Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Ripper: "Cracker with Ghosts"

Last week, I wrote an article discussing my opinions on what I felt would be the best possble spin-off for the Buffyverse, this being ’Ripper’, a television series focusing on Buffy’s Watcher, Rupert Giles. I wrote about why I think he made the ideal canditate and was the most logical step for the next series. The article can be found here. This week, I’m mainly going to overview the project so far, give some of my ideas on what should happen, and am looking forward to feedback on what people think of my ideas, what they would change about them, and of course their own personal views on what they would like to see in a ’Ripper’ series.

’Ripper’ has been a series stuck in development hell for four years. News of his show first surfaced in early May 2001, when Buffy series creator Joss Whedon announced that he was planning a new Buffyverse show which was "absoloutely nothing like whats been done before". Later, Marti Noxon, executive producer on Buffy stated: "There is a possibility of a limited series run with the BBC starring Anthony Stewart Head, it’s not a done deal but this is in discussion." A spokesperson for Jane Tranter, the head of Drama Commisioning for the BBC at the time also revealed that although the project was in development, it was still at a very early stage. (Quotes from www.bbc.co.uk)

An article in the L.A. times revealed further more details about the possible show with Joss Whedon giving fans an idea of the mood, atmosphere and premise of the show. "It would be a grown-up, quiet show about a cool, grown-up, quiet, non-teenage man quietly solving ghost stories. It would be very different in tone [to Buffy and Angel]: slower, more like the shows over there. But not too British." The article also reported that the series would be six episodes long, Joss had already written the first episode, the Buffy writers of the time would write the episodes ("champing at the bit" according to Anthony Stewart Head in a later article), and several members of the cast had expressed interest in appearing. Head also revealed in an article with Impact magazine that the episodes would be very stand-alone, a story an episode rather than the whole series focusing on one big arc. Later on Whedon would refer to it as "Cracker with ghosts". ’Cracker’ was a 1990’s series starring Robbie Coltrane.

Despite all these plans, despite the Pilot scheduled to begin filming Spring 2002, to this date no ’Ripper’ series has been made. Valid reasons have been given; Joss was too busy with three shows already; the BBC was having a huge change-around; Joss’s revised two hour pilot (rather than his previous one hour) was over the order of the six episodes and so new negotiations had to be made. To be honest, as a watcher (no pun intended) of British television, series now are more likely to have an eight or nine + episode run than the previously done six (’Doctor Who’ is currently running at 13 episodes a year, ’Bad Girls’ running at 16) and so the problem of Joss going over what the BBC would want is now fairly defunct. In truth I believe that about a nine or ten episode run would be about right for ’Ripper’. As well as allowing the characters to develop more, it also gives us lots more stories! Whatever the case, over four years from the announcement of ’Ripper’ nothing has been done. Yet now is a perfect time.

Joss has already written the two-parter pilot, and is about to become very well known due to ’Serenity’. He no longer has three shows to juggle at once, and until he begins work on Wonder Woman, has a break from work. Although that time could be used to give Joss a well-deserved break after spending months on ’Serenity’, it could also be used with the help of several other Whedon-verse writers to write the Ripper series. For example, Jane Espenson, arguably the most popular Buffy writer after Joss himself has no work in the pipe-line after the cancellation of first ’Tru Calling’ and most recently "The Inside". Marti Noxon is also in a similar boat after "Point Pleasant" was yanked from the air by Fox this year. And although he may be writing for ’Alias’ at the moment, I highly doubt that anything could stop Drew Goddard from writing for a new Buffyverse series. Shared between them (with of course an overview with Joss) the series could be written with a few months. Before moving onto Wonder Woman, Whedon could film the two-parter pilot, and then immerse himself in Diana’s story, leaving the directing work in the hands in such Buffyverse renowned directors like James A. Contner, Marita Grabiak and David Solomon, (of course succesfully negotiating with Joel Silver to return to England to direct the season finale)

Of course all above is wishful thinking. A lot of wishful thinking. But I can’t help hoping and wishing and even praying that this series would come about. There’s a lot of things I would love to see in this series. I’d love to see Giles deal with the guilt of murdering Ben, I’d enjoy watching seeing how he’d become after being seperated from all the people that he cares about, see him adjust back into a different culture, and fight different monsters. Let’s see Giles get a girlfriend, would he keep her in the dark about his past (both Ripper and Sunnydale) in order to prevent a similar reaction to Olivia’s, or tell her all. Will he train the new Slayers, or will he leave Willow and the others to take care of that? I’m pretty well aware that Joss probably wont be reading this, and to be honest all I really wanted to do was share my opinions about what a blindingly good show this could be, but I really hope that this project is still somewhere in his mind and that Anthony Stewart Head is still interested in continuing to explore the character of Giles. Either way thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope I have not proved to mind-numbingly boring for you!

I’d appreciate feedback at matt_mcgoven@yahoo.com, and will do my best to reply to each response, although will be taking a few days holiday soon, so may not reply immediately. (The Laptop is to be locked and sealed away apparantly)

And I couldn’t help myself. After I get back from Dubai, I’m just gonna have to write something about Faith. Men like me have NO willpower at all!