“She’s cool. She’s hot. She’s tepid. She’s all-temperature Buffy.”
BY Mark A. Altman
Make no mistake, Joss Whedon is a god.
Not a Zeus-like god who hurls thunderbolts from the sky and demands sacrifices of goats, chickens, geese, and the occasional vestal virgin, but an honest-to-goodness writing deity, a wizard of words, a maestro of the macabre and liege of letters. Not to mention he’s far more partial to plaid button-downs than togas. But, not unlike Vargas on the receiving end of a spear gun from 007, you get the point (or Mr. Pointy, in his case). If that fact got lost on us during his less-than-halcyon days, when Whedon wrote for the mouthy Roseanne and Dan, resurrected Alien, or even when he debuted the first Buffy, who failed to slay audiences on movie screens in 1992, by now it should be abundantly clear to those of us fortunate enough to have been hip to the oeuvre of Joss Whedon, this is a man of boundless creativity, thoughtfulness, passion, intelligence, and wit.
Are you not entertained?
In a medium and a genre in which sexy blond girls were cannon fodder for the creepy-crawlies that go bump … and slash … in the night, Whedon flipped the script. Instead of being the prey, the lithe little blond girl with the silly name was the predator, keeping the troubled town of Sunnydale safe from all manner of nefarious and apocalyptic threats to her friends and family, from points north, west, south, and east. It’s been said before but it’s worth reiterating that Buffy didn’t take place in the high school world of a John Hughes comedy; it used its supernatural trappings as a metaphor for the challenges and pain of adolescence. Not many of us could relate to growing up in a small town terrorized by soulless vampires, goblins, and ghouls, but most can relate to stories of unrequited love (or lust), sexy and soulful mysterious strangers, insular high school cliques, and cheerleaders whose bodies are possessed by their obsessed mothers. OK, not so much that last one.
High school drama had come a long way since Glenn Ford in The Blackboard Jungle. And what makes Buffy so unique is that it stands as perhaps one of the last vestiges of a more innocent age of adolescence, before social media and iPhones. When Buffy was created, it was still the era of creaking plot mechanics that could hinge on a missed ring on the landline phone, and in which the only social network in a town like Sunnydale was hanging out at a place like the Bronze while listening to music from a procession of great to middling ’90s bands. Buffy was delivering its swan song to the more innocent days of high school just as the first glimmers of social networking were arriving on the scene with Friendster (remember that short-lived precursor to Myspace and Facebook?). Buffy would be a very different show today: the denizens of Sunnydale would be snapchatting and tweeting about Mayors transforming into giant lizard gods and hellish Halloween celebrations. “For god’s sakes, stay away from Ethan’s and lay off the Band Candy.” Is that more than 140 characters?
Meanwhile, Whedon’s spin-off of Buffy, Angel, is a miraculous story of survival against all odds. The series debuted with David Boreanaz’s titular vampire as Philip Marlowe lite attempting to redeem himself on the mean streets of the City of Angels in a ham-fisted, noir-tinged detective drama. Sputtering for nearly half a season, the show began to find its own distinct identity, miraculously and brilliantly reinventing itself several times, first when Cordelia was bequeathed the visions of the late Glenn Quinn’s Doyle, and then when Angel Investigations took up residence in an abandoned art deco hotel, and, finally, when Angel and company would find themselves in charge of the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart. What was stunning was that despite the seemingly inane, high-concept TV Guide description—“Angel, the vampire with a soul, is forced to run an evil law firm in Los Angeles” (redundant, to be sure)—the show’s dramatic reinvention for its fifth season was a home run, and, much like Next Generation’s darker, more brooding spin-off Deep Space Nine, Angel often outshone its progenitor, despite having a smaller audience and receiving far less critical acclaim.
Embracing a more serialized structure than its progenitor, Angel required a more serious commitment from viewers of the pre-DVR age, who would be amply awarded for their loyalty (although I vaguely recall purchasing my first TiVo around that time, and I still have my plush Mr. TiVo to prove it). As Buffy began sputtering to its inevitable conclusion, Angel continued to evolve, culminating in one of the great series finales of all time, a supernatural Godfather denouement, a cliffhanger that is, regrettably, unlikely ever to be resolved. Not since Mike Torello and Ray Luca grappled violently in the cockpit of a rapidly descending Cessna in the second-season capper of Crime Story had a series left you hungering for more as the axe swung.
And since the respective conclusions of Buffy and Angel, Whedon has continued to amass quite the filmography (a subject for another book, surely). He rarely repeats himself and, no matter how disparate the material, marks his work with a singular style and wit. Even without Joss Whedon’s name in the opening credits, it’d be hard to miss his unique imprimatur on such a diverse array of film and television as 2002’s Firefly, the addictive, short-lived cult sci-fi Western about a ragtag group of underdogs and misfits long before Guardians of the Galaxy made such things en vogue, and 2012’s The Avengers, featuring a distinctly different band of underdogs and misfits who save the world and transformed Whedon from a revered cult figure to a bankable blockbuster film director, all while he knocked out the microbudget adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, a charming and delightful retelling of the Bard’s whimsical comedy, which gets a very Whedonesque makeover and was shot in his backyard. He made the film on a shoestring between Hammer time and Hulk busting. Doesn’t this man sleep? Apparently not.
Meanwhile, there was the far less successful Eliza Dushku vehicle for Fox, Dollhouse; the genre-subverting The Cabin in the Woods, directed by Buffy veteran and future Martian Oscar nominee Drew Goddard, which Whedon and Goddard cooked up in a matter of days and that harkens back to horror classics like Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead but has a distinctly Whedonesque spin; and the beloved Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, with the always delightful Nathan Fillion as the preening, narcissistic superhero Captain Hammer, a dastardly and lovestruck Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, and an adorable Felicia Day. (And I would know since I’ve been lucky enough to work with both of them, the awesome and avuncular Nathan on Castle and Felicia on The Librarians, where we played hours of Lord of the Rings pinball with Sean Astin, but that’s a story for another time.)
As a television writer myself, it’s hard not to appreciate Whedon’s sheer talent and prodigious output, which I’ve always enjoyed, respected, and admired. My personal connection to Whedon predates this book by over two decades. When I first moved to Los Angeles and was working as a journalist for Sci-Fi Universe, the self-proclaimed magazine for science fiction fans with a life that I had started for Larry Flynt, of all people, I attended a Writers Guild mixer, where I first encountered Joss, in his ubiquitous and unmistakable uniform of T-shirt, jeans, and button-down plaid shirt. We talked for a while about his new film, Toy Story. He was excited and equally trepidatious about the film’s imminent release, Pixar’s first. He’d already become one of Hollywood’s most accomplished go-to guys for script fixes, doing substantial uncredited rewrites from films ranging from l994’s Speed to 1995’s infamous Waterworld which contributed a new twist to the seemingly immutable Hollywood axiom: Never work with kids or animals and definitely never, ever shoot on water. We all know now, of course, that the first Toy Story is a triumph, one of the great animated films of all time, and became a perennial favorite for a generation of children (and adults). But I’ll never forget walking out of the Crest Theatre in Westwood during the opening weekend to find Joss ensconced in the shadows of the back row quietly watching the film—and the audience. Surprised, I approached him and asked what he was doing watching his own film, which he had assuredly seen many times already. Chagrined and embarrassed, a nervous Whedon smiled, answering he didn’t want anyone to recognize him, hoping to anonymously see if the film played with a real, paying audience. Indeed, it did—it was nothing short of a masterpiece. That was the last time I ever saw that side of Joss. Success didn’t make him an egotist or an asshole, as it does for many in our business, but it did make him deservedly self-confident … and a better dresser.
After that, I would regularly run into him on Tuesdays at the late Pico Boulevard haunt, Laser Blazer, where we both used to pick up the latest laserdiscs and, later, DVDs and Blu-rays. We would have brief and amiable conversations, but I can’t say I ever got to really know him very well, although we were bonded into that community of pre-Amazon obsessives who would march out to the store every Tuesday to pick up the latest new releases on the day they came out—often leaving them in the original shrink-wrap for years. (As anyone who is still part of the dying breed of connoisseurs of physical media will adamantly and lovingly tell you, sometimes it’s just enough to know they’re there.)
Perhaps my most embarrassing run-in with Joss was years later at the Saturn Awards, the awesomely kitsch, sweet, nostalgic, and charming awards show devoted to genre entertainment held annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. For years, my wife had been consumed by a question that she desperately wanted answered. Now, you have to understand that my wonderful spouse, Naomi, is a die-hard fan of the Whedonverse and a devoted fan of Buffy and Angel. Not only did we have a string quartet play the beautiful “Sacrifice” theme from “The Gift” at our wedding and name two of our rescue cats Giles and Willow, but for her first Mother’s Day I took her to Torrance to see Sunnydale High School (aka Torrance High School) and the original Summers residence nearby. In fact, when she first moved to Los Angeles, Buffy was a great solace to her since she had left behind so many of her close friends in Chicago, and it was the gang at Sunnydale High that helped her acclimate to her new life in a new city with new friends, not unlike the Slayer herself. So you see, even though I ducked having to ask her question for several years, unfortunately, when she heard that Joss was going to be at the Saturns, there was no way I was extricating myself from this unwelcome task. Naomi insisted that I talk to Joss and get a definitive answer to her vexing query.
What did she want to know? you may ask. Not far from where we live in Beverly Hills, there was a three-way intersection; at it stood the Willow School, Wesley Street, and, nestled between them and now long gone, the imposing Angelus Shoe Factory. Naomi thought perhaps this had been an inspiration to Joss when he was creating Buffy. I, of course, thought I’d never eat lunch (dinner or brunch) in this town again if I posed her question, but when your wife asks you do something—other than take out the garbage—you do it and so I did. Mortified, I approached Joss at the after-party, and, after exchanging familiar pleasantries and downing a few vodka-enhanced beverages, I finally, reluctantly, asked him if indeed this had been an inspiration for Buffy. Smiling amusedly but taking pity on me by not outright laughing, he answered quietly and thoughtfully, “You can tell your wife, definitely not.” And so ended one of the all-time great, long-held mysteries of Buffy for our family.
Hopefully, however, in this volume you now hold in your hand, Ed Gross and I will be able to clarify many other mysteries, dispel some apocryphal myths, hip you to the best craft services, and reintroduce you to the wonderful worlds of Buffy and Angel in a new, candid, and exciting way. The joy of writing these oral histories of such beloved pop culture staples is not only to revisit worlds we love (like Star Trek in The Fifty-Year Mission and Sunnydale and Angel’s City of Angels in this volume) and share insider stories with passionate fans about the creation and making of these iconic series, but also to showcase the behind-the-scenes tales and many of the unheralded talents of so many of these wonderful shows with those who may have never encountered them before.
At twenty years old, there’s an entire generation of TV viewers who didn’t grow up with Buffy, Willow, Xander, Cordelia, Faith, Angel, Spike, Giles, Willow, Dawn, Flutie, Snyder, Anya, Kendra, Gentlemen, Masters, and Mayors. Once they read this volume, it’s our hope they will feel as if they did. Buffy and Angel are distinctly products of their time. They were created early in the second golden age of television, after the emergence of series like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere changed the medium indelibly forever but before the renaissance of The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. But for as long as girls love boys, kids endure the endless tortures of high school, and we question the myriad sounds that go bump in the night, Buffy and Angel will remain timeless. The visual effects of Mayor Wilkins turning into a giant snake notwithstanding, of course. That does look pretty lame now.
October 29, 2016