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Television Media

Joss Whedon Is Creating a Sci-Fi Drama For Fox 230

Posted by chrisd from the this-man-can-do-no-wrong dept.
grafikhugh writes "An article on Yahoo! News states that Joss Whedon, the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel", is close to closing a deal with Fox. He will create thirteen episodes of a "Anti-Trek" Sci-Fi Drama to be a big player in Fox's fall 2002 line up. Its seems Whedon wants to avoid aliens as the big bad, and concentrate on making "scary-ass" humans Living in a "Dark Place"." It's also worth noting the IMDB entries for a possible buffy spin-off Ripper and an animated Buffy.
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Joss Whedon Is Creating a Sci-Fi Drama For Fox More

Joss Whedon Is Creating a Sci-Fi Drama For Fox

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  • I only have one problem with this.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dimensio ( 311070 ) <darkstar@LISPiglou.com minus language> on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @03:47PM (#2727812)
    ...with Joss's work on Angel, Fray, the animated show and the limited work he does on Buffy (since Marti Noxon does most of it now), how is he going to manage everything?

  • Buffy and Angel? (Score:2, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Come on... not to troll or flame, but these shows only have popularity cause of one thing:
    Great looking chicks.

    Same reason why dawson's creek is popular. Star Trek got the same idea when they lost viewers to voyager. Enterprise has nice "soft porn" scenes. When I think a "SciFi" from the creator of "Buffy" is just gonna make another show with good looking women that bastardizes people like Heinlein.

    Maybe he'll prove me wrong? Prolly not...

    • Re:Buffy and Angel? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Mad Quacker ( 3327 )
      They need beautiful people because of the title. If you've actually watched it with any bit of interest (I'm not talking one or two episodes) you would understand. This is not Star Trek, episodes do not stand on their own, you need to know the story.

      Conflicts and issues don't resolve in the same episode, sometimes not even in the same season, if you're tuning in for the first time, you won't even see it.

      • Re:Buffy and Angel? (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        This is not Star Trek, episodes do not stand on their own, you need to know the story. Conflicts and issues don't resolve in the same episode, sometimes not even in the same season, if you're tuning in for the first time, you won't even see it.

        Just like Dawson's Creek?

        Great, you made it from something insultable to a desperate mans soap opera full of scantily clad teenage girls.... AND made yourself look like one of those desperate men in the process...

    • Re:Buffy and Angel? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Bastardizes Heinlein." Hmm. Me thinks that way to many people who worship Heinlein think anything done that shows super hereo type charectors are always following the way of Heinlein but screwing it up. I've read Heinny. Maybe Whedon has his own style. Granted the hot chicks are definately a big plus on the show. But recent episodes of Trek vs. Buffy. Give me Buffy anyday. Good story (really, it might seem like crap the first time you watch it), inventive plotline, and very good adherance to mythos of the show.
      And besides all that. Chicks dig it. Show me a chick that likes Buffy and can't resist a man who knows all about here fav show.
      Angel on the otherhand, holds little joy for me. While I find the plotline decent. Charisma Carpenter makes me want to vomit day-glow whenever I see her. Most of the other charectors on the show suck just as bad. The only thing good in the show is the bad-guys and maybe Angel.

    • Re:Buffy and Angel? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jaymz666 ( 34050 )
      People also tune into this for the season long story arcs, the interrelationships between the characters and the fact that most people can relate to the characters.

    • Re:Buffy and Angel? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by amnesty ( 69314 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @04:30PM (#2728131) Homepage

      You know, I would have agreed with you maybe a year ago. Who would want to watch a show called Buffy: The Vampire Slayer anyway??

      But then one of my friends started raving about how good this series is, and he's the kind of guy who doesn't watch a show just for the good looking women.

      Slowly he managed to convince me to watch the show. While season 1 was pretty bad and gave the necessary backstory, season 2 and 3 gave me some of the best hours of TV I've watched.

      Angel is one of the best villians I have ever seen in my life. Sure, Darth Vader killed a lot of people and Kevin Spacey in Se7en made you want to throw up, but Angel was cruel, vicious and stabbed you in the heart with every mean word he said. The buildup of Angel as a good guy beforehand is what creates the intense emotional weight of Angel as a bad guy.

      Meanwhile Xander, Willow, Oz, and all the regulars have such a great ensemble together. Joss Whedon gives them some great, witty dialogue and you find these people would be people that you'd actually want to be friends with.

      This is a show that never sells out for an easy plot. When the show has twists, turns and surprises, it earns it. Even in all the silliness of the episode Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered, where Amy's love spell screws up and makes all the girls go after Xander, this act has repercussions. Willow is upset afterwards for how she was forced to act with Xander, for example.

      Hush, an episode where the characters can't speak, nominated for an Emmy.

      The Body, an episode where Buffy's mother dies, and the BEST episode ever for portrayal of a death. Many long cuts, slow scenes, very realistic, and no music through the entire show.

      Recently, the Buffy Musical was a great achievement, even UPN allowed the show to run 9 minutes longer than the usual 44 minutes for an episode.

      The show sounds really cheesy, the ideas really campy, but it never takes itself too seriously and makes fun of itself a lot. Throws in some excellently written emotional plotlines and earns the audiences' feelings. Even actors who want to get on the show usually have to convince their Agents. "You want to be on Buffy the WHAT??"

      And the spin-off is quality. Angel can be described as the best stuff on TV you're not watching. [comicbookgalaxy.com]

      If you're not convinced, check out Buffy creator/writer/producer/director/superhero Joss Whedon's interview on The Onion [theonionavclub.com] and you can see how intense and visonary this guy is.

      • While I agree that Hush was a great episode, and I think it should have won that emmy - I think that the series has gone down hill from approximately that point on. I dont like any of the new characters since Angel left the show.

        I didn't think that the musical episode was all that original.

        For instance, it was done before - in Xena.

        And Lucy Lawless has a MUCH better singing voice than SMG.
        And nicer boobs.

        I'm not quite sure who would win in a fight though. Lucy Lawless is quite butch as Xena, but Buffy has super-powers, while Xena is just well-trained.

        Right now, Angel is the show I prefer of the two. Dark Angel's pretty good too.
      • Joss Whedon gives them some great, witty dialogue and you find these people would be people that you'd actually want to be friends with.

        I do not dispute that he is The Man, but the dialogue is one of the things I have a problem with. It's not bad... but it is all sort of the same.

        Next time you watch one of his shows, try this...

        Wait for a character to make some kind of wisecrack. Then, close your eyes and imagine any other character on the show saying the same thing.

        Most of the time, you will find it fits pretty well. All of the characters on Buffy and Angel sound alike to a great degree, especially when they are cracking wise.

        I realized this about a year ago, and now, like the reel change marks in a theater, I can't stop noticing it. If the actors weren't quality, it would be really glaring.

        It's still great TV though... but I have to admit I am a bit worried about the turn Angel has taken lately. They NEED to get rid of that baby somehow. If they don't, well, the last ep is when Angel jumped the shark.

    • Re:Buffy and Angel? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Syberghost ( 10557 ) <syberghost@@@syberghost...com> on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @04:46PM (#2728250)
      Come on... not to troll or flame, but these shows only have popularity cause of one thing:
      Great looking chicks.

      Then why aren't other shows [google.com] with MORE hot chicks [vipactiontv.com] more popular with the same audience?

      Buffy draws an audience that includes a lot of straight girls. Dawson's Creek isn't very popular with straight guys 24-45.

      In short, "not to troll or flame" was bullshit, you're trolling.
    • You have no idea how wrong you are... I used to think that too before I watched the show. I even felt slightly dirty for tuning in to it. That quickly was replaced by stunned fascination for the storys, characters and humor. It's the best show on TV, burdened by a silly name and a small network.

      Most the fans are female. I went to a small Buffy convention recently, and found myself to be the only guy of 16 participants.

  • space opera (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Transient0 ( 175617 )
    >He came up with a concept that's part Western,
    >part space drama.

    Hmm... maybe we will see a return to true space opera(like 1930s sci-fi literature). I would love to see a straight up western transposed into outer space. Space-ships and six-shooters. I've always been intrigued by the crossover of high and low tech.

  • Science Action (Score:3, Insightful)

    by svara ( 467664 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @03:49PM (#2727836)
    I only hope that this will become a real _science_ fiction thing with some action... not a pseudo-science space-soap like Star Trek.

  • Ripper.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by jspectre ( 102549 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @03:49PM (#2727840) Journal

    Is a series filming in England about the character "Rupert Giles." Ripper was his nickname as a teen. The series is supposedly about his years growing up and training to be a watcher..

    It's been long discussed on alt.tv.buffy-the-vampire-slayer.

    • If it was going to be him as a "beardless youth", then why would *he* be in it? My understanding was that it would be set in the present, with Giles as an investigator of the occult.

    • Re:Ripper.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by mbourgon ( 186257 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @04:11PM (#2728010) Homepage
      Actually, what I read from Joss (one of his posts) was that it was a story about a man investigating haunted houses, supernatural and otherwise. And it's going to be hard for Anthony Stewart Head to play a teen version of, well, himself.

      Part of it was brought on by ASH's wish to go back to England, and apparently the Beeb had a long-standing "we want!" for something of Joss'. It ought to be interesting. The big question is if the Beeb will shoot themselves in the foot and not let it show in the states. If not, I think the a.b.m.b-v-s newsgroup's going to be the U.S.'s only shot at watching it.
      • That sounds like Jonathan Creek, another BBC show. Sorta a cross between Penn & Teller and Columbo. (The hero, JC, is the guy behind a well-known magician. After hooking up with an author sent to profile the magician, they investigate "paranormal" events and write them up as a series of well-selling books.)

        The series is highly regarded in the usual Anglophilic PBS circles, but I've found it takes several viewings to figure out what's going on. The problem is the language, not the plot. In a BritCom it rarely matters if you miss the subtle points of an off-handed comment, but in a mystery series those are usually the key clues!

        It's possible that Ripper covers the same ground, but the synopsis is so close that it's inevitable that at least some people will confuse the two series unless they've seen both.
      • Don't believe everything Joss says in the newsgroups. He has a flare for misdirection [fury.com].

  • I don't think I believe him... (Score:4, Funny)

    by medcalf ( 68293 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @03:49PM (#2727843) Homepage
    I can make people that are scarier than anything you can put in latex.

    Scarier than Janet Reno in Latex?

    Is there a way to mod me down for breaking the mental image rule?

  • And the cast is.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by b.foster ( 543648 )
    I've been following the discussion about this show on USENET [google.com], and the speculation about who the cast members will be is rampant and very interesting. Here are some of the more likely possibilities:
    • Sarah Michelle Geller is likely to be cast as an alien, as the obligatory 7-of-9 clone.
    • Wil Wheaton, in an effort to rescue his foundering career, will probably be one of the main characters. He will work for cheap and he's easily recognizable, so why not?
    • David Duchovney will probably also have many guest appearances, although keeping him on full-time will probably put the show waaaay over budget.
    • Ryan Phillippe will probably be the token pretty-boy character, because, well, that's just what he does best [imdb.com].
    There were many other names mentioned, of course, but these seemed to be the most credible.

    Bill

    • This gets modded as interesting? Usenet talk? That is usually as reliable as an end user's PC diagnosis :)

      Why not say William Shatner as the big giant latex-clad head? That would fit in the humans-as-scary category :)

      It would be much more likely, judging from other shows, that they would go without the big name stars because they would need the $ for fx. Besides, neither Buffy, Angel, or the X-Files used big name stars when they started.
  • With SMG playing Velma (IIRC) in the live action Scooby Doo (Am I the only one that finds the thought of a live action Scooby more frightening than Evil Angel?) will the cartoon Buffy look like Velma? Will it have a drug addicted dog?
    • Actually, SMG is playing Daphne to her RL squeeze Freddy Prinze Jr's [will SOMEONE please off this puke?] Fred. Velma is being played by Linda Cardellini (Freaks&Geeks, Legally Blonde), and Shaggy by Matt Lillard. The ONLY potential redeeming item in this upcoming abortion is Rowan Atkinson as the baddie...

      • Re:Cartoon Buffy (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Stealing from IMDB (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0267913) the cast list reads:

        • Matthew Lillard -> Norville 'Shaggy' Rogers
        • Freddie Prinze Jr. -gt; Fred Jones
        • Sarah Michelle Gellar -gt; Daphne Blake
        • Linda Cardellini -gt; Velma Dinkley
        • Rowan Atkinson -gt; Mondavarious

        The trailer is here [jurassicpunk.com]

      • So who plays Scooby Doo?
    • Hey, since it's a live action, maybe they can use langauge that they aren't allowed to use on TV. I always wanted to hear Scooby Doo say:

      "Raggy, you're a rashole."
  • Everyone moaned (both in a good and bad way) about "Enterprises" scantly clad vulcan woman, and her "soft porn" rubdown scene... Imagine what Joss will do with scifi & women!
  • Well, I loved the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but after that he and the other writers just seemed to run out of ideas - it got really repetetive and just lost its charm.

    One of the biggest things that drew me to Buffy as opposed to other "sci-fi" shows was the real life appeal it had, it tended with issues I (as a teenager) faced while mixing in the mystery of the occult.

    It sounds to me like he'll follow the same lead in this series and I'm gonna definitely check it out.

    Also, Buffy was hot *wink* *wink*
  • On TNN - Star Trek: The Next Generation
    On UPN - Star Trek: Voyager
    On FOX - Star Trek: Panties in Space
  • From the article...
    Whedon said ``Firefly'' would in some ways be a sort of ``anti-'Star Trek''' with no regular aliens or other monstrous creatures.

    Thats one thing I always hated about Star Trek, the aliens ruined every episode. Let's all hope this show has alot more personal dialog and relationship storylines.

    Seriously though, why no aliens or monstrous creatures? Maybe the TV studios want more person-to-person relationship storylines, romance, and more of a drama rather than adventure nowdays.

    • Anti-Trek (Score:3, Funny)

      by Proaxiom ( 544639 )
      If Star Trek and Anti-Trek attempt to occupy the same time slot, do they both vanish in a brilliant flash of light?
      • Those who observe it would be no more. Everyone else would celebrate...until the world starts rotting for a lack of dreams.

        Or: so that's how we could power a warp drive! ;)

  • Alien Resurrection (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rnb ( 471088 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @03:57PM (#2727907)
    Admittedly, I've never seen Buffy or Angel, or whatever those shows are, but I'm not sure I can ever forgive this guy for Alien Resurrection. Alien 3 pretty much destroyed an otherwise excellent series and then it was followed by something that could have set the series back on track but instead was just ... well, most of us saw what it was.

    Yech.

    • Re:Alien Resurrection (Score:2, Informative)

      by Pope ( 17780 )
      You might wish to read this interview [theonion.com] first before blaming him 100% for Alien Resurrection...
    • Don't blame Joss for Alien Resurrection, FOX tends to meddle with every movie he has a hand in and he is never happy with the results.

      That isn't to say that he's a paragon of direction and production -- X-Men was rather popular amongst moviegoers even though Joss personally hated the changes Apparently exactly two segments of dialogue that he wrote made it into the final cut ("Prove it" "You're a dick" was one of them).

    • Re:Alien Resurrection (Score:4, Interesting)

      by amnesty ( 69314 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @05:36PM (#2728646) Homepage

      Joss Whedon hated Alien Resurrection as well. His scripts are written be to delivered in a very specific way, and many directors just don't 'get' it. Here's a clip from an interview [theonion.com], talking about his work on X-Men and leading into Alien Resurrection.

      JW: X-Men was very interesting in that, by that time, I actually had a reputation in television. I was actually somebody. People stopped thinking I was John Sweden on the phone. And then, in X-Men, not only did they throw out my script and never tell me about it; they actually invited me to the read-through, having thrown out my entire draft without telling me. I was like, "Oh, that's right! This is the movies! The writer is shit in the movies!" I'll never understand that. I have one line left in that movie. Actually, there are a couple of lines left in that are out of context and make no sense, or are delivered so badly, so terribly... There's one line that's left the way I wrote it.

      O: Which is?

      JW: "'It's me.' 'Prove it.' 'You're a dick.'" Hey, it got a laugh.

      O: It's funny that the only lines I really remember from that movie are that one and Storm's toad comment.

      JW: Okay, which was also mine, and that's the interesting thing. Everybody remembers that as the worst line ever written, but the thing about that is, it was supposed to be delivered as completely offhand. [Adopts casual, bored tone.] "You know what happens when a toad gets hit by lightning?" Then, after he gets electrocuted, "Ahhh, pretty much the same thing that happens to anything else." But Halle Berry said it like she was Desdemona. [Strident, ringing voice.] "The same thing that happens to everything eeelse!" That's the thing that makes you go crazy. At least "You're a dick" got delivered right. The worst thing about these things is that, when the actors say it wrong, it makes the writer look stupid. People assume that the line... I listened to half the dialogue in Alien 4, and I'm like, "That's idiotic," because of the way it was said. And nobody knows that. Nobody ever gets that. They say, "That was a stupid script," which is the worst pain in the world. I have a great long boring story about that, but I can tell you the very short version. In Alien 4, the director changed something so that it didn't make any sense. He wanted someone to go and get a gun and get killed by the alien, so I wrote that in and tried to make it work, but he directed it in a way that it made no sense whatsoever. And I was sitting there in the editing room, trying to come up with looplines to explain what's going on, to make the scene make sense, and I asked the director, "Can you just explain to me why he's doing this? Why is he going for this gun?" And the editor, who was French, turned to me and said, with a little leer on his face, [adopts gravelly, smarmy, French-accented voice] "Because eet's een the screept." And I actually went and dented the bathroom stall with my puddly little fist. I have never been angrier. But it's the classic, "When something goes wrong, you assume the writer's a dork." And that's painful.

    • it was followed by something that could have set the series back on track but instead was just ...

      Am I the only person who thought that Resurrection was on the track to being down-right awesome right up until the point that the ugly psuedo-humanoid thing was given birth to?

      I think the cut off for the greatness was when Ripley-Clone fell down into the alien nest-pitt-thing. After that it the movie went straight to shit.

      The worst part is -- that if you think about it -- the plot could have easily been saved if they had made the baby alien something more interesting, such as a Ripley lookalike ala-species, maybe just a bit sexier with solid black skin and agility and speed that Ripley would have had to fight with witts. It could have been awesome.

      It could have been.

      Instead... as it was said...

      well, most of us saw what it was.

      Yech.

  • Battlestar Galactica (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wonder if this has anything to do with the difficulties that the new Battlestar Galactica production is having with Fox.

  • title of the show (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Transient0 ( 175617 )
    > Tentatively titled ``Firefly,'' the new
    > ensemble series takes place 500 years in the
    > future and revolves around the crew of a
    > "small, incredibly mobile spaceship whose aft
    > end lights up", Whedon said -- hence the name.

    For god's sake! you would think that a TV network would be able to afford to employ someone just to stop people from doing things like this!

    i mean, come on:

    "Well we don't have a name yet, but the little model we built had an LED in it's ass, let's see if we can work that into it somewhere..."
    • I thought this was supposed to be a dark show. Fireflies are cute, not scary.

      If they have to name after the fact that its ass lights up (unlike every other ship out there?) how about giving it a scary name?

      Something like FLAMING MONKEY BUTT. Normally abbreviated to FMB unless they have a late time slot.

      ... actually, since that's often a sign of sexual arousal and a red light has long been a symbol of cathouses for the same reason, this would be a good theme for a show following a band of itinerant whores. But that would make it a cable show, something for Cinemax or maybe Showtime (when Wormhole X-treme's run ends).
  • Hey, at least our names rhyme...imagine the Project Mayhem we could pull on the set...

    How 'bout it, Joss?
    • You can get a job as a Red Shirt?
        • [Maybe] You [CleverNickName aka Wil Wheaton aka Wesley Crusher] can get a job as a Red Shirt?
        • Lt. Wezley Crasher: Captain, there's a critical trans-temporal variance in the antimatter plasma conduits! Our only chance is for me to crawl down the Jeff-, er Access Tubes and reroute the phase transducence through the gamma confluguence array!
        • Cpt. Bob: Security, shoot that man.
        • Security Goon: <zap>
        • [Opening credits roll]
        • But, if Wil is a red shirt, he'd be the security goon.

          Ever watched Classic Trek?

            • But, if Wil is a red shirt, he'd be the security goon

            Sigh. It's a giggle either way; in fact, it's even more cathartic if Wil is the Security Goon and gets to execute J. Spunky Teenager. And both security and engineering wore red shirts in TOS. And "Red Shirt" is now just a generic term for any doomed character that gets one line like "I'll just take a quick look behind this polystyrene rock - AARGH!". And don't forget that pedantry and nit picking never wins you friends - look at Wesley "no mates" Crusher. ;-p

            • I wouldn't hang out here. At least, not anymore. Too damn many trolls.

              You're right, it is funnier if Wil is the Security Goon. I see it now, Wil the Security Goon shoots Annoying Teenager, looks behind styrofoam rock, says "AAArgh!".

    • Looks like someone is looking for a little action with Sara Michelle, eh will? ;-)
    • So I take it that this poster's comment [slashdot.org] was fairly off-base? Or is that one of those things that you can neither confirm nor deny, nudge nudge, wink wink?

      I'd love to see you in another sci-fi series, especially if you get to play some kind of villanous character. Get you a mohawk, maybe some odd facial tattoo, you'd be perfect.

    • This is supposed to be the anti-Trek, right?

      So, what, you'll play a character the fans like? :-)
    • Is that all you do, cruise Slashdot looking for work? <g>

      Stevis

    • Hey Wil (Score:3, Funny)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      It's easy to miss the fact that CleverNickName is the /. handle for the Wil Wheaton, this week's poster child for Fame Doesn't Pay the Rent. Hey Will, how about a distinctive sig? Otherwise your long series of "still seeking work" posts (which I hope represent self-deprecating humor) will be overlooked!

      I'm tempted to ask why they didn't bring in Wesley to get Voyager home. He was the expert on Going Real Fast, after all. But I won't ask. I suspect an honest answer would get you sued!

      • It's easy to miss the fact that CleverNickName is the /. handle for the Wil Wheaton, this week's poster child for Fame Doesn't Pay the Rent. Hey Will, how about a distinctive sig? Otherwise your long series of "still seeking work" posts (which I hope represent self-deprecating humor) will be overlooked!


        Not really.. by now everyone knows that wil is cleavernickname.. he's been interviewed by /. before and everytime he posts a comment someone comes along and informs us all who he is.. nearly everything he posts is modded up to +5 because everyone thinks he's cool.. if he loses some points here or there because someone who doesn't keep current on /. somehow gets modpoints oh well.. I seriously doubt that he needs your help or anyone else's

  • sit through crappy theme music (enterprise), I'll watch it. I can see it now.....Green aliens with horns, aliens with big teeth, aliens with personality complexes, aliens with secret love affairs, aliens that die and come back to life on other networks.
  • Good or bad, what has his record doing non-SF have to do with whether or not he can put together an interesting SF series? Does he know how incredibly short the list is of non-SF writers who have failed miserably when they tried to write science fiction? (Almost as difficult as it is to go from SF into mainstream.)

    Can he do SF? Won't know until he tries. He hasn't done it so far, but then most of the "SciFi" billed stuff on TV and movies isn't SF either. I hope he remembers that success with Buffy doesn't automatically translate into success in other genres: I think it helps the creativity when the hounds and jackels are only half a step behind... Fear is a terrific motivator, sometimes.

    Prediction: lousy SF, possibly profitable typical Hollywood "SciFi" crap. Cha-ching and he'll go off to do something that takes a bit less effort.

  • Ripper (Score:3, Funny)

    by rlp ( 11898 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @04:20PM (#2728065)
    Actually the story of a person who purchases CD audio disks and converts them to MP3 files. In the TV show he is pursued by a team of operatives from a sinister organization known as the R.I.A.A.
  • He came up with a concept that's part Western, part space drama.


    It might be worth remembering that Roddenbery originally pitched the first Star Trek to the studio as "Wagon Train to the Stars".
    • Hmm. Gee. Wide, open frontiers. New civilizations, some empires but usually primitive compared to the explorers. Frontier living means you're often your own law.

      Nope, no similarities whatsoever.
  • That's not new.

    I saw that all the time on Dr. Who.

    For some reason they all wore rubber suits and hissed or growled.



    Jonathan

  • The Anti-Cliche Man (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @04:26PM (#2728104) Homepage Journal
    In a way, this development was sort of inevitable. There's a big market for SF on TV. But the genre's in a real rut. Most shows are invented by some semi-literate hack with one Big Idea that runs dry after a few episodes. On the rare instances where somebody has done something really creative and interesting, the project is soon taken over by media suits who judge story quality by the number of explosions, shootouts, and chase scenes.

    Joss Whedon is the antithesis of all this. Not that he's any great literary genius. He just makes up ordinary, low-brow stories. But he hates hackwork, and he hates repeating himself. Most of all, he hates cliches.

    You can see this in his biggest success, Buffy. The premise makes no sense at all, except as a kind of anti-cliche. It takes the biggest horror cliche of all, the helpless, clueless, personality-deficient teenage bimbo, and turns it on its head. Critics love to talk about how Buffy keeps "raising the bar", with ever stranger and more suprising stories and chracters. But really all that's happening is Whedon telling his writers, over and over, "No, we did that already."

    So is good news, not just for TV SF, but for the whole genre. As bad as the idea-deficient Hollywood SF writers are, they're easier to take than all those bloated-epic writers who think that a clever idea is all you need. Somebody needs to teach all these people the basics of good storytelling, and Whedon is just the person to do it.

    • Sounds more like Roddenberry with every description...

      Let's make this clear, I Whedon Anti-Trek, or
      is he anti-what Paramount has done to the Star Trek
      continuity and story universe in the-"Quest to Make a Buck"?

      If the former, then he can sod off, the original design
      and creation of Star Trek was based on many of the same notions
      (Original stories, avoiding cliches, taking conventional wisdom
      for a turn) that you credit Whedon for.

      If the latter, then more power and luck to him, for as that
      original run of Star Trek found out:

      "Somebody needs to teach all these people the basics of good storytelling,"
      - What does that have to do with ratings?
      • Sounds more like Roddenberry with every description...
        Which one? Saint Gene, Patron of Trekkies, Inventor of All Things Wise and Original? I rather suspect he never actually existed.

        There's also Recycled Roddenbery, the failed media mogul, who was responsible for a stream of half-baked TV and movie projects, none of which would have seen the light of day without his reputation as the "creator" of you-know-what.

        But you're probably thinking of Soapbox Roddenbery, who wrote lots of preachy TV scripts, and aspired to become a producer, and thought "Wagon Train Goes to Mars" (better known as Star Trek) would make his reputation as such. He's widely credited with bringing "hard" SF to television, but that's bogus -- he just employed the people who did.

    • Joseph Michael Straczynski.

      If there were more epic stories like Babylon 5 on TV, it would actually be worth watching.

      Actually, Farscape and Stargate SG-1 aren't too bad, either. Sure, there are plenty of real bad sci-fi shows, but this are all on the Big 5 (NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/UPN), where corporate marketting reigns. On the channels that don't have to rely on people with B&W TVs using an attenna to get their sitcoms, they have enough intelligence to find shows based on good stories, and not a short-term big-hit injection (ie: good pilots, bad episodes) to get their finacial high.

      Series like Babylon 5 and Farscape survive because it's a good long-term story that lasts a long time (and gets people hooked for a good amount of Nelson cash flow), and the channels that host them are willing to let them go past their 13 episodes, even if they aren't suddenly the #1 show in the universe. (The main corporates just won't settle for anything less, anymore. If you don't believe me, just look at UPNs first season, where they canned EVERY SINGLE SHOW except for their Voyager cash cow.)
      • Gag. Straczynski scripts are full of clumsy exposition and dialogue worthy of a badly-dubbed kung-fu movie. His stories are so corny..., oh well, bring on the flames.

  • Latex is scary? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ellem ( 147712 ) <ellem52.gmail@com> on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @04:27PM (#2728108) Homepage Journal
    ``There'll be scary-ass humans,'' he said. ``I can make people that are scarier than anything you can put in latex.'' --Joss W

    What the Hell is this guy talking about? I say get Charisma Carpenter, Sarah Michelle Gellar and
    Alyson Hannigan in latex and have them make-out for a half hour every week.

    CC as Wonder Woman
    SMG as Cat Woman
    AH as Batgirl

    I'm watching that show right now... in my head... ohhh soo nice... latex... mmmmm
    • Now, I'm a totally straight guy.

      but lately, I don't know if it's her acting, or what, but SMG's make-out scenes have been really, well, un-sexy lately.

  • He came up with a concept that's part Western, part space drama.

    Now there's an original concept. (groan)

    And the universe is a big, scary place just like high school.

    So the villian is going to be called Vice Principal?

    Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon

    I guess the musical episode could be interesting, though...

  • The man certainly can manipulate the visual medium(s). While I'm not a fan of the Buffy series, I know many who are entranced by it. I thought I'd give his first foray into comics a try and I've been very pleased with the story, the visual composition (paneling, etc...), and the quality of art (kudos to the artist).

    There have been 5 issues released so far (I just read #5 last night). He's got great pacing per issue as well as across a whole storyline. His characters are intriguing and complex and he uses relationships well.

    If you like Whedon's story telling via video, you should check out this book.

  • Why we watch Buffy (Score:4, Funny)

    by scott1853 ( 194884 ) on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @05:05PM (#2728419)
    Ok guys, enough is enough. There's plenty of comments on the Buffy show lately. I think we can all drop the act.

    You know what I mean. We're not watching it for any sci-fi or horror reasons. It's obvious.

    Buffy will date freaks.

    And the lesbians don't hurt either
    • Uh, no. So far we've seen here with a studly-but-moody vampire, a studly-but-troubled vampire wanabee, a studly-but-self-centered college guy, a studly-but-dimwitted soldier of fortune, a studly-but-secretly-wanting-to-destroy-the-world medical intern ...

      Oh yeah, and her current squeeze, the semi-defanged Spike, who's not quite studly, but certainly Hollywood pretty. Doesn't really count, she she's in denial about the whole relationship.

      Gad, nobody on Star Trek had such an interesting love life. Never mind B5!

  • Joss is a Genious (Score:2, Interesting)

    by truffle ( 37924 )

    Buffy the Vampire Slayer...might as well be called Fluffy the Vampire Slayer. It's hard to take a show with such a silly premise, and a hottie like SMG as the main character, seriously.

    But seriously you should take it because Buffy has got some of the best damned writing on TV today, and it keeps getting better.

    Joss isn't just churning out the class-A stories, he's delving into new and exciting territory. While other shows consider themself to be forward thinking by including five seconds of girl-girl kissing, Buffy features a deep well developed relationship between Tara and Willow. This season's musical epsiode features exceptional music, vocals, and choreography. It was a total diversion from the standard Buffy format, it was incredibly good, and it leaves the viewer wondering what kind of genious could create something so different, so wonderful, and for just one episode.

    Joss.

    The man is a genious.

    Hopefully he won't have to throw in an angst-ridden geek character for Slashdot readers to appreciate the brilliance that is Joss.
  • That's funny, I thought there already was an animated buffy [animejin.org.uk]

    Isn't Devil Hunter Yoko what the show was based on anyway?
  • Remember the hype for Harsh Realm a few years ago? Fox ran the premiere once on a Friday night. Monday morning they decided to cancel it due to low ratings. They ran the second episode that week then the series vanished.

    How is somebody like Whedon supposed to do any better? It took Whedon, like Carter, several years on a "second-class TV network" before their work grew beyond a cult following.

    I'm sceptical such a thing will be allowed time to grow on Fox.

    Anybody seen "The Tick" after the first 2 or 3 episodes? I didn't think so.
  • Before a couple of weeks ago, I never had seen the original BtVS movie. Before October, I'd never watched a single episode of the series. It just sounded stupid, and I thought that it was some dumb teen-chick show like Charmed.

    Then, a few months ago, FX started airing back-to-back episodes of Buffy, and I happened to watch a couple of hours of it. I was completely amazed at how good it was, and mortified that I haven't been watching it over the years.

    Thanks to my VCR, though, I'm almost all caught up. It's an excellent series, and the only scifi show I've ever seen that can so consistently give me a good laugh from the clever dialogue (in addition to when Spike makes some dread proclamation of doom, then proceeds to get zapped or falls into an open grave.)

    Excellent stuff.
  • Enterprise = anti-trek.
    'nuff said.

    though perhaps my opinion isn't worth a damn because I stopped watching that putrid shit after the second episode (ooh! goodie! lets learn a language in .... 20 minutes!)

    BTW, who is going to top Buffy? (Oh.. fuck they found a place for Britney Spears, tho that might not be that bad...)
  • I like the idea of another SF series which is not overwhelmed with niceness and fuzzyness, where the scariest of foes (eg. kingons or borg) become the cuddliest of companions after a few episodes.


    Blakes 7 was most definitely anti-trek, with the totalitarian empire of the Federation having its symbol as Trek Federation symbol on its side. The great writing, some good acting and some good characters made up for a low budget. Can you imagine a dialogue like this between heroes in any current American SF series:
    "I'm in front, I should have the gun"
    "No, I've got the gun, that's why you're in front"

  • And perhaps this is due to Whedon's shifting attention, but ...

    IMHO, Buffy has fallen into the same trap that the X-Files did. Both shows used to be bitingly funny--even though there were deep dark moments (especially in Buffy), there were always enough off-handed humorous remarks so that the shows weren't truly depressing week after week. The beauty was that in the same episode where Angel turned evil and tortured Giles (and etc.), there were still lines that made me laugh out loud. However, in the past season or two (and a bit longer for the X-Files), it's as if the writers have been trying far too hard to make a point or develop plot or something ... I'm someone who enjoys a good wallow in misery sometimes, but ultimately tv is about entertainment.

    And, of course, "Angel" has fallen prey to the baby-trap that killed off "Mad About You."

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