Why the Buffyverse?

[lostboy_lj]

I was reading a fanfic musing over at shapinglight's journal.  I started to respond, but it was getting a little long-ish, so I decided to do a post instead.  It's an interesting read in general, but this question in particular stood out to me:

Which leads me to wondering why it is that the Buffyverse is still the only fictional world invented by other people

Comments

[local_max]

I think I am more a Joss Whedon fan than you, and I have a particularly close attachment to his other works (especially Firefly, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible, and his run on Astonishing X-Men, though I quite like The Avengers and Cabin in the Woods too). (And Much Ado About Nothing is not really a bazillion dollar blockbuster!) I loooooove Firefly and I love Dollhouse and I dig those movies a lot. I even like the comics, or at least season eight. I bring this up not so much because I want to debate their quality as that I think it's noteworthy how wide a range there is to reactions in BtVS fandom and I want to lay my cards on the table -- I do fan certain people from the show in a way that other fans don't. I do think that the things I love about BtVS are more about Whedon than about any of the other writer/directors. ON THE OTHER HAND, I think that the Whedon/Noxon collaboration especially, and in general the Whedon/Noxon/Espenson/Petrie/Fury/DeKnight/Goddard/etc. confluence produced something much stronger than any of them as individuals can accomplish. Marti Noxon has worked on one other thing that I love passionately, Mad Men, but she was not as essential to it was she was to BtVS, and I believe strongly that she is the second most important creative force in BtVS' success, that she is consistently brilliant there, and that she has not found anything like the same niche again and I'm not sure whether she will. Something HAPPENED on BtVS that is special.

Frequently, in my mind, I hold up BtVS as a Platonic Ideal of Shows, and then get frustrated when I feel like it doesn't live up to that -- sometimes I get weird and insecure when another show comes up that seems more consistent, braver, more piercing. I think that shows exist that are more consistent, braver, more piercing. I'm not sure if any of them have the same delicate combination as Buffy does. Some shows stay too much the same and others reinvent themselves too strongly -- BtVS feels like a gradual transformation. There are no other shows, I think, who have a protagonist who is *both* as genuinely heroic and as complicated with dark shadings as Buffy -- other shows can have darker protagonists, or more uniformly heroic ones, but something about the balance struck with Buffy speaks to me. I love the way the show both takes the time to experiment and keeps itself grounded, the way it both breaks the rules and has a classical adherence to them. And the show is open-ended enough to want to play in it, without being so open-ended that it's without form and structure to itself.

You know, my favourite season is season six and my favourite character is often (not always!) Willow (it's often Buffy, and for a while it was Spike, and sometimes it's Xander, and oh hey Giles, Anya <3! etc). I have written a lot about why, here and there, but while I occasionally hit on big statements (I Identify With This Character) which are TRUE, but they are still incomplete. And more to the point, I don't really love "season six" in some kind of bizarre isolation chamber, but because it's to me the most BtVS-y of BtVS stories; I love all the characters and the way they interact and dovetail even if there are some moments where one obsesses me more than the rest. I like being the logical dude whose preferences make sense and I want to hold onto the ego-dream that I must love something because it's deserving of my love. But while I do think the show is "deserving," I don't think that is the reason why. It's love because it's love. In the real life romantic sense, a friend described me as a serial monogamist. While I do fool around on BtVS, for most of my life I have had one primarily fannish obsession that everything else revolves around; BtVS is both the most current and the strongest.

[lostboy_lj]

I haven't seen much of Firefly (and none of Dollhouse), and I don't really read comics all that much (and no serial comics at all), so it's hard to comment on those. Dr. Horrible, Penny, Captain Hammer and Bad Horse are all people I very much dig, and I've watched that short more than twice. I did like both "Cabin" and "Avengers", but I wasn't particularly blown away by them. They were entertaining. and I thought "Cabin" had a few interesting ideas.

As for Whedon's work on Buffy, without getting into a whole Death of the Author sort of discussion, I think it's fair to say he had a lot of influence on various things that I liked about the show, but that his wasn't the only detectable set of fingerprints on the things I liked (I think that's especially true in the 4th when he was focused on getting "Angel" off the ground). I also suspect, as is usually the case with showrunners and "bigshots" like George Lucas, he probably winds up getting credit for certain aspects of the product that he doesn't really deserve. Just looking at the evolution of Doug Petrie's role over the years, for example, tells me that he probably played a very big role in getting the post-Angel transition right, and refocusing the show on a larger scale.

But, hey, that's all theory and conjecture. I will say that the other projects Joss has attached himself to (that I've seen anyway) seem to be missing a certain something that just isn't missing on BtVS. That doesn't mean I hate them, it just means I'm not in love with them.

Frequently, in my mind, I hold up BtVS as a Platonic Ideal of Shows, and then get frustrated when I feel like it doesn't live up to that -- sometimes I get weird and insecure when another show comes up that seems more consistent, braver, more piercing.

I know what you mean. There are certain shows that I found more engaging in certain, individual aspects, but nothing that I found more engaging as a whole, to the extent that I want to rummage around in its underwear drawers. The first season of "Boss", for instance, might have been more politically daring and engaged me thoroughly on a cerebral level, but was I as emotionally invested? "Breaking Bad" might be as morally harrowing as Season Six, but is it as heartfelt?

I want to hold onto the ego-dream that I must love something because it's deserving of my love. But while I do think the show is "deserving," I don't think that is the reason why. It's love because it's love.

Right. At some depth, it becomes irrational, because I am not Spock. Is my wife the most beautiful, intelligent, perfect woman on Earth ? The answer is that she both is and is not.

(Mostly "is", if she's reading this :D).

[local_max]

As for Whedon's work on Buffy, without getting into a whole Death of the Author sort of discussion, I think it's fair to say he had a lot of influence on various things that I liked about the show, but that his wasn't the only detectable set of fingerprints on the things I liked (I think that's especially true in the 4th when he was focused on getting "Angel" off the ground). I also suspect, as is usually the case with showrunners and "bigshots" like George Lucas, he probably winds up getting credit for certain aspects of the product that he doesn't really deserve. Just looking at the evolution of Doug Petrie's role over the years, for example, tells me that he probably played a very big role in getting the post-Angel transition right, and refocusing the show on a larger scale.

I definitely agree with this. In season four, I do credit Whedon with my three favourite episodes of the year -- "Hush," "Restless" and "Who Are You" -- but "New Moon Rising" and "Pangs" (though I have some ambivalence about "Pangs") and some others, like Petrie's "The Initiative" and "This Year's Girl" and "The Yoko Factor," three of the very biggest, best and most important shows of the year are really close behind, nipping at WAY's ankles.

I tend to give him a lot of credit because he did write episodes I like the most overall -- but I also think that Noxon and Petrie and Espenson and Fury et al. are not given the credit they absolutely should get. And the way the writers' voices clash sometimes produces the best results.

I know what you mean. There are certain shows that I found more engaging in certain, individual aspects, but nothing that I found more engaging as a whole, to the extent that I want to rummage around in its underwear drawers. The first season of "Boss", for instance, might have been more politically daring and engaged me thoroughly on a cerebral level, but was I as emotionally invested? "Breaking Bad" might be as morally harrowing as Season Six, but is it as heartfelt?

Right, yes. I think it just hits the right buttons -- but while love is that rare precious thing, there are other shows that matter and soar highly in their own ways. It's just, something about this particular one....

Right. At some depth, it becomes irrational, because I am not Spock. Is my wife the most beautiful, intelligent, perfect woman on Earth ? The answer is that she both is and is not.

(Mostly "is", if she's reading this :D).

Is and isn't! I guess the world wouldn't be as fun a place if it weren't true, on some level, that every person is the best in the whole world in some way or another.

[lostboy_lj]

The other thing is endurance. So many serials just exhaust themselves early on and wind up being redundant, irrelevant or worse.

For instance, I mentioned "Boss", the first season of which I was really blown away by. The second season? Not so much. It felt like it shot its whole load in those first eight episodes, and there was nothing really of interest left to tell. Cue gratuitous sex scenes, brainless melodrama and illogical intrigue. It's not really bad, now, just average. Then again, maybe average is the worst sort of thing to be when it comes to art.

With Buffy, the seven-season journey felt paced almost exactly right (I'm actually working on a little graphics project right now to try to illustrate why I think that is).

[local_max]

Right. BtVS is not a sprint, it's a marathon -- and knowing that the show eventually reaches the heights it does even makes retracing its early period that much more pleasurable. There are lots of shows with much more exciting/remarkable first seasons on a first watching, but BtVS' first season gains for me in repeat viewings knowing what's to come, and appreciating how well the dynamics were set up early on to be repeated, revisited, reversed....

[lostboy_lj]

Yep. And, not to challenge you on your Whedon fandom, but I do think that the show got much better as it proceeded, which I think tracked pretty evenly with Whedon's less direct level of involvement over the years. Correlation doesn't equal causation, of course, but I do wonder whether the absence of some of Joss' excesses as a regular writer not only helped the show to spread its wings, but also helped his writing -- and not just in an absence-makes the-heart-grow-fonder kind of way.

After season three, when I think Joss mainly stepped in to helm for special occasions, I really started to appreciate the particular talents he brought to the show's chemistry of writers and directors. A "Joss episode" became less about an authorial imprimatur than it was about his peculiar gifts for absurdity, tonal dissonance and narrative experimentation, to be measured equitably against different gifts from other creators of the show.

[rebcake]

Jumping in to say that in my, ahem, several conversations with Jane Espenson, she is adamant that "Buffy is Joss". (She means the show, not the character, I'm sure.) She contends that when someone comes up to quote a favorite line from one of "her" episodes, it's almost always one that Joss inserted in rewrites. Personally, I think she overstates the case. She is my favorite Buffy writer, if I go by the numbers. I'm not a huge fan of Joss' finales, a point on which you and I disagree, and I really, really dislike his "Amends", which owenthurman pointed out was really more like an Angel practice run than an episode of BtVS. But ♥ Jane ♥ wrote many, many of my favorites. Link for List. You know how I feel about lists, right?

All that to say that I think you are right that the magic stew of writers made the show, and Joss, even better. Creative communities are like that, at their best. But he created it. He put the elements into motion. He had an end he was working toward. He ran the show. In a way, they were all fic writers, bringing their own nuances to his characters. Understand, I don't think that is a pejorative term. It's just I've come to incorporate a lot into my idea of "fic" and it seems to me that there are lots of writers working in worlds created by others, and some of them are paid handsomely for it. The entire writing staff of "Game of Thrones" for instance.

[lostboy_lj]

Well, I've talked to Jane a whole lot too, and she's told me unequivocally that Joss Whedon "sucks eggs" (her words, not mine). Also, she said that Joss wasn't Buffy but that, in fact, James Contner was, and everyone knew it including SMG who tried to petition the government to get the names changed and whatNOT and ALSO the character of Riley Finn was basically the writing staff's living satire of Joss brought to life while he was away. I swear this by all that is holy moly (meaning Joss's OMWF, of course).

(don't quote me on any of this, even though it's TRUE)

[rebcake]

Oh, you.

[local_max]

Right. And I think my favourite of Whedon's season three episodes is Doppelgangland, which is the episode that is also the one closest to a standalone of his s3 episodes and is also the one that hits the beats you mention -- absurdity, tonal dissonance, narrative experimentation (though in a subtler way than many of his other later episodes did) -- while also having a confidence to veer into seemingly just-comic dimensions that are also setting up long-range characterization. Meanwhile, the heavy lifting in the Faith arc was being done around this time by Noxon and Petrie.

[red_satin_doll]

I think that shows exist that are more consistent, braver, more piercing. I'm not sure if any of them have the same delicate combination as Buffy does.

100% agreement on this and your entire comment. I can parse out the themes of the show, I can analyze it analytically and love that it makes demands on my intellect, but at the end of they day the "why" it captured me is beyond any explanation I can offer besides "love".

Marti Noxon has worked on one other thing that I love passionately, Mad Men, but she was not as essential to it was she was to BtVS, and I believe strongly that she is the second most important creative force in BtVS' success, that she is consistently brilliant there, and that she has not found anything like the same niche again and I'm not sure whether she will. Something HAPPENED on BtVS that is special.

The Marti Noxon love here makes me all kinds of happy because it is so rare and hard to find - even on Lj site populated by "feminist" and late-season buffy fans, the most Noxon tends to get is grudging respect (particularly as a writer) and as you know she is held responsible for anything fans dislike about the later seasons. And that's difficult for me to counter - I love the late seasons with all their flaws but really have no idea how to parse out "who is responsible for what" beyond who is the credited screenwriter, or interviews and speculation.