16 Great TV Shows, Part 11: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Part 1: The Wonder Years
Part 2: The Simpsons
Part 3: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Part 4: Seinfeld
Part 5: The John Larroquette Show
Part 6: ER
Part 7: Newsradio
Part 8: The X-Files
Part 9: Law & Order
Part 10: Homicide: Life on the Street

To discuss the next show on my list, I have to offer a few confessions.

It was the late 90s, and I was well on my way to becoming a TV snob. Having discovered "adult" dramas like ER, L&O and Homicide, I had little interest in ANY sort of teen soaps built around relationship dramas and the oh-so-intense problems of pretty privileged people. (Stop laughing. I'm being 100% sincere in my dismissal at the time.)

Try convincing THAT guy to watch a teen drama called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," based on a painfully bad movie that died at the box office years ago. It didn't help that this was a show on The WB, which to that point was the terrible low brow home of such TV VD as Unhappily Ever After and Kirk. I ran from it like the plague, even after seeing a blurb or two in Entertainment Weekly about how it was "The Best Show You're Not Watching."

This is how my mother came to be a Buffy viewer before I did. I got exposed secondhand... but that viewing of "Inca Mummy Girl" did little to change my mind. It wasn't until I heard the hype about how the season two finale ended that I made it a priority to check out the rerun of that two-parter just before season three started. Angelus running amok, a second Slayer killed, Buffy forced to send a suddenly-good Angel to hell? I was hooked.

And then somehow Season 3 got even better. By then I was a freshman in college and Buffy was THE hot show in the dorms. It was the perfect show in the perfect environment at the perfect time. The dialog was witty, the characters were fun, and we were all still at the age where the metaphors of "High school is hell" still resonated. I've written before about how Season 3 of Buffy is one of the perfect seasons of television and I still stand by it. It pulls off a number of clever twists, like a major villain switcharoo mid-season. It justifies WHY our heroes and villains find themselves in holding patterns during the last third of the season, and it has one of my favorite "fall from grace" stories as Faith goes from ally to enemy.

And somewhere in all this I realized, "Holy shit! This is a superhero show and a coming of age drama all in one!" You can draw a straight line from Buffy to Alias to the excellent Greg Berlanti-produced superhero shows of the present day. This is why you won't find favorites of mine like Supergirl and The Flash on the list later. Both shows do their own thing, but when it came time to make hard choices, I couldn't dispute they were walking a trail that Buffy had blazed. (That said, I give those shows a LOT of credit for daring to put their leads in actual superhero costumes.)

That was one of the big lessons from Buffy, that one COULD translate the fun of the comic books I read into a TV series and not have to treat it entirely campy. At the time Lois & Clark was the most recent superhero show on TV and BATMAN & ROBIN was our most recent major superhero tentpole - both of which took the approach of somewhat mocking the material. Buffy lived inside its genre, while still being able to poke fun at the conventions of such a show. It never showed contempt for its audience or its mythology. It took the rules of its world deadly seriously and the irreverence came from the characters' reactions to the absurdity they encountered.

It was a tonal high-wire act, managing to be laugh-out-loud funny without sacrificing intensity. The show could tell a story one week about Angelus stalking and psychologically torturing Buffy, even killing one of her close friends, and then next week tell a silly story about a spell gone wrong that makes everyone fall in love with Xander... and both felt wholly appropriate to the series. It was a big lesson in the elasticity of the genre. Sure, The X-Files sometimes abandoned its deadly-serious tone for a goofy episode like "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," but what Buffy pulled off was on another level and it varied its tone far more frequently.

Creator Joss Whedon knew how to use the fans' expectations of the genre against them. There's an episode called "The Wish," (written by Marti Noxon) where Cordellia wishes that Buffy never came to Sunnydale. Instantly she finds herself in an alternate timeline where the town has been overrun by vampires for years and she's the only one who knows how it's supposed to be. She spends the first half of the episode shocked by the changes and trying to get help from alternate timeline versions of Giles and her friends. And then the show breaks a major "rule." Cordillia - the person who seemingly has to put everything right - gets killed. It was one of those "I can't believe they just did that! How do they get out of this?" moments. It was the kind of thing Buffy regularly did - it took the step that other shows would walk up to and then sprint away from.

Another good trope subversion is in the spinoff Angel. We get what appears to be a standard exorcism episode, with Angel and his friends trying to expel a demon spirit from a little boy who has been setting fires and threatening his family's lives. For much of the episode, it appears the tension is drawn from the fact the boy's parents don't realize Angel's a vampire himself. Also, since Angel can't handle a cross without it burning him, he's forced to stay out of the exorcism... until inevitably he has to take the risk. With the demon forced out, the show hits us with an incredibly dark ending - the freed demon is relieved to be out of there. He was trying to feed on the boy's soul... but the kid was souless. The demon confirms he never manifested until Angel detected him... which means all of the ugly stuff the kid did was NOT because he was possessed. He's just a dangerous kid.

Like I said, DARK.

I considered giving Angel its own slot on the list, but when it came time for hard choices, I had to concede that Angel and Buffy were too similar to merit separate recognition. Angel's stories tended to be darker, and often were more complex. Indeed, there are stretches of the spinoff that I prefer to the parent show. Ultimately, Buffy was more versatile and it made the impact on me first.

I've written a bunch of Buffy posts already, so be sure to check them out for more writing tips:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer's "The Body" - how to write a crying scene, part I
Buffy The Vampire Slayer's "The Body" - how to write a crying scene, part II
Buffy The Vampire Slayer's "Pangs" - PC or not PC?
Show, don't tell
My KsiteTV post: "What serialized shows like The Vampire Diaries should learn from Buffy’s third season." 
Buffy the Vampire Slayer turns 20 today! (We are all so, so old)


Part 12: Gilmore Girls

Part 13: Everwood

Part 14: The Office

Part 15: Breaking Bad

Part 16: 13 Reasons Why

Buffy the Vampire Slayer turns 20 today! (We are all so, so old)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer turns 20 today. That's something I find staggering to process. In many ways, Buffy ushered in an era of TV that is still ongoing to this day. It's pretty easy to point to several current shows - many of them on the CW - and feel them trying to evoke that Buffy magic. In processing how remarkable this is, I tried to think about what shows from 1977 were that much in the public consciousness at the time Buffy premiered in 1997.

I couldn't honestly come up with one - save for Star Trek, which was from 1966 and a special case as movies and spinoffs had kept it alive on film for most of those 30 years. The filmed Buffyverse ended in 2005 - nearly a full 12 years ago. And sure, you could point to plenty of old sitcoms like Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, and so forth as shows that still had a strong awareness 20 years or more after their debut... but how many of them were regarded as still influential on then-present television?

I'm embarrassed to recall how late I was to the Buffy party. For all my fanboying of Joss Whedon, I wasn't even the first one in my household to discover the show. That honor goes to... my mother. At the mature age of 17, I was far above watching some silly teen drama. No, I had already skipped on to the adult dramas of Law & Order, ER and Homicide, some of the most well-crafted TV of any era. Why would I watch some dumb show based on a failed movie?

Considering the number of posts I've devoted to teen dramas over the years, that whole paragraph seems especially ironic. But it's true. My mother discovered the show somewhere during the second season. I recall the first episode I caught a piece of. It involved a love spell gone wrong, forcing everyone to act silly and result in a lot of second-hand embarrassment on the part of the viewer. (Watching actors forced to play ultra-horny never fails to make me want to crawl under the couch in embarrassment for them.) Immediately I tagged it as one of TV's most overused premises, used to thuddingly bad effect on TNG's in "The Naked Now" and not much better in Lois & Clark's "Pheromone, My Lovely," a episode where the only virtue was Teri Hatcher doing the Dance of the Seven Veils.

The second episode I walked in on my mother watching? "Inca Mummy Girl."

So yeah, I didn't become a convert until just before the start of Season 3, after hearing the hype over how season 2 had ended. When the finale re-aired early that fall, I caught those episodes, and from that point on, there was no doubt I'd be planted in front of the TV every Tuesday to catch new episodes. Before long, I was learning the names of the writers and recognizing the differences between a Marti Noxon episode and a Jane Espenson episode. I became a lurker on the alt.tv.buffy-the-vampire-slayer newsgroup and quickly got addicted to the discussions peeling apart the deeper layers of the show. There were few shows I could engage in that way at that time.

Let's be honest - the fact TV scholars keep calling back to Buffy is a pretty good indication that even in a golden era of TV, Buffy was groundbreaking enough to leave it's mark.

I still argue that season 3 of Buffy is one of the most perfectly-structured seasons of television. It's the platonic ideal of balancing standalone episodes with a season-long arc. The individual installments maintain their own identity week-to-week, even as the larger story is advanced as needed. Better still, the season paces out its villains. Though we meet the Mayor early on, it's not until about 2/3 of the season that he really steps up as the Big Bad, and even then, his scheme is given a particular timing that completely takes care of the big question in most other cases: "Why is this guy waiting all season for his endgame?"

Also, because of how the season unfurls its plot, we never fall into a rut where it feels like every week is the same wolf-and-sheepdog drama of the two sides clashing over and over again. Current genre TV often falls into this trap - introduce the main villain in the season premiere and have them and the hero spend all season locking horns. (Honestly, Buffy itself came perilously close to falling into this trap in Season 5, and even closer still in Season 7).

There's probably little else I could say about Buffy that I haven't said before in several other posts, so before I get to plugging those, I'll leave with this: Happy birthday Buffy! Hope it's better than the birthday where you lost your virginity. Or the one where your Watcher took your powers and locked you in with a psycho vamp. Or the one where Giles got turned into a Demon. Or the one where Dawn slashed her wrists. Or the one in the episode that I never rewatch.


The Body: How to write a crying scene - Part I and Part II
Pangs: PC or Not PC? Writing good character conflict
Show, don't tell
What Serialized Shows Like The Vampire Diaries Should Learn From Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Third Season

My AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON review

The press tour for Avengers: Age of Ultron has been notable for many reasons, some relevant to the film, some not. Amid the social-media-ready tempests like actors putting their foots in their mouths and interviewers asking inappropriate questions has been the unmistakable sense in every Joss Whedon interview that the writer/director was completely broken by this film. Whedon sounds like a man who's just come back from war. If you've ever had a conversation with someone who's given off a weary, "I am so over this" vibe when discussing their job, you have a good sense of how Whedon is coming off. It feels like a combination of exhaustion from the work and exasperation from dealing with the politics of studio filmmaking.

After seeing Age of Ultron, I totally get it.

In terms of scope and complexity, this is by far the biggest Marvel movie attempted, and in many respects, the biggest tentpole movie attempted. Just to use Michael Bay's Transformers films as a contrast, as big and sprawling and exhausting as they are, as much post-production as they require, the stories are pretty straightforward and they have a much cleaner throughline. You have a human hero, his girlfriend, a wacky sidekick, good robot, bad robot, and usually two or three prestige actors in small "payday roles." And the easy part is, there's little obligation to flesh them out equally.

An Avengers film is a different beast, as it requires balancing the egos of three heroes with their own film series, a further three who've been core members of the team - all of whom generally should be given some equal weight. Add to that a main villain, two additional antagonists AND a number of cameos from other supporting heroes... and you have a character roster designed to drive any writer nuts as he crafts a story that not only gives them each some face time, but also makes them integral to the story. The worst thing would be for the audience to leave feeling like, "I don't think the Hulk really needed to be in this one."

Adding to the complexity is that with most of these characters establish - some of them WELL established - there's less freedom to bend their characterizations to serve the story. Do this sort of thing wrong and you'll be sniffed out as a fraud. Oh, and you have to do it while topping already gargantuan expectiations that this'll be more spectacular than the first film.

How does Whedon manage? For the most part, he gets his lasso around this beast.

The core story - and I'm gonna drop a lot of big spoilers ahead, so be warned - springs from a Tony Stark artificial intelligence project gone awry. Ultron was supposed to be a project to keep the world safe, but due to a combination of poor programing on Tony's part and (I think, this is a bit muddy) some interaction with the gem in Loki's staff Ultron breaks free of his programming, commanders several robot bodies after building himself an imposing new form, and sets out to end war... by ending humanity.

By his side are twins who've gone through Hydra experimentation and emerged with powers. Scarlet Witch has vaguish magical powers and the ability to mess with people's minds to draw out their biggest fears. Quicksilver is superfast, though a secondary power of his seems to be to use his superspeed in less interesting ways than his X-Men: Days of Future Past counterpart last summer.

That's the A-story. Branching out from all of this comes all the various character threads. Many of these draw from what we've seen in the intervening films, such as the collapse of SHIELD in The Winter Soldier. At times, the transition is less smooth. The end of Iron Man 3 implies that Tony has hung it up and is done. Two years later, he's fighting with the Avengers as if it's business as usual.

Tony's whole arc in this is a bit jittery. Even ignoring the end of Iron Man 3, his Ultron project is exposited in a somewhat clunky fashion. We learn about it almost literally seconds before its corrupted, which feels like a slight miscalculation in pacing. It's as if Pandora opening her box was preceded only moments earlier by "Here. Take this box. But don't open it. It's bad."

Even though Tony's mistake is the event that puts everything into motion, it feels like his character is less featured in this film. Near the end of the film's second act, the plot requires Tony to virtually repeat his earlier mistake. This sparks a brief fight with Captain America and a few of the others. It's a point where we have a very, very surface-level understanding of the motivations involved.

Then at the end of the film, Tony ends up driving off into the sunset, leaving superheroing behind. There's just enough for us to connect the dots, but it's not totally satisfying in its own way.

More than any entry so far, this feels not just like a Marvel comic but one of those big summer crossover issues that's just overstuffed with characters and incidents. This is like a House of M or Secret Invasion miniseries, where it's fair game for every character to show up. As with those sprawling storylines, there are moments where one gets the impression that the less-explained moments of the epic get fleshed out in individual tie-in issues.

A good example of this is Thor's storyline, which sends him off on a brief tangent that plays out like an under-explained vision quest. This is one subplot that was more obviously trimmed to the bare bones. When Thor shows up to suddenly move a major chunk of the story forward and bring along a great deal of exposition about the Infinity Stones, it's hard not to imagine an editor's caption "*See more about Thor's vision quest in THOR #239!"

Captain America also gets short-shrift in the drama department. It's fortunate that this is a script from someone like Whedon, who's able to get a lot of character moments wedged into idle banter within the interactions. He and Tony have some verbal sparing, some playful, some not. The main conflict between them feels like a warm-up for the next film, though. Chris Evans makes the most of what he's got, but Cap isn't driving the plot like he did last time.

The good news is that everyone gets screentime and at least one or two great moments that are uniquely theirs. An early highlight is a party in the Avengers Tower filled with cameos and these large personalities bouncing off of each other. It's here where Whedon reminds us he's the master of the set-up and payoff as more than one seemingly-extraneous bit of fun here turns out to be a seed planted for bigger moments later in the film.

(One of them - it's the moment involving Thor's hammer - had its payoff come about in a slightly unexpected way. SPOILERS. The party scene underlines that only someone worthy can lift Thor's hammer. What follows is a display of egos as Tony, Banner and eventually Cap try to pick it up. Cap gets it to budge. Slightly. I assumed this was set-up for a third-act bit where Cap would need to wield the hammer. Instead, it's paid off in a different way. Following the introduction of a new character, the team debates if they should trust this new arrival. That matter is handily settled when this person easily wields the hammer. Perfect instance of "show, not tell." "How do we know we can trust this guy?" "Well, he's able to lift the thing that only really, really good people can handle.")

It's a very full movie, but fortunately it hits more than it misses. The opening set-piece is a lot of fun despite some so-so CGI and the promised clash of Hulk versus Iron Man in his Hulkbuster armor might be my favorite action sequence in the film. It's the perfect blend of tension, comedy and violence.

That sequence also ends up introducing something that is initially refreshing - the notion of the heroes actively trying to minimize human casualties. MAN OF STEEL really got hit for this, with a vehemence that seems out of proportion considering the first AVENGERS barely raised an eyebrow without doing much more to show the heroes going out of their way. And don't even get me started on the total cop-out of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY's "We've evacuated the city" as some kind of quick-fix to make the third-act ending battle more acceptable.

(I almost literally heard Rob Lowe's character from THANK YOU FOR SMOKING in my head during that scene. "It's an easy fix. One line of dialogue...")

The Hulkbuster sequence deals with this by having Tony's armor seek out a building with no people inside. There's also a sequence involving a runaway train where shielding the civilians is a priority. But by the time we get to the final action orgy, there's something very... I hesitate to say... "corny" about the film's insistance on aggressively reassuring us the civilians are taken care of. It called to mind how Saturday morning cartoons adhered to violence restrictions by always making sure that when bad guy planes were shot down, every single one of them was shown deploying their parachutes and apparently surviving.

Don't get me wrong. The goal is laudable, but I wish Whedon had found a way to moderate it just a little bit. more. A nice touch is that we get the impression that the lives lost in that battle haunt Banner.

As the end approached, the comparisons with crossover maxi-series again came to mind, as the finale plays less like the end of a story and more like a launching pad for several new series. Tony going off on his own works, but probably had more material supporting it in longer cuts, and the showcase of who remains in the team for the next film is done pretty well.

AGAIN MORE SPOILERS

But Hulk's fate is maddeningly open-ended. The last we see of him, he's on a quinplane that's flying off into nowhere. He even apparently cuts off communication with Black Widow of his own accord and allows the jet to fly off into the unknown. It's a weird way to set up that loose thread, made even more discordant by a follow-up scene where Nick Fury says they're sure the plane crashed, but they can't find it. His almost nonchalant "He'll turn up" is a weird note to leave that scene on. It might have played better for me if Fury said it like he was trying to be blase about it, but deep down was concerned they might never find him.

Obviously he'll turn up, but the film doesn't seem to know how it wants to play the emotion of him being missing in action. On the other hand, these movies have seemingly killed so many characters who later came back fine, perhaps Whedon's muting of the character reactions is in reaction to the criticism of these fakeouts.

Hawkeye's departure makes a little more sense and I generally like how he's used in this. Fans who were pushing for a Black Widow/Hawkeye relationship are probably going to be thrown for a loop after seeing he's been married long enough to have two young kids. A neat consequence of this is it forces the viewer to revisit the supposed sexual tension between Natasha and Barton in the first film. It's kind of nice to see them showing a functional male/female relationship that doesn't necessarily end in paying off sexual tension.

Pairing her with Banner is one of the film's surprising choices. We're not shown much about this flirtation, which amounts to little more than a tease. Though has anyone noticed that when it comes to dynamics with each of the other characters, Black Widow might be the most fleshed out? Black Widow/Thor might be the only under-explored dynamic in her relationships. Tony is close behind, with only Iron Man/Hawkeye being a total tabula rosa.  Cap really hasn't been given a great deal of interaction with Banner or Thor - two characters who are mostly distant from at least half the ensemble.

It can't have been easy to craft this story in a way that allowed character to shine as much as action and plot. After one viewing, I feel like Ultron was enjoyable, but not quite as good as the first film. However, it's easily the most ambitious and even though it's not immune to the "now our moment of synergy to promote future projects" that's marred several of the films, it feels less intrusive here. The ending tag probably would have been more effective if GOTG had managed to establish Thanos beyond being "Evil Dude who sits on a throne a lot."

Still, I'd put it in the upper 25% of Marvel films. I'm a bit afraid that this movie will pull an Independence Day on me and somehow plummeted massively in enjoyment on a second viewing. For now, this has me eager for next year's Captain America: Civil War. That's being directed by the Russo Brothers, who'll follow that up with Avengers: Infinity War Parts I and II. I shudder a bit to think what a more massive Marvel movie than this will look like. If just one of these movies exhausted Whedon so much, have a few hugs ready for the Russos come 2018.

My KsiteTV post: "What serialized shows like The Vampire Diaries should learn from Buffy’s third season."

I've got another column over at KsiteTV today, this one discussing some things to consider when structuring an entire season's worth of shows.  In the course of doing so, I examine the Klaus arc from the last season of The Vampire Diaries and see how it stacks up against one of the best seasons of genre television - the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The CW premieres this week are about to send the new season of genre programming into full swing and you know what that means: season long arcs, new Big Bads, devious endgames, and angst by the barrelful. Serialized arcs are the bread-and-butter for genre TV, which is interesting because as recently as a decade ago, writers and producers were encouraged to be more episodic in their storytelling. (For those not in the know, this means that every episode was more of a standalone, with the stories being resolved in a single show with few continuing threads.) The thinking was that serialized arcs were a harder sell in syndication because they meant that the TV stations couldn’t show episodes in any random order. 

Personally, I never understood why this was such a problem but at the same time, it’s hard to argue with the success that episodic shows like Law & Order, CSI and their various spinoffs had on the syndicated market. For the longest time, producers worked to find the right balance between telling a season-long story that had forward momentum through the season while also making as many of those components as standalone as possible. 

Aside from the syndication argument, there’s probably a case to be made that it’s not bad on a creative level to take a break from the uber-arcs now and then. Just to name one example, as captivated as I was by the conspiracy arcs on The X-Files during their original run, in reruns I’m far more apt to settle in for a standalone rerun like “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’” or “Bad Blood.” And let’s face it – sometimes it can get a little tedious if a show spends its entire season in strict serialization. Done right, it can lead to rich storytelling. Done wrong… and there’s a sense of treading water while the writers drag out an inevitable conflict between the good guys and the bad. 

Check out KsiteTV for the rest of the article!

What is "Voice?"

"Voice" is one of those things that readers, managers, agents and executives all say that they're looking for in a script.  Unfortunately, when pressed to explain exactly what that means, the trouble in defining such an ephemeral quality becomes difficult.

But having made it a little more than halfway through my pilot viewings, I think I can make a stab at explaining this.  To a certain degree, voice probably is one of those "you know it when you see it" kind of things.  I can't tell you how to write in your voice, it's just something you're going to DO on your own.  Still recognizing voice is probably a good first step in defining your own voice.

I'll have more to say about this in the coming months, but despite a number of strong pilots this season, there are plenty that fell short of my expectations, weren't really for me, or were simply terrible by any standard.  Among the ones that didn't work, lack of a strong voice was a common flaw.  Particularly in comedies, I saw a lot of writers who failed to develop and express their ideas in an original way.  There was a lot of imitation, not just in plot and concept, but in overall expression.

That's a problem, people.

Too many comedies had a forced "quirky, wacky" tone to them.  Sometimes this took the form of a male protagonist clearly trying to channel Matthew Perry's "Chander" delivery.  Other times I could feel the writers straining to depict the elastic reality that defined Arrested Development or Scrubs.  Yet in these new entries, those elements felt unnatural.  It was like watching a wedding band try to rock out to Queen.  They play the notes, but there's no authenticity to them.

I briefly wondered if the problem was me, that I had simply tired of that style of comedy.  Then I watched The Mindy Project, written by Mindy Kaling.  In a lot of ways, it nailed the comedic tone that so many other shows failed at.  Kaling's had years to develop her voice and you could feel the comfort she has with the material.  The show isn't going to spawn a new era of comedy but it establishes a world, finds a tone that compliments that world and matches it with a heroine completely suited to that style.

So how can you develop your voice?  Write.  You're not going to find it on your first script, maybe even not on your second or third, but you'll get there eventually.  Your writing will likely start off with imitation of the sorts of things you like.  It's okay if your style is eventually similar to other writers out there.  What's important is that you find what you do well because that will sharpen your point of view and focus your writing that much more.

My first screenplay was a mystery-thriller that owed a lot to the pacing and style of Law & Order and Homicide, two of my favorite shows at the time.  My second script was sort of a self-aware romantic comedy, which made use of a lot of the meta-humor that defines Kevin Williamson's work.

My third script, however, came out of the idea to take my love of comic book superheroes and treat the criminal proceedings in their world with all the seriousness of Law & Order's courtroom shenanigans.  There was imitation there, but it was synthesized into something new by merging two genres I knew inside and out, with some of the self-aware conventions I picked up from Williamson and Whedon.  I reread it a while back and it clearly would need a major rewrite before I showed it to anyone, yet I think that was an important hurdle to cross.  I found I had something to say about two different genres I loved by putting them together and using that to deconstruct them.

You might say that's what Quentin Tarantino does.  So many of his movies feel like mash-ups of genres, concepts and other movies that he loves.  He steals from everything, but in doing that, he changes it in a way that makes it feel fresh and unique.  Even if the ground he covers is well-trod, it feels fresh.  THAT is Tarantino's voice.

It's funny that as I look at the scripts I've written since then, there's a strong element of deconstruction in at least two of them, even if they couldn't be more different in terms of concept and subject matter.  At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if someone detected a Joss Whedon influence on my writing, but I hope it's executed in a way that feels authentic to my passions rather than just me doing what Joss does because it sells.

It's strange because my writing is this weird contrast of stories like that and then character-driven stories that are all about exploring how particular people cope with extraordinary circumstances.  It was weird to go through my Dead Idea folder a while back and come across a concept that was very much in the same ballpark as the much-missed series Life Unexpected.  And this was an idea I had back in 2004!

The thing is, I only recognize these patterns in hindsight.  When I started writing, I just had these stories I wanted to tell and these ideas I thought were cool.  Eventually I developed that, getting past "imitation" and eventually writing like "me," not "me doing my best Kevin Williamson impression."  So my best advice to those of you attempting the same would be to keep writing new things.  Each script brings you closer to discovering your own voice.

Avengers - making introductions and re-introductions more than just exposition

It's been a while since I've discussed the importance of introducing characters in an interesting way.  I think sometimes weak openings comes as a result of the writer's inability to put themselves in the audience's shoes and recall that THIS is the moment that makes the first impression.

After all, the writer has lived with their character for weeks or months, so in their mind, this first scene just has to get the character on-screen.

I couldn't help but think of this during the opening half-hour of The Avengers, which has the task of introducing nearly a dozen major characters who have previously appeared in other Marvel films, either as headliners and supporting characters.  But the filmmakers would be wrong to assume that everyone buying a ticket to this film would have seen all or even ANY of the other movies.

And obviously, it's to the film's financial benefit that the movie appeal to audiences beyond the core Marvel fans.  So that forces the movie to introduce these characters as if it's the first time the audience has met them - without completely boring those viewers familiar with the earlier movies.

It's harder than it sounds, but I think the script did a pretty solid job of telling us everything we need to know for the sake of this movie.

First, there's a scene at a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. research center.  Here we introduce the Tesseract (previously an element in Thor and Captain America) and showcase that it's basically a mysterious and powerful form of energy.  Sure, we could trace the whole history of this thing, but it's really not that important.  In other words, screening the prior two films is unnecessary.

Loki shows up, and it's obvious that he's the villain of the piece.  He puts a few characters under his mind control spell and blows up the base, with Nick Fury and Agent Colson among those who get out in time.

So in the first few minutes we have: Villain, MacGuffin, Heroic Mastermind, Sidekick, and Brainwashed Hero.  Do we know Loki's full history or everything that Fury's got his hands in - but we know enough and they were introduced in a context that allows the audience not to feel lost.

Director Fury decides to activate the Avenger Initiative, which necessitates a series of scenes in which each member is met in turn.

- Black Widow is given a great sequence in which she appears to be a prisoner, only to turn the tables and kick ass without breaking much of a sweat.

- Then, Black Widow tracks down Dr. Banner in India, where's he's been living below the radar.  The exposition here is more dialogue-driven than visual, but the dialogue takes a turn that's either cryptic (if you're ignorant of Banner's "Hulk" alter-ego) or foreboding (if you know what they're referring to.  Either way, a couple important points are made: Banner's being recruited for his smarts, BW is very concerned about his temper, and that concern led her to bring an entire special forces team with her.

- Captain America admittedly gets one of the more mundane introductions, in addition to one of the more dialogue-laden ones.  The exposition here is more than made up for by the time we see him in action though

- And of course, Tony "Iron Man" Stark makes his debut while finishing up some technical doo-dad that we're told will turn his tower into a source of clean energy.  A lot of points are made here, including showcasing Tony's armor, reminding the audience of his relationship with Pepper Potts, and establishing both his "billionaire genius philathropist" persona.  There's also a fair amount of Tony's cocky showboating.  And of ALL the characters, I feel he's the most firmly established via just his intro scene.

Why do I say this? Because while you might argue that some dialogue given to other characters could be easily transposed to another character, there's not a single line of Tony's that could be swapped out to someone else as written.  His "voice" permeates everything he says.  If someone else would have to say something given to Tony, the rewrite would need to go further than just changing the character name above the line.

Other than Captain America, pretty much every character gets a opening scene that either conveys their function in the story, or the conflict that will define them throughout the script.  (In a few cases, we get both.)  Better still, most of those moments are entertaining scenes in their own right, either through comedy or tension.

In the wrong hands, the first half-hour could have been a bore while the viewers of previous films waited for the new audience members get caught up to speed.

Joss Whedon on putting the dread back into horror films

I bought MovieScope magazine just to get the Joss Whedon interview on Cabin in the Woods.  In it, he discusses his disenchantment with the tone of recent horror films:

"Somebody brought up Friday the 13th and to me that was the tipping point of 'Well, now it's just about the kill.'  As opposed to Halloween, which was a classic horror movie where the dread of the thing was the point, and not the act.  But in Friday the 13th, especially by the second one, it really was about 'in what inventive way can we dispose of this person.'  And it really took the fun out of horror films."

Take it from someone who reads a lot of bad horror films - what Joss says might seem elementary, but I have several hundred vehement PASSES that I've given to scripts that are just about the "inventive" kills.  I've honestly seen and read so many ways to kill people that the only way you can really expect to shock me is by going so far over the top to an incredibly depraved level.  (The current leader in that race - the seriously graphic and misogynistic vertical bisection of a terrified woman at the hands of a deranged psychopath.)  And let me tell you, when you reach that level, it's not just a PASS that you get, but a "there should be no need for us to ever review a submission from this writer ever again."

Be about the dread, the suspense.  But if all you bring is the gore, I will END you.

Think I'm kidding?  Try me.

Riki Lindhome interviews Joss Whedon

I had seen actress Riki Lindhome in smaller film parts and guest-starring roles, but I first really took notice of her a few years ago when Garfunkel & Oats, the comedy musical duo she performs in with Kate Micucci, was one of the acts at a fundraiser I attended.  Somehow I've never managed to plug their work as part of the Friday Free-for-All, but their songs are catchy, witty and often laugh-out-loud funny.



But this isn't a post about Garfunkel & Oats, it's about one of Riki's other side projects, her podcast interview series Making It with Riki Lindhome.  This landed on my radar due to the subject of one of her latest interviews - Joss Whedon.  He's a relatively obscure actor whom you might remember (but probably don't) as Dancer of Joy Numfar from a late second-season episode of Angel.  Oh, and he also created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, co-wrote the anticipated Cabin in the Woods, and directed the forthcoming Much Ado About Nothing, and The Avengers.

I've read several hundred Whedon interviews over the years, and Riki's ranks as one of the best.  Some of the material will be old news to die hard Whedonites, but there are fresh anecdotes in there and newcomers to all things Joss will find plenty of value in the one-hour podcast.

Among the highlights:

- Whedon discusses a period early in his career where he met with his agent because he was being pitched a talking dog movie.  As you might expect, Joss wasn't too keen on the fact that this was the state his career was in.  As a joke, he quipped to his agent that he could write "Die Hard on the George Washington Bridge."  This wasn't a joke to Joss's rep, who brought the conversation to an immediate halt and practically ordered him to "go home and write it."  Guess what?  It sold.

- Joss also discusses the script doctor portion of his career, mentioning he once wrote director Jan De Bont ("Speed") a six-page memo about why the director shouldn't do Cowboys & Aliens, saying it would be impossible to make that work.

- When the conversation turns to The Avengers, Joss says that the process of shooting the film was more like doing his web musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog than anything else he's done.  As he puts it, there was a lot of "run and gun" on the Marvel superhero opus set for release later this year.

- Finally, this quote might be the most valuable thing Joss says in the entire interview:

"I've had people say to me, 'You know, I've thought I might like to write.'  And I'm just like 'Turn around and go away.'  I don't ever want to hear that.  If you're a writer, you need to write.  You have to do it.  And you need to have to do it because it's grueling.  You have to give yourself over to it completely... that is what you are and that kind of passion and tenacity is necessary when people are telling you it's not going to work out."

Show, don't tell - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I was thinking yesterday of good examples of "show, don't tell" and one instance that stuck out in my mind comes from the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  There's a particular instance where the writers wanted to make a particular point crystal clear to the audience and it feels like an entire two-parter was built around demonstrating that detail.

In the two-parter "Surprise/Innocence," Buffy and her friends are faced with a villain named The Judge, a demon with the power to burn the humanity out of anyone.  Long dismembered, he's reconstituted and prepares to burn the citizens of Sunnydale, forcing Buffy to find a way to take him down.

Concurrent with this, Buffy and Angel have sex.  A consequence of this is that Angel loses his soul and reverts to his evil, demonic personality of Angelus.  It was a rather bold and shocking twist for the show, and likely creator Joss Whedon wanted to leave no doubt that the noble Angel was truly lost and that he wasn't pretending to be Angelus for part of a larger deception.  Thus, fairly soon after Angel's reversion, he confronts The Judge, claiming to want to join forces.  There's some skepticism on the Judge's part, perhaps fearing that Angelus might be a spy for the good guys - so he touches Angelus and the now-soulless vampre doesn't even so much as smoke.

"There's no humanity left in him," The Judge declares - clearly speaking for the writers.  Soon after this, the Judge is summarily disposed of, having served the storytellers' needs.

I've read a lot of spec scripts that would have benefited from a similar approach.  Too often - especially in mystical scripts, important details like "Angel is no longer ensouled.  He's pure evil." might be covered purely in dialogue.  The writer declares one character to be an expert in the mythology and then uses them to lay down all the rules and stakes the writer wants the audience to accept.

Whedon easily could have just shown us Angelus wrecking havoc and killing people, but even then there likely would have been some fans in denial that Angel had really gone over to the darkside.  "Maybe he didn't kill that person.  Maybe he's just putting on a show to convince the bad guys," they might say.  (Believe me, hang out on the message boards for any show and you'll see a lot of this sort of speculation.)

By no means is this the only example of that sort of "showing, not telling," nor do I mean to say that it's the absolutely perfect example of such.  I think it warrents mention because its one of the instances where I can think of a writer creating an entire mini-arc just for the express purpose of hammering home the stakes to an audience. 

What are your favorite examples of such?

Tuesday Talkback - Should studios inform the original writers when they prep a remake?

Sunday, Deadline posted a story about how screenwriter James Toback was rather upset to find out secondhand that Paramount was planning a remake of The Gambler. Toback was the writer of the original version, which he considers one of his more personal films. Chief among Toback's complaints was the fact that the studio didn't even offer the courtesy of letting him know about the remake before announcing it to the world via Deadline.

Legally, Paramount was under no obligation to do so. They bought the script. They own the property. In a legal sense, Toback has no claim to the material any longer so there's no reason they would have had to tell him - but would it at least have been the moral thing to do.

This isn't the first such case of this happening. Wes Craven was rather blunt last year when discussing the fact that he wasn't consulted about the remake of what is arguably the film most associated with him - A Nightmare on Elm Street. He not only directed the original film, but he wrote the script and created the character of Freddy Krueger. Considering the studio had been looking to jump-start the franchise, you'd think they'd have at least courted him in an effort to secure his blessing, yet all indications from Craven are that they didn't. But again, they didn't have to.

And of course, the people who hold the rights to the original film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been trying for a few years now to get their reboot off the ground - without the involvement of creator Joss Whedon. This again strikes me as a botched move, as not getting Whedon's blessing runs the risk of alienating his loyal fan base.

But what do you think? No laws are being broken here, so it's not as if the studios or producers owe the original creators anything in a legal sense. If you were in the studio's shoes, would you have given the original writers a courtesy call? If you were one of those original writers, would it bug you to find this stuff out from a third party, or do you think you'd accept that this is how the business works.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer's "The Body" - how to write a crying scene, part II

How to write a crying scene - part I

Picking up from where we left off yesterday, Act II of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "The Body" picks up with Buffy's sister Dawn crying in the girls room at school, saying she can't believe it. In characteristic Whedon misdirection, we quickly discern that Dawn is actually crying about some petty teenage crisis and still hasn't learned of her mother's death.

Hitchcock used to say that it was much more effective to show an audience that there was a ticking bomb under the table that the lead characters were seated at, rather than merely shock the audience by setting the bomb off without any warning. Basically, his reasoning was that the anticipation of the bang was worse than the bang itself. In the case of this script, that "bang" is the moment where 15 year-old Dawn learns that her mother is dead. It hangs over every single beat in this act, which is filled with a mix of typical teenage drama and a few nods to how Dawn is regarded by her peers.

It takes nearly four minutes until Buffy walks into Dawn's class and says she needs to speak to her. Buffy is wearing a face that really tells the whole story. If your sister interrupted your class looking like this - especially if your mother had been recently treated for a brain tumor - you'd know what was up. And on some level, it's pretty clear that Dawn intuits what Buffy is there to tell her.

Dawn says she's in the middle of class and asks if it can wait. They walk into the hall and Dawn demands to know what's going on. Buffy will only say, "It's bad" and tries to usher Dawn away. Students in the halls stare at them and the classroom Dawn just left has a large glass window that's looking right out on the two of them in the hallway. The whole class watches as Dawn's voice breaks and she asks, "Where's Mom?"

Buffy tries to explain that something happened while Dawn keeps insisting, "But she's okay, right? It's serious, but she's okay?" Buffy interrupts, "Dawn...."

And at this point our perspective shifts to inside the classroom looking out on Buffy and Dawn. Buffy's back is to us, but Dawn is facing in our direction. We don't hear what's said, but we see Dawn's face crumble, then sob. After screaming "No!" a few times (which we only faintly hear through the glass) she falls to her knees, and this act ends.

So here we don't actually hear the moment, or even much of Dawn's anguish, but we see it. We're a witness too it much as we would be if we were there in real life, voyeurs to their private grief. Somehow that makes it more real and more agonizing.

To be fair, this isn't the first time this technique has been done. Heck, it's not even the first time Whedon used it. A similar staging was used in Season Two's "Passion" with Angelus watching through an outside window while Buffy and Willow got a call informing them Angelus killed their teacher and friend Ms. Calendar.

The first time I saw this sort of direction was in a season one episode of ER called "Love's Labor Lost." Dr. Greene spends the entire episode dealing with a pregnant woman whose labor has gone horribly awry. At one point he delivers the child and then sends the father to go be with the baby, promising he'll take care of the mother.

He doesn't. She dies on the table and Dr. Greene has to go upstairs to a nursery room to inform the now-widowed husband that the baby will grow up without a mother. The camera stops outside the room as Greene enters. Through the glass pane of the door, we see the father rocking his new son while sitting in a rocking chair. Green enters and takes a seat across from him. Like Buffy, his back is to us. We don't see his mouth move or hear the dialogue. We just sit and wait. When the moment comes, Bradley Whitford - playing the father - doesn't over do it. He reels back, casting his head up, eyes to the sky.

Restraint can be a lot more powerful for the audience. And as much as writers are told not to direct in the script - this is the sort of staging that a writer can get away with.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer's "The Body" - how to write a crying scene, part I

After yesterday's post, I decided it would be a good idea to pick another scene featuring a character dealing with high emotions. Because I like punishing myself, I chose one of the most depressing and intense episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The Body." This is the season five episode that deals with the death of Buffy's mother, Joyce. I picked it in part because it's available via Netflix Instant Viewing, so many of you should be able to get it. It's on Disc 5 of season 5 and was written and directed by Joss Whedon.

The episode opens as Buffy comes home and finds her mother dead on the couch. Her first reaction is to become very agitated, bordering on hysterical as she shakes her mother, saying "Mom? Mom!" A call to 911 offers little help beyond walking her through CPR and when it has no effect other than the Slayer's strength breaking her mother's breastbone, the dispatcher advises Buffy that the paramedics are on their way. Clearly in shock at this point, she calls Giles and asks him to come immediately.

And again, Buffy's still not crying at this point. Just numb shock.

Then, despite a truly evil tease showing a fantasy where Joyce Summers is miraculously revived (Screw you, Joss), the paramedics can't do anything for her. "I'm sorry," the paramedic says, "But I have to tell you that your mother's dead." (Yes, I know this is completely not the way it would go in real life. Paramedics don't stop until an MD takes over for them.) Worse, they get a call that pulls them away, leaving Buffy alone with her mother. Their last words to her are "Try not to disturb the body."

Through all of this, Buffy doesn't yet cry. This actually has the effect of making the scene even more agonizing for the audience because they - and Buffy - are denied that emotional release. Gellar's portrayal of Buffy in shock is truly unsettling to watch. Buffy wanders down the hall, then drops to her knees and vomits. The ambient sound of wind chimes outside is disturbingly loud, making the whole scene feel eerie.

And still she doesn't cry.

Giles comes in and finds Buffy in shock, muttering about how she should go to school to tell Dawn - her sister - what happened. Unable to make sense of this, Giles casts an eye to the living room and spots Buffy's mother, "Oh my god, Joyce!" He moves to help her as Buffy says, "No, it's too late.... We're not supposed to move the body!" Her voice at last breaks with emotion, and Gellar again proves that she was robbed of at least one Emmy as we see Buffy process how she just referred to her mother.

Now it hits her, and just as it hits us, Giles is across the room in a shot, taking the Slayer in a hug. Eyes wide, Buffy sobs - no tears - and we go into commercial.

That is how you construct an emotional release. That's how you handle a crying scene. Show the character fighting the emotion, denying the emotion, unable to feel the emotion - then really kick them in the gut and go out on that release.

Don't make a scene of someone crying - make a scene of someone about to cry, or trying not to cry.

Tomorrow - another act of "The Body" features a different technique.

"Buffy" sequel without Whedon or Gellar?

Today's Hollywood Reporter has a story about the development of a new Buffy The Vampire Slayer feature film. It wouldn't be a sequel to the utterly terrible 1993 Kristy Swanson film, nor would it have any connection to the fantastic series that ran on UPN and the WB from 1997-2003... and here's the real rub, folks.

Buffy" creator Joss Whedon isn't involved and it's not set up at a studio, but Roy Lee and Doug Davison of Vertigo Entertainment are working with original movie director Fran Rubel Kuzui and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, on what is being labeled a remake or relaunch, but not a sequel or prequel.

While Whedon is the person most associated with "Buffy," Kuzui and her Kuzui Enterprises have held onto the rights since the beginning, when she discovered the "Buffy" script from then-unknown Whedon. She developed the script while her husband put together the financing to make the 1992 movie, which was released by Fox.

...The new "Buffy" film, however, would have no connection to the TV series, nor would it use popular supporting characters like Angel, Willow, Xander or Spike.

...The parties are meeting with writers and hearing takes, and later will look for a home for the project. The producers do not rule out Whedon's involvement but have not yet reached out to him.

Say what? They "don't rule out Whedon's involvement but have not yet reached out to him?" Geez, the guy is only the creator and the man who shepharded the series to the phenomenom it is today. This is the guy with legions of loyal and insanely devoted fans. Granted, they don't seem to be turning out for Dollhouse, but they can make quiet a rumbling in the blogosphere. (Exhibit A: the phemonom of Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog.)

My gut says that if they want any chance of pulling in the hard-core Slayer fans, they'll have to get Whedon's blessing somehow. I can also see fans being ticked that supporting this reboot might kill any chance of a Buffy feature film with the TV cast (though let's face it - that was a long shot.) As a fan, I think this sucks.

But the Kuzuis have every right to do this. They own the rights on the movie and they licensed the show to TV. As I understand it, Whedon had right of first refusal on any sequels and TV shows - which is how he ended up running the show in the first place. Apparently, the producers went to him, expecting he would pass on it. Clearly they're not obligated to go to him in a legal sense, and he wouldn't be the first creator pushed out of his franchise by producers.

I think not using the characters from TV might have less to do with respecting that continuity and more to do with how the rights to those particular characters are tied up. If the Kuzuis only own the movie they might not be able to acknowledge anything unique to the series. Or I suppose it's possible that they might own the movie characters outright, but that ownership of the TV elements is divided among different producers - which could force a sharing of the profits with those players if Xander, Willow, Giles, et al, were involved. It's hard to say for sure without seeing the actual deals.

I'm sure Whedon is entitled to a share of the profits, but I'm also sure that he'd much rather have full creative control. At the time he made that deal, though, he was a nobody and no one ever anticipated it would be the cult hit it became.

Let this be a lesson to future screenwriters - if you sign away your rights, this is the risk you take.