"The End of Mutant Enemy" - A Work In Progress

[feena191]

The Archers is the world’s longest running radio serial, & started nationally in the UK in January 1951. It goes out 6 days a week on Radio 4, and they’ve broadcast more than 13,500 episodes. It’s based around the lives of the people who live in a village called Ambridge. At the height of its popularity apparently it was estimated that 60% of adult Britons were regular listeners.



Feena

-x-

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The Maestro says it's Mozart

but it sounds like bubble gum


Leonard Cohen (Waiting for the Miracle)

[BBOvenGuy]

Two little pieces to add today.



The first part fits into the middle of what I posted last time, right after the general comments about Erosion and right before I get into the discussion about how individual characters can harden and erode:

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Another sign was the way the Buffy universe has shrunk down around the main characters over the years. The Sunnydale High of the first three seasons was rich in recurring characters and guest characters. We saw classes, athletics and drama. We saw teachers, students and counselors. In Season 4, we saw the same details in the background of UC Sunnydale - dormitories, classrooms, fraternity houses and a general sense of campus life. By the middle of Season 5, though, all that began to disappear.



By Season 6, it began to look more like Buffy and her friends lived their lives inside a bubble. Xander worked in construction, but we rarely heard much about it. We never saw the same people working with him twice, and the only references to any friends he had was one mention and one appearance by a plumber named Tito. Likewise, we never saw the same people working with Buffy at the Doublemeat Palace, nor did we ever see any regular customers or hired help at the Magic Box. There was only one friend of Dawn’s that we heard about more than once, and that friend only appeared on-camera once. It was as if Sunnydale had become little more than a painted backdrop to keep viewers from seeing the equipment behind it.



In Season 7, there have been plenty of new characters added, but they’ve done little to restore the rich texture of Buffy’s earlier seasons. Apart from Principal Wood, the new Sunnydale High has quickly faded into the painted backdrop. Buffy’s house has been filled with “Potentials” - young women training to be the next Slayer - but they’re depicted mostly as a single large mass, not as individuals with different roles to play. With only one or two exceptions, in fact, the Potentials are so interchangeable that members of the group have disappeared for entire episodes, seemingly without anyone even noticing they were gone.

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And this next bit continues on from the end of my last installment:

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Before we move on, there’s one more example of format turning into formula that I’d like to examine, and that’s the recurring “surprise twist” of turning familiar characters into evil villains.



The first time this happened was, of course, when Angel lost his soul and became Angelus in Season 2. It was a shocking turn of events. The impact on the audience was enormous. To this day, many people still regard it as the best storyline of the entire series. Mutant Enemy made lightning strike a second time in Season 3, when Faith the Slayer changed sides and went to work for Mayor Wilkins. In this case, Mutant Enemy’s success was rooted in developing the storyline gradually, so that we came to know Faith and could see the motivations that would lead her to such a decision.



But over time, Hardening of the Arteries and Erosion have worn away that long, careful story development process. Characters have been turning evil not through gradual sequences of events but rather simply because it was their turn to fit into the “evil” slot in the same hardened storyline. As we’ve seen with Willow in Season 6, the means existed to turn her evil in a slow, natural storyline dealing with her insecurities and the temptations of power. This storyline was rejected in favor of a “surprise twist” that sent Willow into a rage after something happened to Tara. But we had already seen Willow go into a rage after something happened to Tara in Season 5. Mutant Enemy had become so locked into the same rigid pattern that they chose to repeat themselves rather than try something new. Consider also what Anya went through at the end of Season 6. She became a vengeance demon again after Xander left her at the altar. But we never actually saw her make the choice. We never saw her explore her feelings and her options, or weigh her familiar old demonic qualities against her newfound humanity. D’Hoffryn offered to make her a vengeance demon again, and the next time we saw her, she was a vengeance demon again, as if she had simply reacted automatically instead of choosing.



In addition to the repeated “friend turns evil” storyline, Buffy has repeatedly brought dead characters back as villains. Jenny Calendar was killed, and her persona was brought back as a disguise villains used to manipulate people. Harmony was killed and brought back as a vampire. In Season 7, the First Evil can take the form of any dead character that suits its purpose (except for Tara, because Amber Benson refused to play the part). It’s another example of a “surprise twist” that has been repeated so often that it’s no longer surprising.



As in the other cases, the cumulative effect of repeating this plot twist over and over is an erosion of the audience size. But this particular instance can have an especially withering impact on the viewers. Again, imagine the characters of a TV show as guests coming into someone’s home on a weekly or daily basis. Effectively, they present themselves as a family unit, or at least a group of friends. The first time they start fighting and beating each other up, the host might be willing forgive the incident as simply something that happened on a bad day. By the second or third time, the host might consider suggesting a therapist or counselor. If the fighting continues, the host will start to think about inviting a different group over to visit in the future.

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Up next, I delve into the Joss Whedon total-depression-and-pain philosophy. I just have to figure out how thoroughly I have to build my case before I point the finger at Joss specifically.

"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up." - Ursula K. LeGuin

[gspiggott]

You raise some good points , but this feels a little underdeveloped compared to the earlier part. I always thought one of the glaring weaknesses of season sux was that JW didn't have a lot of experience with the things he wanted to write about like jobs, money troubles etc. While he imagined the high school world in such detail , he couldn't bring the same level of interest or experience to life after high school.You don't have to stomp grapes to know what wine tastes like, but one of the frequent criticisms levelled at Hollywood is how far removed they are from depicting everyday life in a realistic way.Xander's rise in construction is typical of this, unless he has mob backing it's unlikely his recently formed company would get juicy contracts to rebuild a public school. Unless he had a minority partner(cough).

You might want to mention the incident with Robia LaMorte where JW wasn't exactly on the level with her about what her character's role was. It's the same pattern later on with JM and the chip/soul question and wanting Amber to come back to torment Willow.

In all honesty it's the next part I really want to read, and maybe that's the part you really want to write.Good stuff as always.

[TemperedCynic]

Quote:

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Up next, I delve into the Joss Whedon total-depression-and-pain philosophy. I just have to figure out how thoroughly I have to build my case before I point the finger at Joss specifically.

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Bob, I would submit that if JW did not create and support the total-depression-and-pain-philosophy-with-a-few-snarky-comments-thrown-in, then his position in ME makes him ultimately responsible. JW obviously thought well enough about the idea to support it for seven seasons. No matter the outcome, it's his burden to bear.

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More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. Woody Allen (1935 - )

[BBOvenGuy]

Quote:

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In all honesty it's the next part I really want to read, and maybe that's the part you really want to write.

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It is, gspiggott, and some of the points you raise are things I can cover there. Today was basically tying up a couple of loose ends before moving on.



The repetition of the plot twist where the good guys turn evil and start beating on each other is my segue into the amoral nihilist attitude that's at the root of Mutant Enemy's problem. I gave it a quick going-over as a way of establishing the situation with something everyone can recognize. Now I have to figure out how to get at what lurks beneath that.



And wouldn't it have been interesting if Xander did have mob backing to get those big contracts? How come we're so much better at thinking up decent episodes than Mutant Enemy is?

"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up." - Ursula K. LeGuin

Edited by: BBOvenGuy  at: 3/15/03 5:27:24 pm

[dekalog]

Hi Bob

I'm really enjoying this, and am glad to hear what I think will be my favorite part - is up next.



Something about your discussion of Sunnydale used as backdrop really reminded me of something else that really bugs me about the show now - believability in that backdrop. When they were in high school - I felt they were in high school, Snider (sp?) acted like a principal (looked and was the right age too) - even for lack of background characters in season 5 at least I could believe that they were in university, and that Xander had somehow got a construction job (with no experience/apprenticeship), but this season especially there have been a number of things that have just screamed at me *do not look behind the curtain - I am the great and powerful Oz*. I could never in a million years believe that Xander could be the head of a construction firm so soon, I could never believe that Buffy could get (not to mention be allowed to be) a counselor.



Believability would also get into why I can't seem to kill enough brain cells to forget what the writer's have - Faith is the Chosen One, Principal Wood could not be the age he is if he were the child of the slayer who died in the seventies, and, and, and.....



I guess what I'm saying is that the background (especially in high school) grounded the show and allowed the fantasy and metaphors to run wild. Without the grounding in reality (the new background of SIT's are part of the fantasy world) the show has no stable ground to stand on, and this is just one of the many reason's that ME can't build anything.



Sorry if this doesn't make sense - you just really hit a nerve with the background thing.

[Hair Annoyed]

Dekalog, I am right there with you on the background grounding the show. In fact, I think that the realness of those sorts of little details is especially important in a fantasy show. In a world where demons roam the earth, the humans must act even more realistically then on a show like The Gilmore Girls. I think this quote from the Jane Espenson interview (on page 99 of the Media Pieces thread) is telling:

Quote:

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...I feel like I'm only just now learning some of the lessons. The lessons being this is not about the logical moves that you need to have the characters make to get from the beginning to the end of this story. It is about the emotional steps they have to go through and the logic is just a thing that happens while they are doing it.

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Now it seems that the writers have learned this lesson a little too well, so much so that logic is no longer "a thing that happens."



This is something completely different and somewhat off-topic, but I don't know where else to put it. It just seems to highlight, for me anyway, one of the problems with the format of the show: the need to top what they did the previous year until one year they just go too far. These are exerpts from a movie review in the March 3rd issuse of Newsweek. I should warn you it gets a little graphic.

Quote:

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How Far Is Too Far?

by David Ansen



Except for those who insis that films should only be escapist froth, most of us go to the movies expecting a degree of unpleasantness. Horror movies are the most obvious example, but the more sophisticated moviegoer also finds pleasure in movies meant to challange, disturb, shock and even sicken. But at what point does the challenging become the unbearable? Even a movie as well mannered as "The Hours" strikes one faction of the audience as an intolerable downer. Others, of the No Pain No Gain school, think a movie should be appalling if it is making a serious statement about violence. Still others believe shocking the bourgeoisie - the razor slicing an eyeball in Bunuel's 1928 "Un Chien Andalou" - is and esthetic strategy that never wears out its unwelcoming welcome.



The line between are and abuse, between what's bracingly unflinching and what's simply unbearable is always shifting. Every few years another movie comes along that pushes the limits of what audiences can endure.



[snip snip]



This year the state of the art in unpleasant cinema is achieved by Gaspar Noe's already notorious "Irreversible," which opens next week. If outraged viewers (mostly women) at the Cannes Film Festival are any indication, this will be the most walked-out-of movie of 2003. This revenge story, told backward, opens with a nightmarishly intense sequence in a gay Parisian S&M club called The Rectum that ends with a man's face being bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher. The piece de resistance, however, is an almost-10-minute-long rape scene in a pedestian underpass in which a pimp violates Monica Bellucci while slamming her bloodied head against the concrete over and over. TIME DESTROYS EVERYTHING, the movie tells us in portentous billboards - the seeming moral of the story. Maybe so, but as the brutal scene went on and on it wasn't metaphysics I was wondering about, but WHY DO I HAVE TO WATCH THIS?



Noe is in love with shock. His powerful first feature, "I Stand Alone," took us inside the mind of a racist, boorish butcher who sleeps with his own daughter. It wasn't easy to watch, but it illuminated a psycological and social landscape I hadn't seen before, and its artistry transcended its sordid details. "Irreversible," though, takes an adolescent pride in its own ugliness. The first film told me something about the world; this one tells me more than I want to know about the calculating mind of its maker.

[snip]

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Obviously, the standards for movies are very different then they are for network television, but it surprised me how similar this seemed to what went on last year on Buffy and our reaction to it. I would never even consider seeing a movie like this; I was disgusted just reading about it. But even though the violence on Buffy seemed to get a little worse/more graphic each year, it was never more than I could handle until they pushed the shock value way over the top. It wasn't just the darkness and depression of last season that turned me off, it was the grossness of it all. And the fact they did it during the early evening "family hour" just made it worse.

[Dave V]

Bob, like dekalog, the background thing also struck a chord with me.



You mention classic Star Trek, and the same thing happened there. In a 1st season episode like Balance of Terror (the return of the Romulans) , the starship Enterprise had an actual crew. Not only was there a crowd of extras (multi-ethnic, and both male and female), they had stuff to do and lives that propelled the main story arc. The ship's weapons had entire gun crews to serve them. There was a (non-denomenational) chapel and people got married in them. You could hear all the different parts of the ship on Uhura's comm-net. By season 3, the ship's complement was the core cast plus whatever red-shirt had to die, and almost every ship's function was performed on the bridge.



Likewise, the focus of BtVS has simultaneously been narrowed, with the absence of the Sunnydale backdrop, and has also been diluted, with the core actors' screentime having to be shared with all the residents of The Hotel Summers.

Edited by: Dave V at: 3/16/03 4:40:55 am

[kajo 2000]

BBOvenGuy: I really like what you have written so far.



I just came across this quote at Joss's Stakehouse:

Quote:

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"Ultimately, stories come from violence, they come from sex. They come from death. They come from the dark places that everybody has to go to. . . . If you raise a kid to think everything is sunshine and flowers, they're going to get into the real world and die. . . . That's the reason fairy tales are so creepy, because we need to encapsulate these things, to inoculate ourselves against them, so that when we're confronted by the genuine horror that is day-to-day life we don't go insane." -- Joss Whedon, Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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I'm not sure of the origin of these comments but I thought they might be of some use to you as they help to explain JW's way of thinking.

Edited by: kajo 2000 at: 3/16/03 5:54:55 am

[feena191]

That's a scary but explains-a-lot way of thinking he has.



Joss quotes



This site lists quite a few Joss quotes, & gives credit for this one to 'Longworth 213', but I don't know what that is yet



kajo you are a true star for articles - I see a thread with your name on it & I go straight there first



Feena

-x-



ETA The page is from a paper given at that Buffy Conference at the University of East Anglia, UK last year



A Religion in Narrative: Joss Whedon and Television Creativity



From bibliography : “Joss Whedon: Feminist.” TV Creators: Conversations with America’s Top Producers of Television Drama, Volume 2. Ed. James L. Longworth. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002: 197-220.



Edited again The site Slayage - On-Line Journal of Buffy Studies has a lot of Buffy-love essays, several I think from that conference. It says they "welcome proposals or completed essays on any aspect of BtVS" - it would be interesting to know if they accept essays criticising aspects of BtVS

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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.


Groucho Marx

Edited by: feena191  at: 3/16/03 7:00:19 am

[kajo 2000]

feena191 said:

Quote:

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This site lists quite a few Joss quotes, & gives credit for this one to 'Longworth 213', but I don't know what that is yet

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Thanks for those links - the quote in my previous post seems to come from an interview given to James Longworth for his book:



Review of TV Creators: Conversations with America's Top Producers of Television Drama, Volume Two, by James Longworth, Jr. - Syracuse University Press, 2002.



The section of the book devoted to Joss Whedon seems to be on pages 197 to 220 so I think 'Longworth 213' just means that the quote is taken from page 213 of Longworth's book.



Thanks for tracking that down for me.

Edited by: kajo 2000 at: 3/16/03 11:06:36 am

[feena191]

oh..I get that now And you're welcome, but like I said you've got an amazing knack for finding all the articles & quotes in the first place



Feena

-x-

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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.


Groucho Marx

[ready4scully]

Somewhat random thought-I don't know what Bob or others may think of this, but-would it be fair, or perhaps, logical-to say that Buffy suffered as much from Joss being involved in the show, to his absence and handing the reins over to Marti and the other show writers? I guess I'm referring to his great blinding vision for Tara's death, among other things...just a thought.



And good points with your essay so far, Bob!



Justin

"Atticus, he was real nice..."

"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them." ~To Kill A Mockingbird

[BBOvenGuy]

Quote:

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would it be fair, or perhaps, logical-to say that Buffy suffered as much from Joss being involved in the show, to his absence and handing the reins over to Marti and the other show writers?

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Oh, absolutely, Justin. And thanks to you guys who posted the quotes!



I remember talking to Xita about this last spring at one of the location shoots - people blame Marti for the disaster that Buffy has become, but it's really more Joss's fault than anyone else.



And as for Joss's comment about needing to tell stories about death and sex and violence, we've got that recent quote from Dick Wolf, where he basically says you have to remember to entertain people, because they're not going to stick around just to hear a message. Remember how Joss has been saying he's never going to do three shows in the same year again? Well, Dick Wolf has four shows on the air, three of which dominate their time slots - and they're all about death and sex and violence, too. So clearly he must know something that Joss doesn't.

"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up." - Ursula K. LeGuin

Edited by: BBOvenGuy  at: 3/16/03 2:03:59 pm

[Sheridan]

As you say Bob Keeping multiple shows on the air is possible. But surely the key is to lay down a structure and not constantly mess with it. That way you can slot in writers directors and producers to take over the day to day running of things without wrecking the shows. Joss may think of what he's done as evolving the shows but it comes across more as change for changes sake.

Willow: ...I have to tell you....

Tara: No, I understand you have to be with the person you l-love

Willow: I am

[BBOvenGuy]

Hey, folks. I'm getting ready to write my next segment, but I have a favor to ask first:



Can someone who watched Firefly give me a rundown of the "Jossian Vision Moments" that happened in the show? You know what I mean - "good guys" turning evil or fighting/betraying each other, sympathetic characters getting pounded on, etc. I know there were some, but I don't want to go looking through the whole Firefly thread to find them. Any examples you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up." - Ursula K. LeGuin

[mscheckmate]

The one time I attempted to watch Firefly, the first scene I saw was perfectly Joss: Mal had apparently just lied to another character, telling him that a female crew member had died, when she was actually injured, but alive. Mal and several crew members were laughing about the other crew member's devastated reaction to the "news" that the woman had died. I believe Mal said something like, "You should have seen his face when I told him."



I'm sorry that I can't remember any of the other characters' names, or the name of the episode. But, anyway, that scene epitomized the gratuitous cruelty that seems to be a part of Joss' vision.

It'll be the train, Walter, just the way you want it. Straight down the line.

Edited by: mscheckmate at: 3/25/03 10:58:50 am

[BBOvenGuy]

That was in the original pilot. It was the only time I laughed during the entire original pilot - and that was something of a rueful laugh at how obnoxious Joss was being. Oh yes, that will be mentioned.



I'd heard about other incidents in the regular episodes, though, so I'm hoping someone can fill me in.

"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up." - Ursula K. LeGuin

[Culzean]

In a later episode, Jayne sold out the Doctor and his psychic sister for a ransom. Due a series of unexpected events, he ended up helping them escape from a hospital.



Later, Mal locked Jayne up in one of the rooms on the ship and threatened to open an airlock and kill him because he'd figured out what Jayne had done. Jayne was sufficiently apologetic and Mal let him out, but the death threat remained should Jayne ever turn on any member of the crew again.



If you want to see a more thorough episode summary, I just googled and found this:



www.fox.com/firefly/



That's the official Firefly site. The episode is called Ariel.



As I recall, Jayne would frequently make comments about leaving people behind when the going got rough, but Mal was always into defending his crew, whether he personally liked them or not.



I'm not sure that Firefly was on long enough to get the full benefit of Joss's vision. The overall concept of the series, with the "we're all alone and the Universe sucks" is pure Joss, but I can't think of many specific examples. I'm not sure if that is due to my "over 40" memory or to the fact that most of the episodes were not all that memorable.



Had this program been on longer I'm sure we would have seen an episode where everybody loses their memory, that the second season would have started out with a Little Bad followed by a surprise Big Bad, and that by the fourth season the Big Bad would shockingly turn out to be a member of the crew.



Ah...the drama we missed.

[Blue Pariah]

If you need examples I can find a bunch of them. Here's one off the top of my head:



At the end of the episode The Train Job Mal and the Mal-Contents have beaten a bunch of hench-men, including the Heavily-Tatooed-Head-Hench-Guy. Serenity's engine is revved up and the crew is about to make a Rapid-Skeedaddle-From-A-Place-That-Is-Suddenly-Too-Hot-For-Them.



Now, the hench-men are lined up outside the ship. They have been disarmed and their hands are bound behind their backs. Mal comes out and does a rapid Everything-Is-Even-So-There-Is-No-Reason-To-Come-After-Us speech. Of course the Heavily-Tatooed-Head-Hench-Guy doesn't much care for this, so he rants about how he'll track Mal to the ends of the universe to get his revenge and on and on.



So Mal shoves him into one of Serenity's jet engines.



He is UNARMED AND BOUND.



Needless to say, the rest of the hench-men are willing to let by-gones be by-gones.



So this scene is played for all the shock and horror that would be apropriate for such an occurance, right?



Its played for laughs!!!!



Oooo! You think Heavily-Tatooed-Hench-Guy is going to be a major recurring villian, but instead he dies in his first episode! How funny and ironic!



And look how the rest of the hench-men are falling over themselves to agree with Mal!



I guess we were just supposed to conveniently forget the COLD-BLOODED MURDER that the supposed HERO OF THE SHOW commited FIVE SECONDS AGO.



I'm sorry for the shouting, but this scene is just vile.

I take to shade and I play in the shadows
I watch my back and I play it cool
"Blue Pariah" by BRJ

[jixer]

Hello Kittens-



Everyone knows the actors and we'll be able to see their future easily as it plays out. I'm wondering what's going to happen to the writers ME groomed during this final triple header of failure. Will the taint of a failed production company stick to them? Will there be a future pigeonhole with the label 'worked for ME, keep on a tight leash' in their future? Will Fox ever take another ME project? Personally I'm not sure BtVS will be dead until Fox buys out JW's contract.



On a seperate note what happened to the stunt people who made S1-4 so good? Where did they end up? Didn't they try to warn people about the great and glorious Joss?



Just wondering.



Jixer

[feena191]

Jeff Pruitt's The Parable of the Knight



I think he was sacked & then his fiancee Sophia Crawford (Buffy's stunt double) resigned shortly after.



Feena

-x-



edited to add

I found another site with a record of JP's posts like they do in the The Bronze Archive, but it doesn't say that it's from there (edited again to say, I think it was from there, I seem vaguely to remember he posted continuously over a day or so. It only gives his replies, so I don't know what the original comment was.

Quote:

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Mon May 22 13:18:30 2000

Dark Lady - I don't know if you are talking about the Willow/Tara thing or not. I wasn't here for that. But I would only say one thing there (and I pray to God this doesn't send a million attacks my way) since I never got to put my own feelings on that out there.



The Willow/Tara relationship was really the only time that I've seen anything on tv that sort of represented some of the relationships of some of my own friends. I mean, I've seen the whole "Look we're two hot chicks. Don't we excite you?" deal from BASIC INSTINCT. And I also have seen the "club kid" representation and the whole "sleep around" thing. But I've never really seen a REAL couple represented. You know the kind I mean? The people who simply love each other. But I saw it that night on BUFFY.



That's all. Please don't flame me. My clothes are still smoking from the last batch.



[...]



And also Amber is very sweet indeed. You are right about that.



[...]



Didn't anyone hear me when I said that Willow likes girls. She really, really does. Well, okay, one girl. But it's a nice girl. On and off the set

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what a sweetie

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The inward eye, the sightless sea, Ayala flows through the river in me...

Edited by: feena191  at: 3/27/03 3:01:48 pm

[BBOvenGuy]

Okay, I've got another one for you archive-y types.



I have this memory of a recent interview with a Mutant Enemy type who said something like, "People always think Joss is about the humor, but he's not. He's about emotion and pain." I know I'm not quoting exactly, but I think I'm in the right ballpark. It was some statement that implied the happy joking Buffy of the early seasons was not the "real" Joss.



Maybe I'm imaginging such a quote because it would be the perfect way to tie my essay together. I hope I'm not imagining it, though - because it would be the perfect way to tie my essay together.



Can anyone help out here?

"The first task of anyone, lest you get canceled, is to entertain people, because they ain't there for message." - Dick Wolf

[Orion132]

Sorry, I can't help you out there BBOVEN GUY, but it's funny you mention that. Just yesterday I was thinking that based on the sudden change from seasons 1-5 to the last 2 seasons (and the sudden drop in quality too) that it was almost as if a different person had been responsible for them. Guess Joss finally showed his true colours....

[gspiggott]

Bob, it was Little Timmy Minear explaining that Jossie was not just a writer of witty dialogue but someone who rips out your heart and stomps on it.I think those were his words. And on the Fruitfly front ,the episode where Mal's ear got whacked off was gratuitous in the extreme. Actually the other ep with the sinister Russian space mafia was too. Overall it was the tone of the show , so snide and so dark just like season sux Buffy.Does your hardening of the arteries book talk about George Stevens?

[BBOvenGuy]

gspiggott gets the prize!



After some searching, I found the article it came from. It's about Firefly:

Quote:

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"I think what FOX thought they were buying was a dram-edy They didn't understand Firefly; they also maybe didn't understand what Joss does. They thought he was known for witty lines, but what he's really known for is ripping your heart out and stomping on it."

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And here we see the heart of the problem - Tim doesn't say what Joss is good at. He says what Joss is known for. I think a big part of Mutant Enemy's failure is that Joss has been looking in the mirror and mistaking what he sees for what others see. Personally, I think Joss really was known for witty lines more than anything else, but he decided he was all about the pain instead. Hence the disconnect that has brought the ratings crashing down.



Okay, ready to write now... and can someone please come up with that evil rubbing-hands-together smiley???

"The first task of anyone, lest you get canceled, is to entertain people, because they ain't there for message." - Dick Wolf

[BBOvenGuy]

Okay, one more - does anyone know where to dig up that quote of Joss talking about how "beautiful" he thought it was to show everyone gathering around Tara in Family when he knew she was going to die? Yeah, I know it's a really bad quote. That's why I'm looking for it.



Thanks!

"The first task of anyone, lest you get canceled, is to entertain people, because they ain't there for message." - Dick Wolf

[Pipsqueak]

Okay, so I read your question and thought "that's not too hard, I'll just Google the quote and find out where it came from". That was 45 minutes ago. Heh. I would also like to take this opportunity to say that the EZBoard search feature sucks big fat monkey dick.



Anyway, the quote is from Starburst magazine, issue #292. There aren't any complete transcripts available on the Web (not that I could find, anyway), but here is the relevant section:



pub106.ezboard.com/ftheki...&stop=1227

Live each day as if it were your last; and one day, you'll be right.
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[BBOvenGuy]

Thanks Pipsqueak!



Okay, here's what I wrote last night. My plan is to pick up and continue today, so we'll see if I can push ahead.

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Looking back over Buffy’s history, most viewers have little trouble identifying the show’s major turning point - the point in the series where the elements of decay we’ve been discussing manifested itself in a highly visible fashion. Most viewers will point to somewhere in the middle of the sixth season, when Buffy was perpetually depressed, Willow was perpetually an addict, and so on. (It can be argued that this turning point actually happened much earlier, but we’ll get to that in a minute.) Many viewers pin the blame for the show’s dark turn on Marti Noxon, who was running the show on a day-to-day basis while Joss was working on Firefly. But is that blame deserved? The evidence suggests otherwise.



First of all, placing the blame on Marti Noxon doesn’t explain why the same plot elements that have shown up on Buffy time after time have shown up on Joss Whedon’s other two shows as well. Consider what we’ve seen there.



Angel is only in its fourth season, but already we’ve seen Angel turn to the dark side in Season 2, Wesley and Connor turn to the dark side in Season 3, and Cordelia turn to the dark side in Season 4 - along with Angel for a second time. We’ve seen Angel try to kill Wesley, Wesley try to kill Fred, and Connor try to kill Angel, or at least abandon him at the bottom of the ocean. In both Buffy Season 7 and Angel Season 4, we’ve seen the idea that the only way to defeat a powerful force of evil is to become a more powerful force of evil - “It’s about the power,” not about right and wrong.



Meanwhile, even though Firefly ran for only a few episodes, that was enough for the same plot elements to show up there as well. The show was barely halfway through its controversial original pilot episode when Kaylee - one of the most sympathetic characters - was shot and shown writhing on the deck in agony. In a later scene we saw the crew having a big laugh because Captain Mal had tricked Simon the doctor (and the audience) into thinking Kaylee was dead. Just a few episodes later, we saw Jayne sell out Simon and his sister for a ransom, and later in that episode Mal locked Jayne up and threatened to blow him out an airlock for doing it. It’s not hard to imagine that if Firefly had been allowed to continue, it would have soon fallen into the same repetitive pattern as its fellow Mutant Enemy shows.



But there’s an even simpler way to see that the blame for Buffy’s dark turn doesn’t belong on Marti Noxon - and that’s to look at things Joss Whedon himself has said. Consider a few examples. First, in explaining Firefly to New York Times reporter Emily Nussbaum, he described his main character Mal this way:



This is a man who has learned that when he believed in something it destroyed him, so what he believes in is the next job, the next paycheck and keeping his crew safe ... he's a guy who looks into the void and sees nothing but the void -- and says there is no moral structure, there is no help, no one's coming, no one gets it, I have to do it.



Something similar could be said about Buffy over the past two seasons. With her mother dead and her father absent, abandoned by Giles and the Watchers Council (you’d think they’d have at least tried to send a replacement for Giles, even if Buffy refused one), and toward the end of Season 7 even rejected by her sister, her friends and the Potentials she feels responsible for, Buffy too finds herself standing alone in a void. Angel has gone through similar times as well.



Next, consider what he said in his section of the 2002 Syracuse University Press book, TV Creators: Conversations with America’s Top Producers of Television Drama, edited by James L. Longworth:



Ultimately, stories come from violence, they come from sex. They come from death. They come from the dark places that everybody has to go to... If you raise a kid to think everything is sunshine and flowers, they’re going to get into the real world and die... That’s the reason fairy tales are so creepy, because we need to encapsulate these things, to inoculate ourselves against them, so that when we’re confronted by the genuine horror that is day-to-day life we don’t go insane...



Or consider what Tim Minear told TheIndependentReviewsSite.org writer Victor Infante during an interview about the cancellation of Firefly:



I think what FOX thought they were buying was a dram-edy. They didn't understand Firefly; they also maybe didn't understand what Joss does. They thought he was known for witty lines, but what he's really known for is ripping your heart out and stomping on it.



This last quote is particularly telling. Granted, it does match something Joss said in his interview for The Onion AV Club:



The best advice [my father] ever gave me... was, “If you have a good story, you don’t need jokes. If you don’t have a good story, no amount of jokes can save you.” I’m not really that interested in jokes. I like the more dramatic stuff.



But Tim Minear goes a step farther, trying to identify what Joss is “known for” - that is to say, how the public perceives him and his writing style. In Tim Minear’s view, Joss is “known for” exactly what Joss himself says he wants to write - in other words, the public has the same view of Joss that Joss has of himself. But is that really true?



The fact is, to a great many people, witty lines were exactly what Joss was “known for,” at least through Buffy’s early years. Buffy herself was known the way Sarah Michelle Gellar saw her - “You want to see her killing vampires and making quips.” The show was being marketed to a teenage audience, through novelizations and original novels written at the middle-grade and young adult levels, as well as comic books and action figures. Stories written for such an audience are seldom about violence, sex and death - or at least not in as grim and graphic a fashion as we’ve seen in more recent Buffy seasons. Even in the past year, UPN has tried - unsuccessfully - to depict Buffy as a comedy in its promotional campaigns. Episodes as dark as “Normal Again” and “Seeing Red” have been made to look humorous by taking clips out of context and giving them tongue-in-cheek narration. Similarly, FOX tried to promote Firefly through humor, including one promo that featured the clip of the Serenity crew all laughing at the trick Mal played on Simon.



It’s true that the early seasons of Buffy contained plenty of violence, sex and death - as well as tragedy and grief - but it was all exaggerated and stylized, and wrapped in symbol and metaphor. The fantasy format of the show allowed serious subjects to be disguised in ways that made them easier to handle. There was also balance - in times when Buffy and Angel were having trouble, for example, Willow and Oz or Xander and Cordelia were usually doing well. And even if all the couples were in trouble at once, the basic friendship between Buffy, Willow and Xander was intact, and they had Giles watching over them. There was no time when all the characters and all the relationships were in a state of ruin at the same time.



And then, of course, there were the jokes. Even when things were at their worst in the early seasons, someone could be counted on to come up with a joke sooner or later. That hasn’t been true in more recent seasons. One of the complaints leveled against Marti Noxon’s handling of Season 6 was that with Joss off creating Firefly, the show lost its sense of humor. But according to Joss, “If you have a good story, you don’t need jokes.” What then can we conclude from the fans’ complaints?



Clearly there’s a disconnect somewhere, a conflict of perceptions and expectations. If “FOX thought they were buying a dram-edy” when they picked up Firefly, they had to have reasons for that belief. Gail Berman, the FOX executive who green-lighted Firefly, was the same executive who originally gave Buffy its start. She was hardly someone unfamiliar with Joss and his work.



So what happened? Has Joss really been more about ripping out hearts than delivering witty lines? If so, then why didn’t anyone notice for all those years? And if not, then when did he change?

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Naturally, the next thing I'm going to do is answer the questions in the final paragraph of this installment. That's what I'm off to work on now.

"The first task of anyone, lest you get canceled, is to entertain people, because they ain't there for message." - Dick Wolf

[feena191]

It's wonderful I can really see how you're pulling it all together.



If it’s not too late, another Tim Minear quote for you Bob. It’s in an article by Allyson, who I think is know as being a Joss-lover.



As a word of caution, her manner of talking about Tara’s death is not particulary nice.



Bring It On, Baby: Kings of Pain by Allyson 9/26/2002

Quote:

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...the Kings of Pain: David Fury ([]BtVS[/i] Co-Executive Producer), Steve DeKnight (Angel Producer), Joss Whedon (BtVS, Angel, and Firefly creator),



[…]



They’re simultaneously friendly, gracious, and brutal – and why not? Would we want them to be public relations cyborgs? We’re talking about the people who slaughter and maim and torture our favorite characters, week after blissfully bloody week.



These are twisted shows in which the heroes sometimes go bad and eat people, or send their lovers to Hell. Hey, didn’t Buffy watch herself get drawn and quartered by a group of gang-raping demon bikers in the season six premiere? You think the minds that gave you that image are going to be fuzzy wuzzy huggle wuv bears?



[…]



Take Tim Minear, for example. The man knows no mercy. In a May 15, 2002, Zap2it interview, the Moppet of Mayhem is quoted as saying:



"There will be an occasional happy, so that it might be crushed under the boot of the writer."



[…]



And still, some fans react with venom when [...reference to W/T…]. What shows have these people been watching? For those just tuning in: If you really, genuinely, love a character, and that character appears to be having a moment of joy, expect that the character will be beaten to death with their own spleen.

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Feena

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The inward eye, the sightless sea, Ayala flows through the river in me...