Joss Whedon

1 Buffy The Vampire Slayer

“Superstar” (2000)

Before you stake us for not picking “Once More, With Feeling” we should point out that Xena’s “The Bitter Suite” did the musical thang before Buffy, effectively starting a trend. And besides, “Superstar” is a brilliant episode which has so much fun you have to watch it over and over to appreciate just how clever it is. Taking a peripheral character – Danny Strong’s lovable loser, Jonathan – and suddenly making him the star of the show (with adjusted opening credits to match), “Superstar” throws the audience into a weird new world in which Jonathan is a superhero and nobody bats an eyelid until the end, when they figure out it’s all a spell. The fact the audience is aware of the shifted-universe jiggery-pokery and the characters aren’t is the masterstroke, as are the tiny details dotted around Sunnydale to show a world that’s fallen to the Cult of Jonathan. Later, the series would pull the same trick when it introduced Dawn.

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8 Angel

“Smile Time” (2004)

The picture says it all really… Except, it was brilliant.

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10 Dollhouse

“Epitaph One” (2009)

The thirteenth episode of Joss Whedon’s sadly-canned series (and there’s a phrase we seem to use a lot) has never aired on TV and is only available on the DVD – annoying, considering it’s one of the show’s best. Shot on the fly using handheld cameras, as few locations as possible and for a tiny budget, this is effectively Whedon sending his series into the post-apocalyptic future to show the after-effects of a furious war that seems (from what we can gather) to have been caused by the brain-imprinting technology used by the world’s Dollhouses. Featuring a new cast led by Doctor Horrible’s Felicia Day, this is a tantalising glimpse of What Could Have Been if the show had been allowed to run its course – and boy, what a course. Dollhouse was definitely heading somewhere very interesting; at least, thanks to this, we managed to have a sneak peek.

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http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=14_greatest_format_breaking_sf