Buffy : Season 8

The sum-up: Scott talks to us about the rest of Season 8 (some juicy tidbits and spoilers there, for sure), describes the structure of Season 9 in more detail (including a description of Joss’ vision), and comments on how IDW is being kept in the loop this time around. He also talks a little about some other Whedonverse titles.

Huge thanks to Scott for agreeing to talk to us about some of the big news that broke at SDCC. Anyway, enough yammering... interview below.

SlayAlive: The Riley one-shot sounds like it’s going to be a packed book. The solicitations promised “thrilling spy adventure” and “major revelations” for Season 8. You’ve previously said that we’ll learn how some of the characters fall into their respective roles on Season 8. And, on top of that, we finally get to see what went down between Riley and Sam. That’s a LOT of stuff to pack into one book. Were these all main story beats that had to be hit, or did Jane just surpass expectations?

Scott Allie: We started with a fairly modest goal—a couple beats that needed to be hit before we wrapped up Season 8—but when Jane had shaped the story, we saw that some other opportunities had opened up. I don’t want to spoil more than I already have, and I don’t entirely remember what I’ve put out there, but what started out as thrilling spy adventure making sense of Agent Finn’s role in Season 8 slowly drew in another character, and then found opportunity to shed some light and wisdom, through metaphor, on one of the biggest plot points of Season 8, some might say the plot point of S8.

SlayAlive: And in our last interview, you mentioned that there would be a special guest character in the Riley one-shot. Any hints about who this mystery character is?

Scott Allie: I’ve been asked about this a lot, and a lot of names have been thrown at me, and all I’ll say is that of course some fans have guessed right.

SlayAlive: Speaking of the Riley one-shot, Karl Moline seems to be the go-to guy for filling in the one-shots. What are the qualities that you admire in his work?

Scott Allie: We just love Karl’s work a lot. We didn’t pick him for Fray by accident, all those years ago. He has a take on characterization and humor in an action adventure setting that’s perfect for our needs. It’s what a Joss comic should do. His work’s nothing like Georges’s and yet some of what makes Georges perfect is there in Karl. We just like having him on the team. So we wanted more from him than just the Fray arc.

SlayAlive: Still on the topic of one-shots, the last one-shot featured Willow and how she became acquainted with Aluwyn (Saga Vasuki). Will we see more of Aluwyn this season, or is she a possible loose thread that will be dealt with in Season 9?

Scott Allie: Yes and, potentially, yes. So both.

SlayAlive: The Scythe... it’s kinda been on and off in terms of importance over the course of the season, but #34 brought it back to the fore when there was a panel of it just sitting there when Giles was saying that he needed to find a totem to kill a god. In your Buffyfest interview, you mentioned that Spike’s coming back with more knowledge about the whole Twilight deal than anyone so far, and that he helps Giles understand certain things that Giles only half understood before. This may be completely spoiler-ish, but does the Scythe feature in this bit at all? For that matter, will we learn more about the Scythe in general?

Scott Allie: The Scythe has something to do with it, yeah. There won’t be time to learn more about the Scythe in S8, although it will be significant to what happens in the remaining issues. The juxtaposition you’re refering to is a little more complicated than it appears on the surface—it seems plain as can be, what he’s saying there, but you don’t know exactly what that’s really about yet. It does pull together by the end of the story, though. Boy, that was vague. Sorry.

SlayAlive: The Scythe was one of the only links that Fray had to her inherited legacy, and Season 8 was meant to bridge the gap between the Fray story and what happened in Season 7. Will we actually get that entire link in Season 8, or just a part of it? If it’s just a part of the link, will it be evident, or do we really need to get into Season 9 to even begin to figure things out?

Scott Allie: I dunno, I think the link was there the minute the Scythe appeared in Season 7—I knew it blew my mind when I heard about it, that the thing that Joss had scribbled out for us, that Karl had brought to life, was going to find its way into the show. But, you know, it’s one century at a time. Season 8 does ultimately provide key information relating to the world of Fray, and a lot of the answers to what happens between the end of the show and the Fray comic, but it’ll be a developing story, of course. Season 9 will continue to move us closer to that future.

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