Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

[Avaitor]

Another thing, ironic Emma Caulfield's back for this when I remember she asked for Anya to be killed off, so she wouldn't have to do any spinoffs.

She did, but she also didn't like how Anya died.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I was rewatching a bit of Angel, and I remembered in that interview she did on Rosenbaum's podcast, Charisma said David Greenwalt and Tim Minear were the two writers who gave a shit about Cordelia and once they weren't there for season 4, she felt she had nobody on the production side willing to be there for her and her character. And I'm surprised neither of them are involved in the new audio drama. Wouldn't even count as scabbing since it's not TV or film either.

And I think I found out why Willow, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn aren't in it.

[Dr. Insomniac]

And I think I found out why Willow, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn aren't in it.

And in a surprising contrast, Boreanaz apparently said he'd be open to coming back and playing Angel in these. Something I really didn't expect, since whenever I read an interview from him, he's always been anti-reprisals once a series is done. Not just with Angel, but with any of his old work like Bones. I remember he gave a pretty firm "no" when asked the same question in that EW reunion a few years ago, so this is an interesting development.

Now to wait and see if SMG will have a change of heart too.

[Avaitor]

And I think I found out why Willow, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn aren't in it.

This explains a lot. And damn, Whedon is looking old.

[Dr. Insomniac]

And I think I found out why Willow, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn aren't in it.

This explains a lot. And damn, Whedon is looking old.

It's almost like a jumpscare. I was looking through the pictures thinking "Hey, it's sweet that J August Richards' old co-stars are here for his wedding, but who's that guy in the last o--oh, its you." Last I heard, I thought he was hiding in Canada.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So I finished the Slayers audios, though apparently Benson and the bunch are hopeful for a second season featuring Oz, Glory,

Spoiler

, Willow, and Vampire Giles according to the cliffhanger.

[close]

Short but positive things first, I had fun and I liked it. I don't want to sound like one of those lemmings who gets easily impressed when a franchise throws old things at me, but hey, new Buffyverse episodes for the first time in 19 years. And they recaptured the tone and atmosphere while playing around with the new limitations they have.

Now for the main hook of the series, where a Cordelia who's alive and is a Slayer appears to team up with Spike, I have mixed thoughts. Because the characters who would react the most to seeing a version of Cordelia like that, Angel and his cast or even Xander, aren't available, so all you really have is Spike (who only really knew her for 1 or 2 episodes at most) and Giles (who only knew her high school self and not the person she became on Angel). Same with bringing in variants of Tara and Anya but the characters who'd have the biggest emotional reaction that, Willow and Xander, aren't there. The audios know how to write around Buffy's absence but not the absence of those other two, which I found strange. I'm well aware that Xander's reception has plunged downwards in recent years and Nicholas Brendon is too much of a wreck these days to be asked back, but with the way Anya and Cordelia's character arcs move in this story, I kinda wish a character they personally knew was there to engage with those changes. Because while Spike and the new character Indira make for decent audience surrogates, there just isn't that established connection.

Ironically, I think Clem gets a ton of screentime (or listening time) here, more than I think he ever got in the actual show. Can't tell if that's just because the writers had to make do or they just really liked Clem and his actor.

And as for actors, the voice direction is rough. It takes a while for some of the cast to get back into their roles, which makes sense for a few of them since it's been 20 years, Anthony Stewart Head sounds very rough here when he sounded a lot more energetic when I heard him in Ted Lasso, but then it takes a while for others to get back to their roles. I almost couldn't recognize that was Emma Caulfield playing Anya until a couple minutes in, and James Marsters is using a different accent here compared to the one he used in the show. While you have Juliet Landau who just slips back into playing Drusilla again like it's natural for her.

Spoiler

Also, Benson and Caulfield play multiple roles in the story, so I guess if you hated Season 6 and 7 because Tara and Anya died, have a consolation prize?

[close]

And even though I know what her actress looks like, I was still confused by how much Indira just sounded like Candi Milo.

I still recall my stance when the comics ended that Buffy was very much an actor's show, because when reading the comics and seeing the series is like without actor input, you get very questionable decisions like Angel and Buffy having sex in the sky and conceiving a sentient universe, Spike becoming the captain of an alien bug ship, Xander and Dawn becoming a couple even though he babysat her in Season 5, Harmony suddenly gaining 50 IQ points and becoming queen of the vampires, or Buffy and Faith enrolling in the police academy. I remember a YouTuber who reviews Buffy more generously comparing the comics to sheet music without a musician to play them. And with Slayers, I think you get the opposite problem because instead of the conductor pretending he's the whole orchestra, you have the orchestra playing without a conductor. So a lot less messy, but also noticeably less ambitious.

[Avaitor]

Is Trachtenberg uninterested or unavailable? Because I think the idea of getting to hear how Dawn interacted with Cordelia and see what they'd be like as adults is at least somewhat interesting.

I'm not sure if I'll get around to this, but it sounds nice that this doesn't appear to be a total trainwreck, although I don't know how to bring back the Buffyverse.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, I always thought it was a shame that the show never brought back Cordelia in Season 6 for an episode and let her and the Buffy cast catch up and talk about how different life's been for each other in the last 3 years, since 6 was the mopey season and Cordelia was emotionally at her most refined in Season 3 of Angel, so the contrast there would've been great.

And I think the big problem with trying to make a Buffy sequel is how does one make sure they're making Buffy 2.0 and not just reheated versions of what we already have, because if someone did have an idea on how to take what worked from the series and improve upon it, they would've ran off and made a ripoff that viewers would've watched over Teen Wolf/Wolf Pack/Shadowhunters/Chilling Adventures/The Originals/every other Buffy knockoff I can't bother to name. Thinking up a premise for a followup is easy, but figuring out what themes or allegories it can play with in contrast to the old show is the tricky part. In order to do a revival justice, you have to make the kind of show that can make episodes that stand out as much as The Body or Hush or Passion or Restless, instead of playing a cover version of the greatest hits like all those shows above I mentioned. So many shows in the last 2 decades have tried so hard to be the next Buffy, right down to ripping off whole character arcs and plots, and all but a precious few fail to understand why those parts worked.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I always thought it was a shame that the show never brought back Cordelia in Season 6 for an episode and let her and the Buffy cast catch up and talk about how different life's been for each other in the last 3 years, since 6 was the mopey season and Cordelia was emotionally at her most refined in Season 3 of Angel, so the contrast there would've been great.

I think I talked about this in my blog, but I really think she should have been a part of Xander and Anya's wedding. If anyone could have given the Scoobies the pep talk/reason you suck speech they deserved, it's her.

And I think the big problem with trying to make a Buffy sequel is how does one make sure they're making Buffy 2.0 and not just reheated versions of what we already have, because if someone did have an idea on how to take what worked from the series and improve upon it, they would've ran off and made a ripoff that viewers would've watched over Teen Wolf/Wolf Pack/Shadowhunters/Chilling Adventures/The Originals/every other Buffy knockoff I can't bother to name. Thinking up a premise for a followup is easy, but figuring out what themes or allegories it can play with in contrast to the old show is the tricky part. In order to do a revival justice, you have to make the kind of show that can make episodes that stand out as much as The Body or Hush or Passion or Restless, instead of playing a cover version of the greatest hits like all those shows above I mentioned. So many shows in the last 2 decades have tried so hard to be the next Buffy, right down to ripping off whole character arcs and plots, and all but a precious few fail to understand why those parts worked.

And the other problem is that with today's climate, it would be damn-near impossible for today's equivalent of Buffy to have a 22-episode season that allows for the more experimental episodes to happen. The CW was the last place that could have handled this kind of show within the network TV season order and they're all but phasing out of that kind of programming.

If the show was made today, there probably wouldn't be a "Doppelgangland" or "Once More, With Feeling" or probably even "The Body", because there wouldn't be room to mess with the status quo, and even if there was, enough of the audience would likely reject it for being filler. Look at what happened to the Chicago episode of Stranger Things.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I don't know. The latest season of Strange New Worlds did a musical episode and a crossover with the cartoons, and that show only has 10-episode seasons. And quite a lot of British shows prove you can do experimental one-off episodes in tiny season orders. RTD-era Doctor Who did a pretty good job ripping off the Buffy formula, and they only had 13 episodes and a Christmas special every series. What I'd really hope a revival would avoid is only making a new season every few years, since the franchise is all about coming-of-age, and having constant gap years would interfere with that. Like how all of the Stranger Things kids have long since grown out of their roles in only 4 seasons.

Other issue is what's the hook? Because as I mentioned, supernatural teen dramas are far more in abundance now than they were back in the show's heyday. All Buffy had to compete with back then were Roswell and Charmed.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Well, if there's one silver lining to Dexter Original Sin...

That still leaves who'd write a Buffy sequel if it ever happens. I've been thinking about that for a while, especially since all the tie-in media is still struggling to figure out how to make a post-Whedon Buffy work. Since those reboot Boom comics got too impatient and fast forwarded through all the recognizable moments, and while Slayers was fun, it was still ultimately memberberries fan candy instead of anything that pushed forward. And ideally, you'd have a brain trust of Noxon, Minear, Greenwalt, Espenson as the executive producers to make sure things are consistent, and then the showrunner should be either Mike Flanagan or Jane Schoenbrun. A combination of old guard and new blood.