Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Now that there has been official confirmation that this season will be the last for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, rumors are rampant about spinoff possibilities—including one revolving around Alyson Hannigan’s character Willow, the lesbian witch on Buffy.

Buffy creator Joss Whedon has publicly confirmed that he is currently considering spinoff possibilities, saying "I think ideally the best thing to do would be to wait and not rush anything. There are paradigms that I’ve posited that could start next year ... (but) whatever came next, it would have to have at its center an idea as worthy as (Buffy and spinoff Angel) were" (Yahoo News, February 21).

Although Whedon has indicated that he would offer the spinoff to UPN first, he has also made it clear that he would shop it around to the other networks if UPN passes.

The leading possibility for several weeks was rumored to be a Faith the Vampire Slayer-type spinoff, based around Eliza Dushku’s character Faith. But that idea became unlikely when it was announced on February 24th that Dushku had signed up to star in the pilot for a still-unnamed Fox series (about a woman who graduates from college and discovers that she’s able to save lives by changing the course of events.)

With the most obvious spinoff choice eliminated, that leaves a few other characters on which to base a spinoff, with Willow as the most logical choice among them. First, however, there are a lot of issues that would have to be resolved for a Willow spinoff to happen: Whedon & company would have to decide to go this route, UPN or another network would have to be willing to take it on, and Hannigan would have to agree to star in the spinoff (she has been publicly noncommittal, expressing a desire to continue working with Whedon but also to explore new characters in other series/films).

But the underlying issue boils down to this: is network television ready for a dramatic series that revolves around a lesbian?

If Willow were a new character, I believe the answer would definitely be no. Network television shows have almost never launched a new show with a lesbian character, preferring to wait until after the show is established to introduce lesbian characters (e.g. Buffy, Once and Again, ER, and NYPD Blue). Notable exceptions include Dark Angel and 1996’s Relativity, but considering how poorly both of these shows did in the ratings, they’re unlikely to be held up as models by the networks.

But Willow already has a strong and loyal (if small) fan base, which mitigates the risk somewhat. This gives the show a level of built-in security that a brand new series would not have (although that by no means assures its success.)

On the other hand, the networks might argue that if Willow is popular enough to carry her own show, why didn’t we see that reflected in substantial growth in the number of viewers who watched Buffy over the years? Because while the show had enough fans to keep it on for seven years, it has never been a ratings giant.

Lesbian characters on dramatic series so far have always been part of an ensemble (ER, Once and Again, NYPD Blue), or the sidekick to the main character (Dark Angel), and while any Buffy spinoff is still likely to have an ensemble feel to it, a lesbian Willow as the lead would be new territory for the networks.

And assuming that Willow’s new girlfriend Kennedy (played by Iyari Limon) comes along for the ride, things get even dicier for the networks—since then the series won’t just revolve around a lesbian, but a lesbian in a relationship. And if there’s anything scarier to the networks than a recurring lesbian character, it’s a recurring lesbian character having sex.

Kennedy has gradually emerged as a strong character on Buffy over the second half of the last season, however, and the increasing amount of screen time devoted to her character is an indication that Whedon may be considering Kennedy for inclusion in a Willow spinoff, as well—or even revolving the spinoff around her instead (i.e. Kennedy the Vampire Slayer).

Regardless, either a Willow or a Kennedy spinoff would present similar challenges to the networks in terms of estimating the risk and reward, since it would be the first lesbian-led series on primetime network television.

Some may be tempted to gauge the likely success of Willow (or Kennedy) the series by comparing it to Ellen Degeneres’ attempt at a lesbian-centered show in 1997, but it is the difference between these two shows that provides hope for Willow.

First, Ellen was a sitcom, while Willow would be a drama—and dramas are traditionally allowed much more leeway in terms of risque content. Also, Buffy fans (the demographic for Willow) tend to skew younger and thus more gay-positive than Ellen’s did.

Then there is the cable factor: during Ellen’s heyday, networks did not yet have to compete with the cable and premium stations for viewers, and envelope-pushing shows like Queer as Folk and The Shield had not yet debuted. Add the reality-TV show craze into the mix, and you have an environment where the networks are desperate for viewers in an increasingly fragmented market.

And, finally, it’s 2003, not 1997, and American attitudes towards homosexuality on television have improved somewhat in the last five years—thanks in part to network shows like Ellen, cable shows like Queer as Folk, and reality shows like MTV’s The Real World. The upcoming premiere of the all-lesbian series Earthlings on Showtime is further proof of this—although it remains to be seen whether Earthlings will be successful, it was unthinkable five years ago that anyone would even try to sell a show about a bunch of lesbians.

The bottom line is, when on any given night you can turn on the TV and see ex-porn stars wooing fake millionaires, "good" cops bribing judges and blackmailing other cops, and gay men participating in orgies, monogamous lesbian characters just don’t seem so risque anymore.

Of course, if the current climate was really all that pro-lesbian, the lesbian relationship on ER wouldn’t be getting less and less screen time, the lesbian teen on All My Children would actually have a girlfriend, and you wouldn’t continue to see every lesbian couple on TV reduced to a storyline about trying to have a child.

But in this increasingly competitive and increasingly permissive environment, a Willow-type spinoff is more likely than it has even been to be accepted by the networks, or at least tested. It’s probably not their first choice, though—in fact, UPN is probably right now trying to convince Whedon to come up with another option, or to stack the spinoff with so many straight characters that audiences won’t notice the lesbian part.

It’s worth remembering, however, that when Whedon first shopped Buffy around, the networks laughed at the idea that audiences would respond to a show revolving around a teenage girl who battled evil; seven years later, no one’s laughing anymore and the networks have since scrambled to copy this formula (with shows like Alias and Witchblade and female-led crime dramas like Crossing Jordan and a few pilots currently in development for next fall).

If Whedon backs a Willow spinoff, and Hannigan’s on board, maybe in a few years we’ll be looking back at this series in the same way—as the one that proved it is possible to create a successful drama around a lesbian character, after all.