The Gift - As A Series Finale
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hoponlilmama
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Exactly.
Fleabag is another. Two seasons, and done. Brilliant show, for anyone who hasn't watched it.
November - do yourself a favour and watch Breaking Bad, it is great. Haven't watched The Wire myself, but friends tell me it is quality T.V.
hoponlilmama
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Synch
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Yep, I know all of this. My take was that Joss stopped running Buffy day to day like he did during its 5 first years in order to running it like he always ran Angel: with day to day showrunners and him overseeing plus with final say/veto (so Greenwalt, Minear, Bell, Fury and Noxon never had full autonomy). He still led the overall season arc, story arcs, some episode ideas and, at some point (because he didnt have the time), the story breaking plus rewrites (less than Buffy S4-5 and way less than 1-3) and notes. Espenson said that by those late seasons Joss often gave his notes like in a week.
But yeah, even when he ran Buffy S6-7 like he ran Angel, he still did a lot of work and never let his showrunners to took over.
DeKnight confirmed it on twitter just a few days ago:
Plus I answered to him:
And DeKnight liked my tweet.
Actually the way Joss ran Buffy S6-7 and Angel S1-5 during his musical/Firefly pilot year and his Firefly year, was the only way. He, however, said Ultron was even harder than running 3 shows!
Greenwalt was seen as a decent guy. Hardass not asshole. Not the idea man Whedon was, but, hobbled by having to get Whedon approval for everything. Much better manager and boss.
Iv seen the Passion of the Nerd interview with Tim Minear. Its clear Minear didn't think much of him (basically calls him an arse kisser in not so many words).
Ie regards Noxon sleeping with Whedon. I believe her because all the affairs rumoured with such as Hannigan/Dushku/Acker/Glau etc are all good looking actresses. Basically he used his position of power to work out a high school nerd fantasy that he hadn't grown out of. A writer just doesn't fit the bill
N
NoShip
Well.....the first time i saw Whedon and Noxon out, the way they acted made me think that she was his wife. Others also made that mistake. YMMV.
AlphaFoxtrot
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Re: Whom Joss Slept With; Here's the issue, Buffy had twenty or so extras, who were consistently hired to play highschool NPCs to give the show a degree of authenticity. Everyone of them wanted to break into acting, and had no leverage in the industry. If what Kai said is true, it's going to be one of those women, or some nameless PA or backstage employee that would have slept with Joss, not the named actresses we know.
Except for Summer Glau. Prior to Ballerina 1, she had no career, her next role is Firefly, which is arguably a documentary about her feet. I mean, I can't say anything happened between them, because I don't know, but I'm willing to admit the scenario has merit and would be worth investigating further.
Except for Summer Glau. Prior to Ballerina 1, she had no career, her next role is Firefly, which is arguably a documentary about her feet. I mean, I can't say anything happened between them, because I don't know, but I'm willing to admit the scenario has merit and would be worth investigating further.
Have not watched the interview. Sounds like i need to.
What i know is Greenwalt and Whedon had a rather mixed relationship. Greenwalt started as the Twentieth Century Fox provided adult supervision and they went from there.
By the time Minear was around, Greenwalt and Whedon were arguing alot about ATS. As a creator and showrunner, Greenwalt wanted to run the show. Whedon was not one to delegate.
Also, one of the reasons Greenwalt quit was Whedon took Minear to be be Firefly's Showrunner after promising not to. I am sure Minear wanted the big promotion sooner.
I'm not sure Greenwalt is that Decent. A writer for Sabrina said she went for an interview to work on Buffy in 98 and she was pregnant at the time. Both Whedon and Greenwalt just made nasty jokes because of it.
Link here for Minear interview here
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Synch
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I agree. Many fans assumed he slept with some actress/actresses and a show like this (and then 2, an then 3) had tons of crew and extras.
By the way he was and still is close friends with Hannigan, Acker (she is even now a friend of Heather), I doubt it. Not sure about Dushku.
As for Noxon, I believe her too. But she was one of her type, for sure: witty, nerdy, she liked nasty stuff (her own words), Wesleyan alumni, fastest Executive Producer ever (she deserved it but she even said people thought that was because she slept with the boss) and she was and still is so beautiful. And, c'mon, a TV series is world of writers and she had Joss/Buffy's voice (like Minear). Joss liked his characters but their voices were the writers. Noxon's Bargaining DVD commentary is pure Joss LOL. But, yeah, I believe her and I believe Joss simply new he needed her as her consigliere and then his de facto boss Season 6 onwards.
Joss knew Marti was his future EP. Marti, 2001 about Into the Woods:
Well Joss was adamant that I do it. I wanted to do it and I have always dreamed of doing it but I was terrified, ready to bolt, but Joss was incredibly insistent because he knew that creatively I needed to understand that process better so that when he was less involved on the technical ends of things I would really understand every aspect of the show.
Post automatically merged:
I guess they had a pretty good relationship during their 6 years working together: 3 side by side and 3 from upstairs (Buffy writers room) to downstairs (Angel writers room) or from Santa Monica (Buffy sets and all 3 writers room) to Paramount (Angel set). From Greenwalt's leaving until today, I have no idea.
I agree Joss was not the boss who delegate. He obviously did for the day to day duties (like Buffy S6-7 with Marti and almost every senior writer except Jane who didn't want on set duties) with Greenwalt/Minear because he ran Buffy. Question is he had not the time to ran the writers room and post production like he did with Buffy until Season 5 because, c'mon, one show is too much, two is an impossible task. But for all accounts he still did, even with 1h meetings, using his fast ideas and veto power (Mere Smith said Joss was around for Seasons 1-2 or 1-2-3 and he sometimes erased the entire whiteboard when the whole episode already broken by the team). I can imagine him like 8-9h working on Buffy and then 1h saying yay or nay to everything running at Angel writers room and post production. On set was another story and I assume Greenwalt and Minear had way more real power there. With exceptions (I'm sure Joss directed scene/s from I Will Remember You).
Finally, Minear said (Passion of the Nerd) Joss never rewrote him. It sounds like a special request by him (he threatened of leaving around mid S1) and Amy Pascale's book mentions he was the only writer to broke stories without Joss (at Angel... Because with Firefly they both led writers room. Tim confirmed to me) so maybe Tim was the real exception of Joss actually delegating something at, well not 100%, but maybe 75%.
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Synch
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Correct about Untouched. I have no idea why he wanted to do a thing he never did during his shows: to direct but not to write. Maybe a question of time (we know, thanks to Benson, Joss wrote Family during the filming process, and that was a few weeks after Untouched) trying to to do many things at the time. Weird because directing was about 16 days (8 prep. 8 filming) and he write, sometimes, in just 3 days. I guess as EP and overall creator/boss, he wasnt comfortable directing something he had not write. Apparently he rewrote everything except Lilah scenes (he did the other way around with Billy: he did Lilah/Cordelia scenes).
Buffy kills herself at the end of this episode because Joss decided to screw with how Dawn was made.
But 1 thing she did not know was that Ben/Glory was dead. Like Giles said to Ben "Glory will come back and Buffy even knows this" so she is purposefully dying which will leave Glory open to coming back and trying again with Dawn
But 1 thing she did not know was that Ben/Glory was dead. Like Giles said to Ben "Glory will come back and Buffy even knows this" so she is purposefully dying which will leave Glory open to coming back and trying again with Dawn
"Good Rationship" is relative. Whedon & Greenwalt had all kinds of problems. Whedon wanted to bring his pure vision of Buffy to TV & Greenwalt wanted to bring the commercially successful version of Whedon's vision to TV. Greebwalt 'championed' making Angel a vampire with a soul so he could romance Buffy, and, by putting two of the most gorgeous peoe on tv at the time together, drive ratings way up. Whedon hated both ideas, and never forgot/forgave that 20th picked Greenwalt's vision over his. The massive financial success smoothed over a lot of the rough spots, but, a lot of their getting along was Hollywood acting for the employees & public.
ATS made their disputes worse. Greenwalt was an unsuccessful showrunner (Profitt lasted 5 eps) who wanted to prove himself. Whedon was a control freak. Greenwalt expected to be THE showrunner (I believe they used the term Chief Producer back then) for ATS while Whedon expected him to be a kind of super line producer. Then the whole Tim Minear & pay cut & Greewalt quit.
So, they got on, but, didn't. Both shows benefitted from the creative competition & suffered from the interpersonal disputes.
I dunno if it was as adversarial as you claimed. When the Sabrina writer said about making fun of her pregnancy in the Job interview, it seems both Whedon and Greenwalt did it.
Plus Tim Minear in his Passion of the Nerd interview basically has Greenwalt as a yes man arse kisser
There were times it was quite adversarial & times it was not. It was less adversarial in the beginning & more adversarial in the end. They had to work together & tried to make it work. It helped that they were both making a lot of money.
Nevertheless, Whedon & Greenwalt had a very rocky relationship for many reasons. Several of the big reasons included Whedon's total inexperience in running a tv show & reluctance to listen to people who did know (Greenwalt had been a showrunner before), Greenwalt being 20th's choice for deputy showrunner (not Whedon's) & how much showrunning Greenwalt would be allowed to do on ATS.
I am not sure I would trust Minear on Greenwalt. Minear was one of Whedon's favorites & really didn't care to be under Greenwalt. However, Minear is a really good writer & I like alot of his stuff.
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Carpe Spuffy!
Many years go, I would have said argued that no, and said that more episodes of Buffy is better than less episodes of Buffy... but now? I'd agree with you.
Joss has said he designed the series to end with that finale, and had no plans beyond it, which explains why the later reasons are so...well, frankly strange.
As a die hard Spuffy fan, I can't complain about all the content between these two in the later seasons. And S6 is my favorite season. But? From a overall perspective, I can say that yes it should have ended with the S5 finale. Buffy was finished, she'd done her job and like you say, made the ultimate sacrifice. She could rest. The story had been told, and well.
Of course there are some great stand alone episodes in S7, but overall it's not great.
The phrase "Love Interest" was Network. It was referring to the extremely effective online campaign to bring Buffy & Spike together as a couple.
UPN, paying more than double what WB paid for Buffy was desperate to bring the ratings up to justify the ad rate increases needed to cover the cost & saw Buffy with Spike as the new Buffy & Angel. As Bangel massively goosed the ratings (and, more importantly, the ad rates) in s2, so would Spuffy in s6..... at least, that was the theory....