can do about them. Analyzing them seems to be somewhat headache inducing, but then I’m not overly fond of statistics. Best just to be civil and tolerate them hoping against hope that their opinions won’t adversely affect my favorite show. Whether they do or not is up to ME, the networks, the producers, and the advertisers not me or you or the man down the block. Why? Because that’s how television works.

As much as some fans would like to think they had broken through that fourth wall, changing the show to their liking, they haven’t come close. While ME pays attention to the majority’s tastes, they skirt giving into them completely. That I believe is the meaning behind Whedon’s infamous statement: "Give the audience what they need not what they want." To do otherwise would allow their fans to break through the fourth wall and ruin the show.

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83For examples of character wars - visit any board that is NOT character centric. (Hint: usually involves Spike.) 84Check out the board wars on the non-centric character fan boards for examples. (I refrain from naming names or posting specific threads to protect the innocent or rather not so-innocent, but easily embarrassed. ) 85Tim Minear and David Fury at the Succubus Club, May 2003; good luck finding Minear’s post at ASSB, it might however be in the ATPO archives. ASSB doesn’t archive it’s posts. It was posted the first week of May shortly after WB announced the decision to add James Marsters to the cast. 86Succubus Club with Tim Minear and David Fury - see transcript in www.atpobtvs.com discussion board archives or go to the site and listen to the Mp3 recording, May 2003. See also Bronze Beta VIP posting archives for Tim Minear; & Jeff Bell at Comic-Con Writer’s Panel, www.cityofangel.com. 87Jeff Bell at Comic Con Writer’s Panel, June 2003, www.cityofangel.com: "It was difficult because Charisma had just had her baby and we did everything we wanted but what we wanted was a really nice emotional payoff. We set up Wolfram & Hart for next year in terms of what next year would be and in addition we have the real emotional component of something that means a lot to our central character Angel, which is the happiness of his son, the one thing that he was never able to give him. And we thought if we just paid that off emotionally for the character we hoped it would be for the audience as well." 88See Save Spike Campaign: http://www.savespike.com/; See also: http://whedonesque.com/?comments=1011 89Deanna’s post on Angel’s Soul Board in response to SilverAgent, 8/7/03: "At the San Diego Comic-Con, the booth next to Inkworks trading cards (where Andy Hallett and Amber Benson were signing, BTW), they were selling BtVS plates. On the last day of the 5-day con, I asked the guy behind the table which plate was selling the fastest. He immediately pointed to Spike, saying that he was "by FAR" the best seller, then Buffy and Willow were selling about equally, but Xander was basically only selling to those who were buying the whole set, and he gestured to a large stack of Xander plates that were sitting unsold. Buffystore.com is already selling the Spike plate for $20 more than the others, since they’re quickly running out of that one. Last year’s SDCC, among the several thousand dealers (no exaggeration), I was able to find two vampire Spike action figures, selling for $75 and $90, no regular Spike figures anwhere, Series 1 Angel figures for $40 and up, and one Series 1 Vampire Angel figure for $100. Giles and Oz figures, released the same time as the Spike figures, were $1 apiece in loose bags, $4 on cards. The rare, exclusive Entertainment Earth Oz figure was $8, mint on card. Xander was $5 mint on card. The exclusive Military Xander was $8. (Dark Horse’s "Things From Another World" store in Universal Studios Citywalk was also blowing out Xander and Giles figures for $5 apiece last Christmas). The point is: they couldn’t give away figures of the "normal guys," while dark, morally-ambiguous vampire figures were fetching a huge premium. Sure doesn’t sound like they’re not popular with the audience." 90See Official Buffy Magazine #8 - editorial page: "In the meantime, I just want to say a quick apology to the fans who were expecting a James Marsters interview in Issue 7 (as advertised in the previous issue). Plans don’t always work out, so we had to delay him for one issue. I was totally unprepared for the barrage of angry letters I received on the subject!" 91See www.slayage.com for article blurb, July/August 2003 92 See note 88. 93 Transcript by atzone of James Marsters Q&A http://www.atnzone.com/tvzone/features/buffycon_1.shtml James is discussing the Thank You James Variety and Hollywood Reporter Ads that appeared in March 2003. "That was one of the sweetest experiences. I understand that some of the people responsible for that are in the audience today and I want to really thank you guys. Thank you. That had an effect in L.A. that I don’t know that you are aware of. To have fans come together and do something, that frankly, costs that much money and takes that much planning apparently doesn’t happen very often - if at all. We just were swamped with calls after that asking, "What do you do to your fans?" I didn’t tell them everything. [Giggles] To some degree, it’s hard for me to take compliments and so in a way I don’t know how to react but at the same time, I am very deeply touched. I feel like I have worked hard and I do put in extra effort and, no matter how tired I am, there is a certain kind of passion that comes through. And I am glad that is in some way resonated with you guys." 94 See note 88 95 For details of these and other Spike campaigns, see www.bigbad.net, www.morethanspike.com, www.bloodyawfulpoet.com, www.allaboutspike.com 96 See James Marsters Interview in SFX August 2003: "Joss is so excited about it, too. He started to write my entrance scene in Angel as he was supposed to be writing the death scene in Buffy, and he had to stop himself! He was getting so excited about the potential, and the things that he could do." See also the conventions where James Marsters mentioned Spike was to be in the Faith spin-off and possibly on Angel. Also David Boreanze at a convention prior to Angel’s renewal being announced, stated Spike would be added to Angel next year in some capacity and he was looking forward to it. (not sure where - try www.slayage.com May 2003 or cityofangle.com), David Fury mentions it in Dreamwatch and Tim Minear in TV Zone. They even mention how Whedon planned on bringing Spike back in the spin-off. 97 See Charisma Carpenter’s interview in May 2003 on www.slayage.com (can’t recall exactly where I found it); see the transcript of Moonlight Rising and Tampa Vulkon Conventions. 98 See Thank you Charisma Campaign: http://www.buffy.nu/article.php3?id_article=1044 99 LET’S GET XANDER TO VISIT ANGEL PETITION http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?ab8c0973, posted on www.bloodyawfulpoet.com listserve in August 2003. 100A website called The Hellmouth Line League actually tabulates this. http://www.hellmouthhigh.co.uk/LineLeague/. According to their statistics the following had the most lines per episode overall: Buffy, Willow, Xander, Rupert Giles, Spike. In Season 7: Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike. In Season 6: Buffy, Willow, Xander, Anya, Dawn/Spike. In Season 5: Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike. 101The Buffy/Angel Warriors Website. http://www.angelfire.com/empire/foreverbawarriors/text.html. David Greenwalt comments on the B/A shippers in SFX The Vampire Special Addition, 2001. Marti Noxon mentions them in a slaon.com interview in February 2002 (I think, it might have been later - check www.atpobtvs.com discussion board archives for a mention of it). 102 See any number of Buffy/Spike sites on the internet. Marti Noxon also commented on the B/S shippers in SFX Vampire Special Edition, 2001 and in assorted online interviews. 103 See James Marsters Interview in SFX August 2003; Amber Benson Q&A at Moonlight Rising; Whedon Interview with IGFN. In an Interview with Kristin (Wanda) at the end of Season 6, Whedon states that he had considered making Willow bi-sexual but with Tara’s death, he feels that would be impossible and send a negative message to fans. 104 Jane Espenson, Drew Greenberg, Rebecca Rand Kirshner Interview on Succubus Club, stating that they lost interest in Anya once she broke up with Xander in Selfless. See also Espenson comments regarding how Xander’s arc ran out of steam in The Replacement and David Fury’s response to a poster at Bronze Beta regarding how they just weren’t focusing on Xander - Whedon came up with the emotional arcs and they followed them. If you check the fanboards, you’ll discover that the majority of fans and critics were actually in agreement with the writers. Also according to www.futonmediacritic.com, Xander specific episodes dipped in ratings. Go Fish was one of the lowest rated episodes in S2. 105 If you’re really interested? (ie. masochistically taking the time to read the small print of this footnote) Here’s my findings: Buffy had the most votes (11) with Willow a close second (8). Xander in third with (6). Buffy/Spike was the most popular ship (8). Willow/Tara in second place (7). Spike and Dru in third (5). The rest aren’t worth counting. Spike most overrated character with seven votes and Tara in second with four votes. Anya, Buffy, Angel, Johnathan, Andrew, and Amy all tied with two votes each. Xander also got a vote as overrated. What’s interesting is the B/A shippers (3) all voted Spike as most overrated. The Willow lovers (4 - Spike as overrated). Xander lovers? (none - they were all over the place). So nope no consensus. And I’m sure if we did this on other boards, we’d get completely different responses. So it’s only indicative of thirty out of 500 Atpobtvs discussion board posters, bad statistical sampling. Add to that - at least 50% of those polled have a tendency to change their mind or weren’t taking it seriously. Although I have to say the person who said Spike’s bod was overrated, yet wanted more of it, was a personal favorite. That and whomever voted for Spike/Buffybot ship.

Conclusion

While the process of making a television show and the boundaries of the medium may have adversely affected BTVS in its final season - the writers have to their credit circumvented or subverted some of these pitfalls. Neither the actors nor the fans dictated what the show should do. Oh they tried, but the writers ignored them. Sarah Michelle Geller noted in the press that she did not like Dead Things and the UK censors chopped out fifty percent of it. (106) Yet, Dead Things is considered by the writers, the critics, and the majority of fans to be one of the show’s best. (107) If it had been up to B/A shippers - Angel would never have left BTVS and started his own series, we would not have had four seasons of Angel or Connor. Likewise if it had been up to fans, we would not have had the Willow/Tara relationship. The trick is figuring out what tactic garners ratings - usually it is the opposite of what fans want or think they want. (108)

Although BTVS and ATS had difficulty keeping certain actors, which hurt plot arcs - they worked around them. If Juliet Landau wasn’t available? No problem let’s explore vampire divorce with Spike. Seth Green wants to pursue a movie career? Okay, we’ll create a lesbian relationship. Anthony Stewart Head wants to go back to England and spend more time with his family? Fine, let’s see how Buffy handles his departure.

While Btvs and ATS never truly subvert their hero formulas, they do skirt the pitfall of becoming overly predictable. Buffy doesn’t ride off into the sunset with her one true love at the end of Chosen. She doesn’t die making the ultimate sacrifice. Nor does she continue her lonely thankless task of saving the world. Instead, she does something few superheroes on television have done - she shares the power, allowing everyone to become a hero in the end, walking off into the sunset with her friends and family, her future an open book. Writers rarely attempt this twist. Meanwhile on ATS the writers pull a stunt that has only really been pulled once or twice before and in both instances the series was cancelled anyway. (109) They did a finale and a pilot in the same episode. A finale that blew critics away but left several fans annoyed. Did they stay within the bounds of their formula - yes, but they did it with a modicum of grace under pressure, allowing their hero to remain murky. (110)

Even though Btvs fell into the formulaic sixth and seventh season traps of the very special episode and clips episodes, they constructed their tales with a certain panache. The Very Special Episode of Seeing Red - could be seen as an interesting exercise in blending naturalistic cinema with mise-en-scene techno-color. Stripping away the metaphors only to bring them back again in a new way. It may not have worked quite as they intended and they may have picked an incredibly over done issue to do it with, but I give them points for ambition. Same can be said with Wrecked, which also attempted to explore an well-traveled issue with a new twist. Neither story arc irreparably damaged the show or the characters. While some fans and critics saw it in a negative light, most applauded the effort. (111) As WickedBuffy, a frequent poster on www.atpobtvs.com discussion boards, noted - at least Seeing Red made us re-think the issue. In the end that may be ME’s greatest accomplishment. Not the subversion of the form so much as what they accomplished within the narrow boundaries of a tough and increasingly competitive medium, which more often than not caters to the lowest common denominator. ME through BTVS and ATS not only made the portion of us lucky enough to discover them think, but also enriched our lives by introducing a complex yet empowering female icon to our culture, entertaining us along the way. That, if we think about it, is more than most TV series deliver.

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106 SMG’s Exit Interview with Entertainment Weekly; www.slayage.tv , Slayage Journal #8 for article on Censorship of BTVS in UK. See also KdS, response to sdev’s question on UK censorship, www.atpobtvs.com discussion board archives, 8/13/03.: "Because BtVS and AtS are considered "fantasy", and hence "for kids", the BBC, which showed BtVS, and Channel 4, which showed the first two seasons of AtS, put them in early evening slots. All the early-evening showings of BtVS on the BBC were heavily censored for sex and violence, in some cases (reportedly including Consequences [whole X/F scene cut], Who Are You [whole R/F scene cut] and Dead Things) doing serious damage to the plot of the eps. There is a detailed and very disturbing article on slayage.tv about the nature and effects of the BBC cuts to Dead Things. After protests from fans, the BBC agreed to reshow all episodes in uncut form in a late-night time slot the night after the cut early-evening broadcast, both for new episodes and reruns." 107 Dead Things had higher ratings. Marti Noxon and Joss Whedon state in interviews it was one of the better episodes of Season 6, next to Once More With Feeling and Tabula Rasa. (can’t remember where exactly - try www.slayage.com - online interviews in 2002 Summer. ) 108 According to Joss Whedon’s Interview on IGFN - when ratings dipped in S2, Buffy and Angel were happy, they spiked in Innocence when they split them apart. Same with Season 3. 109 Now and Again - one year series, tried to change things by having the lead reunite with his family and take them on the run as opposed to continuing to work for the secret organization; Nichols, a 1971 Western, killed it’s anti-hero and had a new more heroic character ride into town. 110 Home, for those who did not see it or are unfamiliar - was the last episode in Angel season 4. Tim Minear wrote it with the realization that it could very well be the end of the series. WB did not let ME know they were renewing Angel until after the episode was filmed. The episode concluded with Angel, the hero of the show, signing on with his arch-nemesis the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart, erasing his side-kicks memories of his son and the events associated with the boy, as well as erasing and replacing his son’s memories with new ones and setting that son up with a new normal family. The leading lady, fan favorite, Cordelia Chase who had become evil in the finale season, was left in a coma. For a more complete summary: go to www.cityofangle.com or search the www.atpobtvs.com discussion board archives. 111Check the professional critical reviews on www.slayage.com that came out before or right after Chosen aired, without exception, all were glowing. See specifically Entertainment Weekly and New York Times.