Joss to co-write Angel Season 6
Nothing is 100% for sure, but Joss has said that he was really happy with Brian Lynch's Spike: Asylum (which I love my own self) and was thinking that Lynch could do Angel's season 6 for IDW (Buffy's season 8 is published by Dark Horse). Lynch posted at his MySpace that nothing is set in stone, but he was excited by the idea, and then IDW posted that a deal was being worked out for Joss to co-write with Brian Lynch: with all this good will and excitement I don't see how this project can fail to happen.
But there are nay sayers, this one blogger, waxbanks, feels that Not Fade Away was such a perfect ending to Angel that it would be wrong for Joss to do a comic book sequel. A link (above) was posted at Whedonesque, and not being satisfied with writing at length in his own blog he has felt the need to post dozens of extremely long posts to every single person who comments to his blog at Whedonesque.
Evidently Waxbanks is well known at a blogger on many Buffy boards so perhaps I should hesitate to call him a big blow hard, but I felt that he deliberately filters everything he reads so that he doesn't even hear the points other people are making.
It really irritated me that when I posted about the 'need' blog he deliberately misunderstood me and assumed I was wanting/needing more about specific characters (I thought he accused me of being an Angel/Buffy shipper...as if!!)... and that is completely wrong. All I care about is that Joss had planned at least one (if not more) seasons for Angel, so he had a lot more story ideas that never came to light...
I thought comparing it to Buffy's season 5 The Gift was a good example: sure Buffy made the 'ultimate' sacrifice, it didn't mean the story had to end there. In fact I think seasons 6 and 7 are far superior to 5. And I think the 'sharing the power' idea in Chosen is more powerful than the ultimate sacrifice idea (although for me personally the ending of season 4, when Buffy was physically mentally and spiritually combined with Giles Willow & Xander, was the most profound and moving ending ever).
Waxbank has kind of implied that Joss is doing Buffy S8 and the possible Angel S6 because they are making money, but in fact this is chump change (Joss said that his wife looks at his 'paycheck' for comics and just laughs and laughs)... I think he is only doing it because he has the characters screaming inside his head begging to tell their stories...
The blogger further pointed out that writers should know when to stop, like Lucas should have stopped before doing the prequels. And while I agree with that example, I find it kind of insulting to Joss. I have seen no signs that his writing has started to go down hill or that he is out of ideas.. Even when Renoir was going blind he didn't stop painting, even when Beethovan was going deaf he didn't stop composing... the fact is that there is no reason to stop so long as the creative juices are flowing.
I've just finished rewatching Buffy's season 4, and was really blown away by nearly every episode.:
I personally loved 'The Freshman' and 'Living Conditions' because I felt that both episodes captured my experience as a Freshman perfectly. I was not able to find my way, get the classes I needed, or feel comfortable in the new enviornment, while I was having to adjust to a totally bizarre roommate with whom I had nothing in common and who I later discovered was more than a little nuts (she was stalking Joe Namath, she was kind of a freak).
Harsh Light of Day was funny and sad, and Fear Itself was scary and really funny! And personally I think Bear Bad is under-rated, I liked the cave man Buffy, who kind of foreshadowed the First Slayer showing up at the end of the season.
I'm less fond of Wild at Heart, but of course we had to wrench Oz away, and the commentary of Joss w/Seth Green was great!
The Initiative was a great chance to see Spike as a hero, kind of like that old TV show The Prisoner, and to witness his great escape.... For the the Sci-fi verses Fantasy/Magic theme is a great one: I've always loved Sci-fi and the whole idea of the Government getting involved and getting it wrong always works for me.
Pangs is one of my all time favorite episodes that I never get tired of, I love the Thanksgiving theme, I love Buffy channeling Martha Stewart and wanting to do everything from scratch (SMG was never funnier).
There is no reason to defend Something Blue or Hush because I think everyone agrees that these were amazing episodes.
Doomed was less exciting, although going back to revisit the High School is always fun, and A New Man was really a chance to look at Gile's isolation and disconnect with Buffy and the Scoobies, and who can argue with the great scenes between Spike and Giles?
I had no trouble enjoying The I in Team and Goodbye Iowa, as we found out more about the initiative and the secret experiments being done.
And This Year's Girl and Who Are You (each with wonderful commentaries) are great! I loved the job SMG and Eliza did with their exchange of bodies, I've heard arguments each way saying one was better than the other, but I felt that you never forgot for a minute who was really Buffy and who was really Faith. And of course it was one of Tara's greatest scenes, getting hurt by Faith and recognizing that she was NOT Willow's friend.
Superstar is amazing (and I love Jane Espenson's commentary too), it is a complete gem: it deals with Buffy's on going pain having been jerked around by Faith while giving us one of the funniest episodes ever.
And okay, I don't like Where the Wild Things Are, it was kind of a lame story... but it still manages to have a lot of humor.
New Moon Rising is one of my very favorites, I loved how they touched on Oz learning to control his werewolf problem (and I really recommend Christopher Golden's book, it is a wonderful read and goes deeply into Oz's journey). I had never felt so invested in Willow & Tara's love story, so this time I was really moved by Oz's jealousy and Tara's fear of losing the person she loves, and Willow's feelings of being torn between two people she cares deeply about.
Who doesn't love The Yoko Factor? I adore how easily Spike is able to pick up on everyone's weaknesses and exploits them. This is a wonderful show about how little it takes to drive a wedge between people because they are usually too involved in their own stuff to really take the time to communicate with the people the care the most about.
As I said above: Primeval seemed transcendental to me, it is the complete unity of these wonderful friends into one embodiment which is beyond powerful. As Buffy turns bullets into birds you can see how far beyond science the spirit can rise. When Buffy said "you can never hope to grasp the source of our power.... but your's is right here" I was completely blown away!
And last but certainly not least is Restless, which is Joss' attempt at stream of consciousness, getting into each of his core characters and their deepest feelings. I love watching this, I love listening to the commentary, and I don't believe the cheese means nothing.
Maybe my flist is tired of discussing Buffy, although I would think that the new comic might be sparking the old love....
But there are nay sayers, this one blogger, waxbanks, feels that Not Fade Away was such a perfect ending to Angel that it would be wrong for Joss to do a comic book sequel. A link (above) was posted at Whedonesque, and not being satisfied with writing at length in his own blog he has felt the need to post dozens of extremely long posts to every single person who comments to his blog at Whedonesque.
Evidently Waxbanks is well known at a blogger on many Buffy boards so perhaps I should hesitate to call him a big blow hard, but I felt that he deliberately filters everything he reads so that he doesn't even hear the points other people are making.
It really irritated me that when I posted about the 'need' blog he deliberately misunderstood me and assumed I was wanting/needing more about specific characters (I thought he accused me of being an Angel/Buffy shipper...as if!!)... and that is completely wrong. All I care about is that Joss had planned at least one (if not more) seasons for Angel, so he had a lot more story ideas that never came to light...
I thought comparing it to Buffy's season 5 The Gift was a good example: sure Buffy made the 'ultimate' sacrifice, it didn't mean the story had to end there. In fact I think seasons 6 and 7 are far superior to 5. And I think the 'sharing the power' idea in Chosen is more powerful than the ultimate sacrifice idea (although for me personally the ending of season 4, when Buffy was physically mentally and spiritually combined with Giles Willow & Xander, was the most profound and moving ending ever).
Waxbank has kind of implied that Joss is doing Buffy S8 and the possible Angel S6 because they are making money, but in fact this is chump change (Joss said that his wife looks at his 'paycheck' for comics and just laughs and laughs)... I think he is only doing it because he has the characters screaming inside his head begging to tell their stories...
The blogger further pointed out that writers should know when to stop, like Lucas should have stopped before doing the prequels. And while I agree with that example, I find it kind of insulting to Joss. I have seen no signs that his writing has started to go down hill or that he is out of ideas.. Even when Renoir was going blind he didn't stop painting, even when Beethovan was going deaf he didn't stop composing... the fact is that there is no reason to stop so long as the creative juices are flowing.
I've just finished rewatching Buffy's season 4, and was really blown away by nearly every episode.:
I personally loved 'The Freshman' and 'Living Conditions' because I felt that both episodes captured my experience as a Freshman perfectly. I was not able to find my way, get the classes I needed, or feel comfortable in the new enviornment, while I was having to adjust to a totally bizarre roommate with whom I had nothing in common and who I later discovered was more than a little nuts (she was stalking Joe Namath, she was kind of a freak).
Harsh Light of Day was funny and sad, and Fear Itself was scary and really funny! And personally I think Bear Bad is under-rated, I liked the cave man Buffy, who kind of foreshadowed the First Slayer showing up at the end of the season.
I'm less fond of Wild at Heart, but of course we had to wrench Oz away, and the commentary of Joss w/Seth Green was great!
The Initiative was a great chance to see Spike as a hero, kind of like that old TV show The Prisoner, and to witness his great escape.... For the the Sci-fi verses Fantasy/Magic theme is a great one: I've always loved Sci-fi and the whole idea of the Government getting involved and getting it wrong always works for me.
Pangs is one of my all time favorite episodes that I never get tired of, I love the Thanksgiving theme, I love Buffy channeling Martha Stewart and wanting to do everything from scratch (SMG was never funnier).
There is no reason to defend Something Blue or Hush because I think everyone agrees that these were amazing episodes.
Doomed was less exciting, although going back to revisit the High School is always fun, and A New Man was really a chance to look at Gile's isolation and disconnect with Buffy and the Scoobies, and who can argue with the great scenes between Spike and Giles?
I had no trouble enjoying The I in Team and Goodbye Iowa, as we found out more about the initiative and the secret experiments being done.
And This Year's Girl and Who Are You (each with wonderful commentaries) are great! I loved the job SMG and Eliza did with their exchange of bodies, I've heard arguments each way saying one was better than the other, but I felt that you never forgot for a minute who was really Buffy and who was really Faith. And of course it was one of Tara's greatest scenes, getting hurt by Faith and recognizing that she was NOT Willow's friend.
Superstar is amazing (and I love Jane Espenson's commentary too), it is a complete gem: it deals with Buffy's on going pain having been jerked around by Faith while giving us one of the funniest episodes ever.
And okay, I don't like Where the Wild Things Are, it was kind of a lame story... but it still manages to have a lot of humor.
New Moon Rising is one of my very favorites, I loved how they touched on Oz learning to control his werewolf problem (and I really recommend Christopher Golden's book, it is a wonderful read and goes deeply into Oz's journey). I had never felt so invested in Willow & Tara's love story, so this time I was really moved by Oz's jealousy and Tara's fear of losing the person she loves, and Willow's feelings of being torn between two people she cares deeply about.
Who doesn't love The Yoko Factor? I adore how easily Spike is able to pick up on everyone's weaknesses and exploits them. This is a wonderful show about how little it takes to drive a wedge between people because they are usually too involved in their own stuff to really take the time to communicate with the people the care the most about.
As I said above: Primeval seemed transcendental to me, it is the complete unity of these wonderful friends into one embodiment which is beyond powerful. As Buffy turns bullets into birds you can see how far beyond science the spirit can rise. When Buffy said "you can never hope to grasp the source of our power.... but your's is right here" I was completely blown away!
And last but certainly not least is Restless, which is Joss' attempt at stream of consciousness, getting into each of his core characters and their deepest feelings. I love watching this, I love listening to the commentary, and I don't believe the cheese means nothing.
Maybe my flist is tired of discussing Buffy, although I would think that the new comic might be sparking the old love....