Stakes and Salvation

An Interview with Marti Noxon

2007-09-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

Marti Noxon was recently kind enough to take time out from running Private Practice to do an interview with me. During it we talked about Buffy, Grey's Anatomy and Point Pleasant as well as what it's like to be a showrunner.

Jackal: How’s Private Practice going?

Marti Noxon: It’s been good. It’s been very busy. The first year of any show is a lot of work. A lot of late nights. But it’s good people, really good people.

J: And as a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy, how much of a challenge has it been differentiating the themes and the tone from the parent show?

MN: Well… one of the good things about it is, I think the tone is very similar in a way. It has the same comedy/melodrama ratio. But it has a similar ratio as Grey’s. But it’s easy to differentiate because the actors are so much more mature and they’re at a different place in life. So in terms of differentiating the shows, the feeling of the show is quite different. And we do a lot of locations and they’re out of the office a lot and that’s really not the case on Grey’s.

J: And is it different working on something like Grey’s and Private Practice, which are quite mainstream in their appeal, as opposed to Buffy and Point Pleasant?

MN: Yeah, it is different. I mean the level of public scrutiny, especially when I was on Grey’s, I couldn’t believe – especially the amount of press we were getting. So, yeah, it does feel different – there’s an immediate response to everything we’re doing. Whereas, with Buffy you could fly under the radar. Those are two very different experiences. From what I understand Point Pleasant was more popular in international.

J: I know they were all shown here in the UK.

MN: We really didn’t get a response with Point Pleasant. It just sort of petered away. But yeah, this is just constantly, constantly hearing articles both about the show and on set stuff. So yeah, you feel more scrutinized.

J: And is writing Private Practice different than writing genre shows?

MN: Yes and no. Although I said to Shonda [Rhimes] when I started working on Grey’s that in a weird way Grey’s is strangely not based in reality either and that the doctors are based in their own superhero world. Tonally, it doesn’t feel based in the real world. It feels like a magical space and the doctors, a lot like on Buffy, have these twisted personal lives and then they jump into superhero mode and they save people. So in a weird way I feel the most in my comfort zone since I left Buffy. That tone shift between the very dramatic and the very light. And then these characters are doing something and have a mission. The hardest thing for me on Point Pleasant was I couldn’t figure out who was on what side and for me the show didn’t come to life until we started leading into the fact the girl was evil but by then it was too late. But Private Practice, in a weird way doesn’t feel that much different.

J: What are the challenges of writing shows that incorporate genre elements and shows that don’t?

MN: Shonda is a huge Buffy fan, which is why she was eager to have someone from that show help her out and we talk about both shows often and the contrasts and stuff. And she jokingly said to me the other day, “we should make them all really superheroes, we should make the doctors all have alter egos and fly around.” And I said “no, don’t,” ‘cause one of the things I like about working on a show that is not a genre show is that the rules and boundaries are a lot more defined and that the rules and limitlessness of the genre show and the fact that it can only be confined by your imagination can be really, really overwhelming. You can feel completely stuck because you have to just top yourself over and over again and also so many things are just old genre tropes. Here, you’ve got your old medical show clichés but you can’t avoid them so you just try and write them better.

J: Okay, now some Buffy questions… You started off as a writer and then you became a showrunner at the beginning of season six…

MN: Yeah, I got promoted to an executive producer and the reality is I was already doing a lot of stuff that I did on season six before, but I got credit for it. And people also thought that meant Joss [Whedon] wasn’t around and that just wasn’t the case. He was very much around.

J: So, as a showrunner what were your favorite parts of the job? Overseeing production, editing or did you still favor writing?

MN: I think that that job for me, aside from the fact that there is just a lot of pressure, is the most fun because you do a variety of things. You’re you’re managing a staff of writers and you’re talking to the actors and you’re involved in production. But the problem is that it’s kinda just too much for a normal person. One non-Joss person. You kinda just feel overwhelmed and it’s very taxing. Private Practice is a good situation and the Buffy situation was great as those responsibilities are often shared.

J: A friend of mine told me this, which I did not know, but apparently Joss once said you were Zoe to his Malcolm Reynolds. Can you elaborate on that?

MN: That seems about right. I was faithful and devoted and I worked on the engine a lot, but he often had to tell me what was broke.

J: Okay, back to Buffy, because this is apparently a very schizophrenic interview… I noticed in Buffy, and this hasn’t been mentioned in many interviews, that the tone of the show changed from season to season. Like season seven had a very earthy feel. How much of that is you and the writers deciding what tone you want and how much comes down to production?

MN: And how much of it is unconscious? I mean so much of it is where you’re at in relationship to your own creative process; each other; the actors; where you’re at in your life. The outside culture bleeds in. In terms of what’s going on in the world, I think we all went to a relatively dark place after Columbine and 9/11. I’ll never forget the day, 9/11, going down to the set and telling people to leave and driving through the streets. I mean we’d been joking about the apocalypse for years but suddenly it felt more real than a joke. So, I don’t know, I think so many things come into play and you don’t always know what the big picture feels like. We did know, for instance, that in season six we wanted to explore that post-collegiate, toxic taste of adulthood where you kind of try all of the bad stuff to see if that’s you. I mean the darkness and the nastiness was definitely a reflection of our own fatigue and we didn’t feel the need to be quite as fanciful. We’d done that.

J: The thing I noticed about season six was… The stories were dark, but the visual tone of the series was lighter than it had been previously. Was that a conscious thing to balance it out?

MN: That’s interesting. I’ve never really noticed that and to be honest I haven’t gone back and looked at stuff very much at all. I just saw an episode for the first time in years and I’ve never watched the seasons they way other people did. I’ve never sat down with the box sets and just watched them. From the first thirteen, I only saw them in terms of production and then watched them on television maybe once. And then, as the years progressed, I may not have seen them on TV – never seen the color timed version. But we were certainly aware that that season was very, very dark. And Joss and I often didn’t go to color timing so the person in charge of post may have been like “kick it up.”

J: Do you find it hard to watch things you’ve made then and to be able to enjoy them the way you do other shows?

MN: It’s nearly impossible. Although I watched the musical – in fact Joss and I watched it together – and it was far enough away that I just watched it and had a great time. I think maybe I’m getting close to the point I can watch Buffy and enjoy it. But I’ve never watched Point Pleasant, I’ve never watched… I just don’t.

J: I’d never really thought about it before. That’s interesting.

MN: Yeah, it either turns into an exercise of longing or self incrimination.

J: I imagine if you were really a perfectionist and kept spotting mistakes it would drive you mad.

MN: Yeah, and until recently I hadn’t really had a good working situation. I mean Point Pleasant was a nightmare in terms of network experience and the production and I’d just had a baby, so it kinda feels like this weird dream. My nanny would go with me everywhere and we drove to the location in San Diego in this limousine and I went to a meeting with the network and they had made me cry and I got into the limousine weeping and they took me to a really fancy hotel where I had another meeting and they made me cry. And my nanny said, “What kind of job is this?” They cart you around in the most fancy limousine and you have every luxury and all they do is make you cry. So that’s what I remember when I think of Point Pleasant: that’s the day I thought I was gonna be fired.

J: Do you find the satisfaction of running a show outweighs the stress of it?

MN: That is a good question. I think if you talk to any Buffy related person, that was a unique experience. What I don’t enjoy is the first year thing. It feels like a gauntlet that has to be run. I’d like for a show to make it passed that so I could just do my job.

J: And you’ve been a consulting producer on Angel and Prison Break. What did that involve?

MN: That is usually just related to story and script stuff, just spending time with the writers and talking about their ideas. It’s a relatively one-tier job. You pop in, you stay for a while and then you leave. It’s a lovely job.

J: So, back to Buffy, they had very distinctive speech patterns and rhythms. Did you find that made it easier to write for the characters and conform to that style of dialogue?

MN: The great thing about that job is those rhythms were present in my work anyway and I just fell into them and I’m a relatively good mimic, in terms of voice on the page. So it was delightful to know what you were aiming for and to feel it in your own bones when it was working. No writing is necessarily easy but it came more natural to me.

J: What characters in Buffy would you say you had an affinity for?

MN: I had different relationships with each of them. I loved to write Xander and Willow, in particular, and Oz. All the super misfits I was really comfortable with. Buffy herself was always interesting to write ‘cause she was in a way the least accessible character to figure out and it was an interesting challenge. But in terms of ease and relatability it was Willow and Xander. I was like, “I know these people.”

J: Okay, now I have a bunch of really geeky questions about plot points… Maggie Walsh was supposed to be the big bad of season four, but Lindsay Crouse was unavailable – that’s one rumor I heard. Is that true?

MN: Yes, that’s true. That is actually true.

J: Do you know what she would have done or did you never get that far with the plans?

MN: No, we never got that far.

J: Another rumor is that the season five finale, when it was going to be the series finale, was going to end with everyone dying?

MN: That is not true.

J: Last one… season seven, there is a whole thing with Buffy’s resurrection being the cause for the First Evil’s appearance and that was never really explained…?

MN: I know that we had a rationale. There was definitely a reason but it was never very clear. But we had one. We talked about these kinds of things endlessly. Nothing was ever, at least for us, not explained. But I’ll be damned if I remember what it was.

J: When you’re hiring writers for your own shows, what do you look for?

MN: You know it depends very much on the show. I think that, for me honestly the biggest thing is a “no asshole” policy and I also don’t want people who I don’t trust. Many people also believe you should always have a real freak in the room. Sometimes those people aren’t totally trustworthy but you always need someone a little whack as the tendency is to hire all the A grade students with pencils in their hands ready to go. But they may not always say that really weird and off the wall thing and you need that type. But generally you just look for someone whose voice, when you read them, makes you feel something. You read a ton of scripts and they’re very competent, they’re just not inspired in any way. Whenever someone makes me emotional or really laugh, they go in the interview pile and then it’s just about personality.

J: And when you read through the scripts, do you prefer original pilot samples, which are becoming quite popular now, or do you prefer traditional specs on existing shows?

MN: You know, it really doesn’t matter to me. It’s much more about voice. The one thing that I don’t like to do is read the show that I’m actually working on. For Grey’s I wouldn’t read Grey’s and for Buffy I wouldn’t read Buffy, because you’re much too close to it and you couldn’t be generous.

J: That makes sense. So when you sit down to plan a script, how do you do that? Do you start with the theme you want to talk about in any given episode? Or do you start with where the characters are at and then derive the theme from that?

MN: It depends on the show. We were always very conscientious about theme and emotional journey. It was less about the theme and more about the emotional journey of the characters on Buffy and we had to connect them in a way. On Grey’s theme is extremely important. But it’s a piecemeal, you figure out stories you really like and then you try and figure out the theme. Sometimes you back yourself into it by having stories that you like and then you try and find out what the theme is. Other times you start with a theme. Like, one of the doctors told that one of the things that makes them really sad is when they lose a patient. A patient just stops coming to them and they don’t know why. They call that “lost a follow-up.” We thought that would be a really interesting area emotionally for all the characters – where had they disappointed people along the way. So that would be where you start with a theme and then you try and find the medical stuff that supports it.

An Angel Retrospective with Tim Minear

2007-07-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

In our latest feature, Tim Minear was kind enough to answer a few questions looking back on Angel. I hate writing these introductory paragraphs, so that's all you're getting.

Jackal: In the past you’ve mentioned that you initially refused the job to write for Angel several times. What was the reason for this and what made you eventually change your mind?

Tim Minear: When Angel came along, I’d started to make a bit of a name for myself. Well, that is to say, I was no longer begging for work and there were some other options. Also, I’m notorious for saying no before I say yes. Sometimes I say no even after I say yes. I just wasn’t sure. The thing that made me finally say yes was something Howard Gordon said to me: “You should always try to work with people who you think you can learn something from. You should be with Joss.” Howard wasn’t the first person who said I should be working with Joss Whedon. Others had been saying it to me long before I’d seen Buffy or met Joss. Back when I was doing The X-Files people were saying it to me. They were right.

J: Beginning with the first season you wrote many of the key episodes such as Doyle’s death, the key flashback episodes and the majority of the second season arc. Forgive the wording, but what was the reason for this?

TM: I can’t forgive the wording. Why me, or why at all? Me because... lucky I guess? I was the only guy -- the only new guy -- that stuck. Because a lot of the heavy lifting at first was done by Buffy writers, the new Angel writers were kind of red-headed step children at first at that shop. By the time the other new kids had fallen away, I was about the only original “exclusive to Angel” guy left, so in a way I was the only “actual” Angel guy in those early days. I guess since Angel was my only focus, I got to burrow my way deeper into its DNA than some others. Also, if you plan to stay in the game, you have to want the ball. I wanted the ball. I took the ball.

J: Looking at the episodes you’ve written, it seems you have an affinity with some characters in particular. Angel, Kate and Darla especially. Was there anything about these characters that appealed and you related to or was it just luck that you wrote many of their pivotal episodes?

TM: A bit of both. I knew we couldn’t compete with what Buffy and Angel had as a couple. Darla was a bit of an enigma, and therefore one could take more liberties with creating something new. I saw that we could do something that in no way stepped on Buffy but was unique to Angel. It would always be hard on the legacy of Buffy to say “Angel met someone new!” But, our show wasn’t called “Buffy” it was called “Angel.” One had to first and foremost service THAT character. We had to find a way to give the writers on Angel room to move without everything being about Buffy -- but while still respecting everything that came before. So how do you give your titular character a relationship without saying “Oh, and that deathless one-of-a-kind romance you saw on Buffy is now null, ‘cause we need some good shit for our new show, too”? Well, the way to give him a complicated romance that didn’t discount Buffy was to make it an OLD relationship. Something that pre-dated Buffy. And when your guy is more than two hundred years old, there’re places to go for that. Angel and Darla are every bit as one-of-a-kind as Angel and Buffy -- but not the same nor in competition. I always saw them as a combo of George and Martha from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?” and Bonnie and Clyde. Buffy and Angel were so epic because it was so pure but so doomed. Angel and Darla were, for me, epic because it was so corrupt and so doomed. Darla and Angel are in many ways the negative image of Buffy and Angel.

I always liked Kate because, like me in those early days, she was an outsider trying to get a handle on this insular, magical world. Also she was Mulder and Scully rolled into one, and I never felt like I got enough of a chance to work out my X-Files fetish while I was on that show.

J: Did you have further plans for Kate had Elisabeth Rohm not left for Law and Order? One rumor was that the character of Justine was created to replace her.

TM: I don’t recall. I think we’d taken her as far as we needed to. But I’m sure had she been available we would have found reasons to bring her back.

J: What was the original ending for season two intended to be had Julie Benz and Christian Kane been available?

TM: I have to be honest. I know that some people recall Pylea as a reaction to those actors not being available. I remember it differently. I could be wrong. I remember that we were sitting around and thinking about the next few episodes and we were all a little weary of the Darla drama and someone said, “can’t we just do something totally unexpected and go to Oz?” And we did. Now, it may be that they weren’t available and we still planned on telling that beige Angel arc without those characters and that’s when the “Oz” of it was mentioned, but I don’t remember it that way.

J: Before Charisma Carpenter fell pregnant, what were the plans going to be for season four? I understand Cordelia was still going to be evil -- would this still have led to a similar Jasmine arc, what would Cordy’s motives have been?

TM: It was still going to be Cordy as big bad, if I recall, but it would have built to a throw down between Angel and Cordelia. But because of Charisma’s pregnancy, we made Cordelia pregnant too and had her “give birth” to an actress who wasn’t laboring (sorry for the pun) under a medical condition. But before we made that choice, there was even talk of shooting the Angel/Cordy battle scenes early in the year... but the idea of getting far enough ahead on breaking stories so we’d know exactly what those scenes needed to be turned out to be a pipe dream.

J: Along these lines, I have to ask if there were ever plans to bring Doyle back in any capacity?

TM: Every once in a while I’d bring it up -- but I’d get shot down. Rightfully so. I thought Doyle would have been a great Big Bad for season three. But the problems and demons that the actor wrestled with in the real world, which in the end took his life, ruled that out as an option.

J: Prior to its airing, I read you were pleased with the script for “That Old Gang of Mine” -- yet the pleased went away once it was produced. What changed?

TM: No. I always pretty much always loathed that script. But I felt, weak as the script was, that had it been shot differently that it would have made a huge difference. As it happened, it was my weakest script coupled with the most unfocused direction. Just painful all the way around.

J: Angel famously changed tone and was reinvented a lot, especially after season one when Los Angeles became less of a character and the ensemble dynamic changed. Was the WB responsible for this or was it something that the writers felt was necessary?

TM: Joss and David at first thought we’d be doing a stand alone procedural show. When they saw “Eternity” and realized that when the guest cast member (good as she was) fell out and it became about our people, it all changed. In the end, we started writing to our and the show’s strengths -- and no one argued.

J: Likewise, was the lightened tone of the show and Angel’s character at the beginning of season three, which coincided with the Cordelia pairing and arrival of baby Connor, a network mandate or was it a creative decision designed to magnify the effects of “Sleep Tight”?

TM: We’d get network notes in those first four years, but the creative direction was always Joss and us. We always looked to him and he pretty much never looked to anyone else.

J: After killing several characters you earned the monicker of the Tim Reaper and you’ve since joked about killing people off on your later shows. Did you actively set out to kill characters in Angel or was it just a thing you did that unbeknownst to you developed into a pattern?

TM: Somehow I’d end up with some of the big, pivotal moments. And in those moments, people die.

J: How did the storybreaking process evolve as the show shifted from its anthology format to the more arc heavy, serialized format?

TM: Frankly, the biggest change was that I was more involved. It was Joss, David and me for a lot of it. Then as we started building our staff and adding people who stuck, it would be the whole room, or permutations of various combinations. Sometimes just me and Joss, sometimes Jeff Bell and I, etc.

J: Incidentally what format did you prefer -- MOTW or arcs -- and why?

TM: Arcs. When the show started feeling like a novel and you couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter it rang like a gong. However, every once in a while when I’d get to do something like “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been...” it would be my inner gong that got rung. So that’s deeply personal on a different level, being able to indulge in a delicious just-for-me treat.

J: What are your thoughts on the academic study devoted to Angel? How much focus was placed on symbolism, social commentary, gender politics and the many other things discussed in these papers when you were breaking the stories?

TM: For me, virtually none. It’s almost all I can ever do just to make a story track and not be boring. If something makes me go “eww, that might be offensive” I try to compensate. But mostly, I just wanna spin a corker of a tale.

J: Were there ever any stories you wanted to tell and never got the chance to?

TM: Yeah. But then they pretty much got told later by other people once I left, so it’s all good.

J: Chances are you know now, but when the series ended what ideas had you come up with for what happened after the alley?

TM: Well, Jaye was going to be considered a messiah, and then Sharon... see, I was doing Wonderfalls by then and didn’t spend a whole lot of time breaking stories for a show I hadn’t been on in a year.

J: Finally, do you foresee yourself returning to the Angelverse in any of its incarnations in the future?

TM: I’d love to. I just adore Angel.

An Interview with Scott Allie

2007-05-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

As mentioned the other day, I was looking to get some features for the site and Dark Horse editor Scott Allie was recently kind enough to do an interview for the site about Buffy Season Eight and other Buffy goings on at Dark Horse.

Jackal: With Joss [Whedon] running Season Eight as if he were a showrunner and the comic was a TV show, as the comic’s editor, what has your working relationship been like with him? Are you the network president to his executive producer?

Scott Allie: There's nothing like me in all of TV and movies, bub. This is actually pretty similar to my role on Hellboy, a lot of the times. We talk over every decision together, but Joss makes the decisions. I weigh in, I suggest artists—I've suggested one writer, and Joss said yeah to him. I've made some pretty weighty suggestions that I've been surprised that he's adopted, but that's one of the real relaxing things about working with Joss. He's confident enough in what he's doing that he's not going to overrule other people's ideas just because they're not his own. So that's rewarding. Of course, his confidence also gives him permission to threaten to kill me, but that's only happened twice that I can think of. And you do sort of remember that kind of thing. I do all the scheduling, and I do all the businessy stuff with the other talent. DH pays the bills, so Joss can't be negotiating the money stuff, and it's better and cleaner and easier for him to stay out of that all together. Joss has the vision, and I think it's my job to have an understanding of that vision second only to his, so that I can manage all the stuff on the ground as we go. I don't want Joss sweating every marketing idea, ad design, all that sort of thing. I knew how important Georges [Jeanty] was to Joss's vision—that word again–so I went whole hog after getting Georges away from another book he was gonna do for another publisher, and didn't bother Joss with the details until telling him that we'd got Georges for the long haul. There's a lot I can do without bugging Joss, as long as I know that I'm guided by a fair understanding of what he'd want. And again, that's my role on Hellboy. And it was my goal on the old Buffy comics—to understand Joss's vision best as I could, and execute it. Obviously the results are better, closer to that goal, when we're talking and emailing about things as much as we are.

J: How much communication do you have with other writers on this series? Does it involve business-y and creative stuff or does Joss exclusively deal with the creative issues with other writers?

SA: So far Brian is the only other writer we've dealt with on Season Eight. I've only met Brian [K. Vaughan] once, and haven't worked with him before, so Joss has the far better relationship with him. But there's a lot of open dialogue. We all talk over cover ideas, and I give Brian some feedback on scripts. So there's a lot of interaction. I suspect there may be less with the writers from the show, only because those guys are real close knit, and Joss definitely has his relationships and ways of working with them worked out. So that remains to be seen. These writers are real good, though, and Brian certainly has comics writing figured out. So a lot of the "editing" is front loaded, in conversations and emails up front. Joss and I aren't having to give notes to Brian about character motivation or about making a scene more compelling. Joss and Brian sort of break the story, figure out the scope and shape of it up front, and I'm out of the loop on that stuff, and will probably continue to be, on the other writers, all of whom are closer to Joss than to me. You don't need too many cooks in that.

J: How is the narrative continuity and tonal continuity maintained in the transition between Joss and Brian’s arc? Do they work out continuity themselves? Does the fact Brian’s arc is Faith-centric make tonal continuity a moot-point?

SA: The continuity is tight, flawless, closely watched. All Joss, with a little help from me and Katie and of course Georges doing his considerable part. In terms of continuity, this IS an ongoing comic. Keeping the same artist for most of the book is going to give a strong sense of continuity. The characters will be written very consistently. Brian is getting the characters' voices perfect, and of course Drew [Goddard] will, after his stint writing for the TV show. It's a lot like doing the show. On the show, every episode had a different writer and director, but you didn't notice because the cast remained the same and Joss oversaw the whole thing. Well, we have one artist, and we have Joss running the whole thing, so it should be about as continuous as the TV show. That said, Brian will be doing his thing in terms of storytelling, so rhythms and setups will be very BKV. But when you hear Faith talk, you'd think Joss—or Drew, or Jane [Espenson], or Stephen [DeKnight]—were writing her. In Issue #6, there are lines so perfect that Joss was compelled to comment on what a great Faith line this or that was. So what was the question ... oh yeah. There'll be variation in tone, but with the voices right, the characters true to themselves, and the same penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer, I don't think the change is gonna be disruptive.

J: And was there discussion on how much of the show's tone the book would adopt? Joss has mentioned that because it's a comic, Season Eight will play itself out on a more epic scale, which we've seen so far with Giant Dawn and helicopters. Has anything been considered too epic yet in so much that it would jar with the reality and tone set up in the show?

SA: There was actually little or no talk about that. I like to think we were just on the same page about that. With Joss's involvement, we're gonna maintain as much of the tone as is, just as a result of Joss's work. But it's gonna be different, transposed to comics. Maybe there was some talk about that—getting the tone to be different because it's a comic. But given that, I think we knew that the tone would be largely the same otherwise. The humor, the action, the optimism amidst the emotional ups and downs. We never talked about what we'd retain from the show, because I think that was understood. But we knew we wanted to amp certain things up for comics. The volume, the action. Also, as much discussion as we had over choice of an artist, that determined a lot about tone. Georges was just what we were looking for when we started talking, and he has this mix of levity, dynamics, traditional comics, but more honest emotional content. Had we gone for someone more like [John] Cassaday, that would have made for a much different tone. That would have determined tone for the book as much as or more than the writer could have. For instance, when Joss and I figure out who's going to draw a fill-in issue, one thing we consider is tone.

J: IDW have published Angel script books and Dark Horse released a “making of” feature for Buffy #3. Is there any chance you’d publish script books for the comic? Or include them in the trades?

SA: No plans. There'd be an interest in Joss's comics scripts, Brian Vaughan's scripts, but this isn't anything we're talking about now. We've put some script pages on line, and there was a strong response to that.

J: Are there any plans for more online “behind the scenes” content?

SA: That's a major focus for our website, something the web guys love to do. While we don't have more in the pipeline at the moment, I'm sure they'll be coming to ask for more soon.

J: At any point would you consider spinning other characters off into their own title? Or would an arc devoted to a specific character under the Season Eight banner be as close as we’d get to that?

SA: Why, we just talked about that yesterday. We haven't got any plans for a miniseries, a side project, but there are some stories that are so complicated, so much outside of what Season Eight is all about, that the only logical way to do them would be to break them out as a miniseries. Funny you mention it, because we've literally never broached the topic until yesterday.

J: That’d be something to look forward to. Are you at liberty to say what characters may get these miniseries?

SA: Nope!

J: Along those lines, can we expect anymore Fray, Tales of the Vampires or Tales of the Slayers stuff?

SA: There's no immediate plans for any of that, but we really want to do another Fray miniseries. Someday. It's something we've always talked about, since wrapping up the first one, but other stuff always seems to get in the way. As for more Tales-type books, I dunno. Season Eight is just sort of a bigger, far better version of that—letting Joss and the TV writers play with the world in the comics format. I think that when you see #5, you'll see that anything we could do in the Tales books, we've decided we can just do in Season Eight.

J: Considering Joss’s heavy involvement in this series, how much input have 20^th Century Fox had?

SA: Fox has been great. Fox was always great on Buffy. My contact there, Debbie Olshan, genuinely became a good friend, and not in an L.A. kind of way. At the very beginning, the licensors sort of bossed me around more than I wanted, but once I started forging a relationship with Joss, Debbie was my only contact, and she realized she could trust me. That was on the non-Joss stuff—it's even better on a Joss-written thing, whether it's Tales of the Slayers or Season Eight. Debbie makes everything pretty easy for us, helps us deal with the approvals from the actors and actresses from the show, and just asks for lots of comps.

J: There has been some debate on the Internet about canon in the Buffy comics. Do you, Dark Horse and Joss basically consider anything Joss has worked on to be canon?

SA: Oh, yeah, of course. The scythe showed up in Fray, and then wham, there it was in the TV series. Yes, I cannot say it enough, Season Eight IS canon. That's why it's Season Eight.

J: Will Xander’s stint as Dracula’s slave from Tales of the Vampires be followed up on in Season Eight?

SA: Hotcha.

J: Thanks for doing the interview. Is there any thing else you want to tell the readers of Season Eight?

SA: There's a new social disease spreading around that you get from not reading Season Eight. I don't want to get too graphic, but stuff turns black and, sadly, doesn't fall off. But it does learn to talk.

Update 05/14/07

2007-05-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

After months of lying low and focusing on Drive, I come bearing another update. I've started slowly rewatching the shows after over a year of not and have picked up on a few things I've missed. Nothing major.

It's also been the first time I've opened the 'pedia since last October and looking at it I'm convinced now more than ever that I must have been a crazy person during 2004/05 when I wrote it. And apparently I'm still a little crazy as I fully intend to update with the Season 8 comic after the first arc is finished (which will be when I update with a new PDF version of the 'pedia as well).

Also thinking of ways to expand the site -- maybe with features on the upcoming canon comics and stuff, so watch this space. Heck, even if I don't, you should watch this space to monitor the steady draining away of my sanity into a little catheter.

Update 10/29/06

2006-10-29T01:28:00.000-08:00

Lots of little corrections this time (only in the .doc document - have yet to update the PDF). I've updated Sineya, the First Slayer's, entry and have corrected the mentions of some of the districts and cities in Los Angeles.

XML Feed Fixed

2006-10-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said the new site design may have a few bugs... Well I found the first one. The XML feed led to the wrong location and now thanks to some technical wizardry and a few embarrassing mistakes it doesn't. For anyone who was using it, please update accordingly.

Update 09/25/06

2006-09-25T10:07:00.000-07:00

Some corrections have been made to the 'pedia - lots of corrections, from the last few months. But more exciting is the new layout - go on, try telling me you're not excited...

Still working out the kinks of the new layout, so bear with, but at least the addition of the RSS feed will make it easier to track updates.

FAQ

2006-09-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

Why did you make this site?

'Cos I was not of sound mind or judgment. It was 2004, Angel had just finished, someone I knew on the interweb had started writing it, presumably saw sense and stopped, and I thought it would be a fun project to inherit. That "fun project" then became a big thing that spanned the rest of 2004 and most of 2005 on and off, until it was finally published online January 10th 2006. I became less crazy that day.

Will there be a Firefly encyclopedia?

I doubt it.

Astonishing X-Men?

Also doubt.

Goners?

Do you see a release date?

Why can't I find an entry?

There could be numerous reasons for this. If you've tried using the "find" feature in your browser and/or word processing program and still can't find an entry it may be because you're looking for the wrong thing. For example Oz's entry can only be found under "Osbourne, Daniel" and Tina's entry will be under "Clarke, Christina" as that was the name she was given in the shooting script. Likewise, Eve's entry will be under "Levin, Eve" and Faith's under "Lehane, Faith."

How accurate is this pedia?

I'd like to think fairly. The spellings of obscure demons were double checked with the shooting scripts and I used the subtitles on the DVDs that from what I could tell were done using the shooting scripts for the most part. Also, all facts in here were taken from the episodes as they appear on the DVD, with things I was unsure on double checked with Si.

What have you considered as canon?

All things by Joss Whedon, basically, including comics. Unfortunately comic books written by other members of the television staff were not included as Joss hasn't sanctioned them and some of them included continuity errors that I couldn't explain away easily, such as Willow casting spells at the beginning of the second season.

Will you keep this up to date?

Yep, I've got this far and it would be annoying for it not to be whole. So the moment Spike gets his movie and Dark Horse release Joss's first post-season seven comic I'll be there. Or maybe not at the end of the first comic, but by the end of the first arc.

I've found an error/typo/grammar error - will you correct it if I contact you about it?

Yes.

Some of the pop culture entries are very vague, do you plan on expanding them?

Only if it happens in something that is considered to be canon. So for the moment they will be vague as I only used the information given in the episodes because in a world where Martha Stewart can be a witch I didn't want to make too many assumptions. There are also other sites that are much more prolific when it comes to these references.

Any plans to make the pedia actual web pages as opposed to just a .doc document?

That was the original plan. Then Frontpage stepped in and now I have someone with a lot more patience helping me. So soon, maybe... hopefully...

Bibliography

2006-09-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

As with any project of this nature several resources were needed to complete the encyclopedia. They are as follows:

Si Banwell
Without Si chances are I wouldn’t have gotten in this mess in the first place but after I was well and truly immersed he helped me on many occasions, from fact checking to even doing a few entries.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Watcher’s Guide Volume 1
By Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder

Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Watcher’s Guide Volume 2
By Nancy Holder with Jeff Mariotte and Maryelisabeth Hart

Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Watcher’s Guide Volume 3
By Paul Ruditis

Angel The Casefiles Volume 1
By Nancy Holder, Jeff Mariotte and Maryelisabeth Hart

Angel The Casefiles Volume 2
By Paul Ruditis and Diana G. Gallagher

Whedonesque.org
(http://www.whedonesque.org)
As well as the admins and mods for not deleting my endless questions, I’d also like to thank those who answered them including palehorse, Miko, Paul_Rocks, brownishcoat, webrageous, catalyst2, celebithil, electricspacegirl, m’cookies, MissKittysMom and Madhatter.

Restless BTVS
(http://www.restlessbtvs.com)
This site made my job infinitely easier and the webmaster, Jess, was kind enough to give me her thoughts and encourage me during the mid-stages of the encyclopedia.

The Watcher’s Guide: A Mutant Enemy Resource
(http://www.watchersguide.ne1.net)
Yet another site that was infinitely helpful and made writing the pedia entries much easier.

City of Angel
(http://www.cityofangel.com)

Hellmouth Central
(http://www.hellmouthcentral.com)

Legend

2006-09-24T15:43:00.000-07:00

Angel:LNJ	Angel: Long Night's Journey
ATS	Angel the Series
BTVS	Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Fray	Fray
TOTS	Tales of the Slayer
TOTV	Tales of the Vampire
WB Promo	Promotional television spot aired on The WB prior to the first airing of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" (BTVS)

Foreword

2006-09-24T15:42:00.000-07:00

Fanatic. A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause.

Of course, for the “normal” person among us, a fan usually supports a sports star, a celebrity, or occasionally some clapped out comic book, which should have been cancelled in 1976. But for some, and especially the majority of people who are even bothering to read this, we support with an “extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm,” a pair of television shows that push the extreme buttons in their own right.

In 1999, specifically 8.00pm on January 1st, I remember telling my mother to watch a television show on BBC2 that evening. She took one look at the name, and said no. I however, went ahead anyway, watching the episode by my lonesome, and falling in love. From that night on, I did everything I could to continue watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even through my mother’s continued ridicules by referring to the show as that “show with the stupid name.” Ironically, she herself caught the episode “Angel” and asked me if she could watch the first episode, completely changing her story, saying she was busy on the initial airing.

The show brought us a girl and her group of friends, dedicated to the eradication of the horrors of evil, including witches, robots and off course vampires and black nail polish (so over.) As the show continued it became clear that these were cleverly crafted metaphors for youth, domestic violence and good dentist work, and the creator of the show becoming a star in his own right as his cast soared. Without Joss Whedon we wouldn’t have the same American Pie, The Grudge, or maybe even CSI: New York (who can get that connection?). Off course, it’s not all good… we wouldn’t have “Beer Bad” either, a fact that most fanatics would wish were true.

And of course, we wouldn’t have Buffy: seven seasons of cheerleading, slaying, magick, Watchers, Keys, demons and snakes. We wouldn’t have all those fond memories of Xander failing to open jars, Oz silently knocking over a stand, Willow’s famous vampire double, Tara’s tragic final moments, or constant zany Anya one-liners. And we wouldn’t have Angel, which in itself became a champion along with its ensouled star and brought us more vampires, demons and full leather jumpsuits.

Oh… and there would be no Spike. At least not the way we know him.

Let’s face it. The world of Whedon is indeed vast and rich with fantastical characters, absurd situations and gruesome realities. Anyone who’s sat through “The Body,” or “A Hole in the World” can note that both of these genre-defying gems can deal with death in a gut-wrenching and completely realistic fashion, or deal with redemption in such a way that you love the guy more when he’s evil, draining blood, or as Cordelia would so readily point out, wearing those pants.

So this work, and everything associated with it is an expression of that extreme enthusiasm I mentioned before I went off on an extreme tangent. And if you’re still with me after all of this and have understood it all, then you belong right here with us.

Fanatic. Sounds kinda sad doesn’t it?

Si Banwell
(Webmaster of http://www.watchersguide.ne1.net)

About Stakes and Salvation

2006-09-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Stakes and Salvation, a comprehensive encyclopedia of the world inhabited by Buffy, Angel, Fray, Faith, Willow, Clem - better known as the Buffyverse, or Slayerverse, or Angelverse, or Clemverse. Either way, this site has information on it.

The encyclopedia itself took a little over a year and a half to complete. A year and a half complete with proofreading, typos, mass grammar errors (apostrophes, hate them), continuity errors, plot holes (Lindsey and Beljoxa's Eye, you know who you are), cursing, frustration being taken out on loved ones and non-loved ones equally, and all other kinds of problems I didn't anticipate when I chose to undertake this project in a moment of poor judgment. I was probably also slightly crazed in 2005. Whether doing this made me crazed or I did this because I was crazed, I don't know. Craziness was definitely involved though.

I do intend to update this and keep it current, not only with corrections that I will no doubt be inundated with but also with entries for the possible DVD movie featuring Spike and the post-season 7 comic coming out in late 2006 and written by Joss Whedon. I won't be updating with comics published by IDW as of yet as so far they're not as canonical as I would like and they may be disregarded with future projects by Joss.

If you have any comments, corrections, suggestions or anything else please click here to e-mail me. In the meantime I will continue to work out all the kinks in the website.