The X Factor - End of an Era : Buffy and Angel Slay Goodbye

Eighteen months ago, Joss Whedon had three TV series on the air. And now, he has none. In the cult-pop underground, where he is something of a wickedly big-brained deity, there is an anguished gnashing of fangs. While he promises a return to TV in the future, Whedon is preparing an expansion of his kingdom to two fronts. This month he begins a 12-issue stint as a writer of Marvel Comics’ The Astonishing X-Men. The pairing of scribe and title is both fitting (X-Fan Whedon cites the mutant freedom-fighters as a formative Buffy the Vampire Slayer influence.) and ironic (Whedon wrote an unused draft of Bryan Singer’s first X-Men movie). "Joss knows how to write an ensemble and has the aibility to nail a character with a sentence and a half," says Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada. "He has some kind of black-voodoo writer magic."

Whedon will also make his film-directing debut with Serenity, a big-screen revival of Firefly (whose cancellation by Fox still irks him), due in 2005 from Universal. Whedon says it’s been hard getting over the end of the Buffyverse, but he’s ready for new challenges. "With both Serenity and X-Men, its gratifying to be walking in worlds I love, I am surrounded by old friends in new mediums. It doesn’t get any more exciting than that." More from the Hellmouth’s mouth...

EW : Does it feel like the end of an era ?
JOSS WHEDON : It does ! Somebody on the Internet - and it wasn’t me - said this era of the Buffyverse, these eight years, were like Camelot. "One brief shining instant." I have to say, I did get a little choked up.

EW : Wish you had another season of Angel ?
JW : I was really upset [When Angel got canceled]. When we hit 100 episodes, we felt we had made a stand. I felt we had hit [our stride] in our fifth year - and then we got cut down. With Buffy, I was ready to end. Firefly - I went into such a state of denial, it caused a film. But with Angel, it was like "Healthy Guy Falls Dead From Heart Attack." I believe the reason Angel had trouble on The WB was that it was the only show on the network that wasn’t trying to be Buffy. It was a show about grown-ups.

EW : Why didn’t Sarah Michelle Gellar appear in the final Angel ?
JW : We wanted her earlier in the season ; she declined. When we realized it was going to be our last season, we made some inquiries about her appearing on one of the shows before the finale. But she was only available for the last one, and I didn’t want her in the last one - in part, because when she wasn’t available earlier, we did an episode all about her. [The story] is something that occurred to me based on what was going on [while trying to get Sarah], which was : Well, she has clearly moved on. Maybe we should too.

EW : There’s been talk of Buffy or Angel TV movies. True ?
JW : The WB mentioned the idea. At first I thought an Angel TV movie feels like electrifying a corpse to see it twitch. But then again, I have these characters I love. Maybe a series of movies, focusing on a different aspect of the Buffyverse, would be fun. But I don’t know if there’s a market for what I’m proposing. The marketplace is just so bi-zarre right now.

EW : Bizarre ?
JW : The reality television thing. I’ve definitely been the guy in Singin’ in the Rain who’s like, "Talking pictures - it’s just a fad !" The face of the marketplace is changing ; none of the networks are doing that well, and they’re all scrambling. ABC is kind of falling apart, NBC and CBS are entrenched, my history with Fox [as a network] is...not great. The WB basically said, We have to do more reality, we don’t have room for Angel - this, when Angel had always done well, and was doing better...I’m not sure what else I needed to do ! Thats the question we [TV producers] are constantly asking : What do they want ? The thing is, they don’t know what they want. There’s no one with vision. There’s no commitment to developing good, quality shows. Even though Fox invested millions of dollars into Firefly they ultimately didn’t believe in it. They scheduled it in the death slot [Friday] and let it die.

EW : So they invested millions in a show they didn’t like, just to kill it ? Why would they do that ?<br> JW : [Bewildered] Because Fox is a bad network that makes bad decisions. [ While The WB would not comment, a Fox spokesperson said : "We wish Firefly had found an audience, and we would like nothing better than to be in business with Joss again."]

EW:About Serenity : There were rumors you were asked to make some changes to your screenplay to accommodate Universal’s vision for franchising. True ?
JW : Absolute nonsense. You’re seeing alot of movies that are built to be a springboard for a franchise. Like Underworld. Well, I’m saying maybe you should take a long hard look at your fucking movie before you worry about your franchise. Obviously, Universersal does see this as a potential franchise-springboard marketing vehicle. But none of that matters unless I make a movie that not only people who loved Firefly will respect, but people who never heard of it can walk in and have a wonderful time.

EW : Are you losing any cast members ?
JW : Every. Single. Member. Of. The. TV. Show. Is. Back. I wouldn’t have done it without everybody.

EW : Do you want to concentrate more on making features ?
JW : I’ve spent my whole life waiting to make films. At the same time, I have a love for TV that is different. TV does a thing that film can never do. It takes you to a place that no novel written after the late 19th century can. You can just go through people’s lives ; it’s like a marriage. I love both. I want to do both.

EW : And you want to do comics. You’re making The X-men an old fashioned superhero comic again - even putting them back in their colorful costumes.
JW : The thinking behind that was Marvel saying, "Can you put them back in their costumes ?" and me saying, "Okay."

EW : For a corporate mandate, you sell it well. Your first issue made me wonder if you feel recent comics have gone too far in deconstructing superheroes.
JW : We really have deconstructed it. One of the things I like about the X-Men is they’re not killing people. I miss the idea of...heroes who stop that kind of thing from happening. Here’s why I’m not running Marvel : If I was, I would kill the Punisher. I don’t believe in what he does. The Punisher just shoots up places. And if you’re telling me he’s never hit an innocent, then I’m telling you, that’s fascist crap. Which is not to say I won’t kill anybody. I mean, it’s me. If I didn’t kill people, well, gosh, I would feel all ooky inside.

FAVORITE SEASONS :

Buffy Season 2. Buffy has sex with Angel. Angel turns evil. "It’s the first time we went ’Oh my God. Look what we can do.’" Runner-up : Season 5. It starts with the arrival of Buffy’s mysterious sister. It ends with Buffy dead.

Angel Season 3. The show finds its legs with the official addition of Fred(Amy Acker) and a story line that saw Angel get a son... who tries to kill him. Runner-up : Season 5, or "the last season" Whedon particularly enjoyed the Angel-Spike relationship. "Spike is the greatest ingenue Angel ever had."

ANY SPIN-OFFS IN THE WORKS ?
At present, theres only one : an animated Buffy, filled with "all the things we couldn’t afford, and all the jokes that were much too silly."

ANY CHANCE ANGEL WILL END ON A CLIFF-HANGER ?
"I wouldn’t do that. That’s a crappy thing to do. [But] the last thing you will see of Angel is the last thing you should see. Angel is about redemption, and redemption is ongoing."