Joss Whedon's 10 finest moments on Denofgeek.com

Joss Whedon’s 10 finest moments Ben counts down Joss Whedon’s shiniest achievements across film, telly, and comics...

Ben Lankester

In honour of the fact that Joss Whedon’s starting work on Dollhouse right about now, and also the fact that, let’s face it, most of us would readily accept him as our lord, master, and hopefully benevolent overlord, here’s a list of his 10 finest moments, across all media :

On TV

Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Hush

Such is Whedon’s ear for dialogue and love for his characters that it was always clear when he was behind an episode of his signature show. As for his best installment, contenders include the forth season coda Restless, a surreal exploration of the gang’s dreams, riddled with foreshadowing dialogue and images ; The Body, where Buffy discovers her mother’s corpse and the gang learn of her death, and Once More, With Feeling, the ingenious musical episode featuring song and dance routines from the primary cast and the wonderful guest villain, Sweet.

Whedon’s best episode, however, is season four’s Emmy-nominated Hush, a dark fairytale which sees the terrifying demons known as The Gentlemen float through Sunnydale, stealing the voices of its residents before cutting out their hearts. Whedon, by forcing the Scoobies out of their distinct verbal bantering, is able to say a great deal more about his characters than expected. Interestingly, on the DVD commentary he admits his distaste for the final shot, that of Buffy facing Riley, their true identities finally revealed, voices now intact but lost for words. For once he’s wrong ; it’s the perfect final image, and hits home the episode’s acutely constructed message of the difficulty of communication.

Angel – Waiting In The Wings

Again spoilt for choice, Whedon’s best episode of Angel is probably this beautifully realised change of pace from season 3, bringing the team out of their hotel office for a trip to the ballet. Managing to combine the best examples of the show’s comedy (Cordy snoring on Angel’s shoulder as the normally overtly-macho Gunn stares transfixed at the pirouettes on stage) and drama (gentle development of Angel and Cordy’s turbulent relationship and the troubled love triangle of Gunn, Fred and Wes), Whedon seamlessly blends the grace of dance with a great fight sequence, while the episode also boasts a nuanced performance from Summer Glau as the ballerina trapped in time. Of course, Whedon would go on to cast the actress as River in Firefly.

Firefly – Objects In Space

Whedon felt this episode best summed up the tone of his undervalued ‘space western’, and so it sits as the final episode on the series DVD. The plot sees a bounty hunter manage to board Serenity in order to capture River for the Alliance. Featuring one of recent television’s most appalling villains, Jubal Early falls somewhere between Hannibal Lector and Anton Chigurh, delivering threats of rape and torture without a beat of emotion. Despite sterling performances from the main players, he’s the most memorable thing in this and was, of course, the foundation for Chiwetel Ejiofor’s operative in Serenity. Though Whedon claims the episode Our Mrs. Reynolds is his favourite of all TV episodes he’s written, Objects In Space takes first place as a perfect, simple, wonderfully scripted swansong to a cruelly cancelled show.

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