Theory: Why Buffy and Angel had problems the past couple of years by Forrestwolf

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Theory: Why Buffy and Angel had problems the past couple of years

POSTED BY: FORRESTWOLF
UPDATED: Thursday, March 11, 2004 06:48
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Tuesday, March 9, 2004 5:38 PM

(informs his Captain that he's got his bullet-proof armor on under his brown coat)

After listening to the NPR interview of Joss, I came up with a theory for why Buffy wasn't as good the last couple of years, and possibly why Angel had some real problems last year. Okay, so it's debatable as to how bad the shows were the past couple of years, but here's what I didn't know before the interview:

Joss became a father a year or so ago.

From my own experience as a parent of two unruly boys, I've got to say that children are a HUGE, possibly the hugest, disruption of work efficiency.

The theory: Joss didn't have time to work on Buffy or Angel the last year to two years. This resulted in some really down times for Buffy quality, as well as some for Angel. It may even have led to the end of Angel!

The good news: It might get better for him as it goes along...though I have to say they're a lot of work even as they get older...

The flaw: Why was Firefly so gorram good? Joss would have been in the midst of parenthood issues.

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Tuesday, March 9, 2004 6:04 PM

TRASK43

I think you kinda answered your own question there in my opinion the reason why Angel and Buffy went slightly downhill the last couple of years ( I think angel got back to its best this season) is because Joss was putting most of his creative energies into Firefly.

www.summer-glau.com

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 4:30 AM

DRAKON

Quote:
Originally posted by Forrestwolf:
Joss became a father a year or so ago.

From my own experience as a parent of two unruly boys, I've got to say that children are a HUGE, possibly the hugest, disruption of work efficiency.
The flaw: Why was Firefly so gorram good? Joss would have been in the midst of parenthood issues.

Hmm... interesting. I can confirm your proposition that children are a HUGE disruption. Well, distraction maybe, but then I prefer to call my brothers "surprises" instead of "accidents"

But children PLUS 3 TV shows at the time... there ya go.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 4:34 AM

CARTAGIA

I'll probably second what Trask said, though I personally really liked the final season of Buffy and am enjoying this season of Angel immensely. Though I will agree with most in saying that the season previous to both were rather shoddy.

I think the reason was that even if Joss was putting the same amount of time into Buffy and Angel as usual, he really wanted to be doing Firefly. Therefore, he was distracted and doing Buffy and Angel became WORK, whereas when he finally got to do Firefly, it became PLAY. That also might be one of the reasons that the cast is always raving about how much fun it was on the set. That kind of attitude is contagious.

The correllary is true as well, in Angel and Buffy, while in Angel's case the end came quicker than expected, both knew that it would be there soon. I think they are both will have strong finishes, and I do hope that they are able to do some TV movies with both casts together sometime down the road, but they should let a year or two pass before attempting it. That way, it will be exciting to them again.

Simon: I've never shot anyone before.

Book: I was there, son. I'm fair sure you haven't shot anyone yet.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 4:58 AM

MAUGWAI

I guess I'm one of the few who really liked the last couple of Buffy seasons. In fact, season six is my favorite of all of them. I could do without the Doublemeat Palace, but there are so many really good episodes in that season: Once More, With Feeling, Smashed, Gone, and my personal favorite, Dead Things. And I think on some level we can all relate to the nerds.

And as for Angel, I agree that last season was confusing and weak, but I think that was because Charisma Carpenter sprang her pregnancy on them in the middle of the season, so they had to rewrite the story to accomodate her. This season, however, has been amazing. I've loved every single episode.

"Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy."

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 5:21 AM

FORRESTWOLF

Trask really does make a good point. I'd actually forgotten that I'd wondered about that when Firefly was on - it seemed to make sense at the time that Joss would be focusing on Firefly.

I still wonder what the effect of the new kid was - possibly was a great creative inspiration, too, so perhaps the effects balance :)

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 5:30 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

I think the drop in quality on Buffy was that the show had run for 7 seasons. The writers were running out of original, fresh ideas, and you can only have so many apocalypses before it seems overdone. They were running out of plotlines. The story had been told & needed to end.

Angel started out great, then ran a little dry w/ the whole Fred, Angel's son thing. Not really sure why the son was necessary to the story, but it seemed forced. This last season, w/ Marsters back reprising his role of Spike, and the writing has raised the bar where it needs to be.

I am sure that pouring much of his creative energy in Firefly, and then being a new dad has stretched Joss too thin to give what he might like to each of his shows. Speaking as a working dad I know that there are many times when there are not enough hours in the day to do all I would like to do or need to do. You just do the best you can.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 5:31 AM

JERRY

I think Buffy and Angel were both adversely affected by some of the things that happen when actors are in the same role for seven or eight years. Some get bored (as SMG seemed to - not unlike what happened with David Duchovny on the X-Files), some have things going on in their lives that affect the show (like Charisma Carpenter's pregnancy), etc. People come and go from behind the camera as well, like Tim Minear and David Greenwalt from 'Angel'. And I don't think Joss can produce inspired work on demand - he needs to be, well, inspired, and what he wanted to do was Firefly.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 1:32 PM

KALATHENA

Quote:
After listening to the NPR interview of Joss, I came up with a theory for why Buffy wasn't as good the last couple of years, and possibly why Angel had some real problems last year...Joss became a father a year or so ago.

Well he sure didn't become a father BEFORE the Connor storyline. No real parent could ever argue that screwing a virgin teenager will give you a moment of true happiness, but holding your newborn infant son will not.

--Kala

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 2:56 PM

SPIKEANDJEZEBEL

I agree with Maugwai - I think season 6 of Buffy was one of the best seasons of either Buffy or Angel. I also enjoyed most of season 7, although I feel some of the main characters (Xander, Dawn, Giles) got rather less screen time than they deserved. However, "Storyteller" makes up for any sins of the final year, in my humble opinion.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 3:42 PM

LENNIER

The "problem" that Buffy and Angel have had the last few years was called "art". Joss and crew were actually trying to accomplish and express something beyond just making entertainment-for-the-masses. They were trying and pushing harder and farther in the later seasons, and the only "problem" is that fans have not been very adaptable, and aren't willing to listen to an artist expressing himself (instead they feel they 'own' the shows and seem to think they understand them better than the creators do, and that if the shows aren't designed to please, or if they don't continue to follow some fairly narrow restictions, then there is some flaw).

I would say that the best seasons of Buffy are 4-6, and though 7 may have been a *little* bit behind, it's still fairly impressive (and moment-by-moment you can still see most of the quality there). As for Angel, seasons 4 and 5 have been so totally superior to anything they did before, that I'm shocked and disgusted that any fan, no matter how obtuse, could claim that something was going 'wrong'.

As for having a child, as the original poster pointed out, wouldn't this have effected FIREFLY as well??? oh my, yes, I believe it probably did!

Finally, joss has stated MANY times that his involvement in Buffy NEVER decreased, and in fact he was in some ways more involved in season 5 and 6 because he wasn't taking time to write and direct as many episodes himself (ie. he was watching over the little details more closely). And all the major things that fans have complained about turned out to be things that joss has specifically stated came directly from him (and on a number of cases he has implied that he is extremely proud of season six, particularly).
Also I would argue that his writing staff is just about as good as he is, so even if he did back off, it wouldn't have caused some catastrophe (it's true that on Angel joss has always been somewhat more 'hands off', but I don't think that suddenly changed at any point---it's always been that way).

If you have a personal dislike for certain seasons, or if they don't entertain you in the same way as the earlier seasons, that is perfectly fine, but don't turn around and trash the art just because you didn't enjoy it. Don't claim that it is some failure on the artist's part just because they're daring to do things differently, in a way that you don't happen to enjoy.
Even if you want to try to give a more objective argument for why you think certain seasons are 'bad', the worst thing you could try to do is claim that some personal event in the artist's life caused the quality of their work to decrease, especially when it's quite clear that the things you disliked in those season have more to do with concious artistic CHOICES (which you may feel free to disagree with), things that the artists were vehemently pursueing, rather than some sort of mishap or accident or failure of effort. If you look at each season on its own terms, it makes sense that it is the way that it is, it has a self-consistent unity that you almost never see on a television show (and never so many different KINDS of seasons!), regardless of whether you enjoyed it, or even whether you think the choices made were 'good' or 'bad' ones. (personally I judge 'goodness' by how coherent and strong a voice something has, and by how creatively and insightfully it expresses itself, and how unique it is and whether it is able to express itself on many levels and do so "in tune" with the nature of its medium. of course you may choose your own 'good' and 'bad', but that shouldn't change your understanding of when an artist is at the top of his game and doing things the way he wants to do them---which is what joss has been, all across the board, for the last 4 years).
The flaw here that i'm suggesting is that this thread only makes one whit of sense if joss's INTENTION was to specifically please the people who did not enjoy the last few seasons, and that some great event must have occured to cause him to slip up and NOT please those people (given the assumption that this was his only intention).
Sometimes I wish that joss would take a "JMS"-like attitude towards his fans, and take them to town for these kind of self-centric attitudes; but I guess he wouldn't be who he is without being so tolerant and willing to listen to fans dump on him.

sorry to get worked up. I consider joss's recent work to be one of the greatest artistic achievements of the human race (and it goes without saying that it's the best television ever made ...except perhaps for The Decalogue), so I get particularly annoyed when I see threads like this, where fans are trying to reconcile their like of the original seasons with their dislike of the later seasons, by trying to argue that joss has either 'lost it' or that he wasn't involved.
Though I suppose this is a lot better (and more benign) than the fans who act as if joss has somehow betrayed them by choosing to do things differently in the later seasons.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 4:51 PM

MAUGWAI

Quote:
Sometimes I wish that joss would take a "JMS"-like attitude towards his fans, and take them to town for these kind of self-centric attitudes; but I guess he wouldn't be who he is without being so tolerant and willing to listen to fans dump on him.

So we should only discuss the things we like? I think Joss himself would disagree with that. He's nothing if not interested in interesting discussion. I don't think anybody's "dumping" on him. Everyone who has posted here is obviously a Joss Whedon fan. But the man and his writers are not gods, and some episodes are better than others. Forrestwolf was simply acknowledging that and wondering what motivates those differences.

"Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy."

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Thursday, March 11, 2004 4:16 AM

STEVE580

I've yet to see season four of Angel; but I can say that Seasons 5-7 of Buffy were my favorites; seasons 1-3 were my least favorite. All were excellent. As for Angel, each season was much better than the one that came before. Season five is by far my favorite.

So I gotta say, I'm a bit offended - well, maybe not offended, but I still think you're wrong to say that the shows *suffered* in their final years; to imply that things that Whedon did were mistakes. Because there are some of us who really love them.

Like....me!
-Steve

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Thursday, March 11, 2004 4:49 AM

GORRAMREAVERS

I havent seen much of season 4 of Angel as well so I cant compare seasons (season 1 rocked) but as far as Buffy..seasons 4, 5 and half way thru 6 (when Buffy and Spike finally got together the show got too dark and depressing for me) were the best. Tabula Rossa was a really good epi in season 6. I also really liked season 2...the 'Angel' season.
There are no seasons I didnt like or thought were bad. Just some of them are more enjoyable to watch more than once.

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Thursday, March 11, 2004 4:51 AM

FORRESTWOLF

Drat, how does the line from Serenity go? Zoe gets shot, Mal asks her if she's okay, she says the armor worked...something like that.

Thanks, Lennier! I wouldn't want to think I put on the bulletproof vest for nothing :)

And Maugwai, thanks for the kind words. I really didn't mean to criticize Joss as an artist - simply to stimulate some discussion on what I found an interesting insight into Joss's life (that he has a young son, like me!) and how we might have seen it impact his writing.

Perhaps I should have said, "Theory: The themes and stories covered in the last few years of Buffy and Angel were influenced by Joss's new parenthood."

That better?

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Thursday, March 11, 2004 5:05 AM

HANS

I have to agree with those that disagree with the premise of this thread... :)

I think one's apprecation of Buffy and Angel's later years has to do at least partly with when you started watching the show.

I only got into Buffy towards the end, watching reruns on Space (starting around season 4) while at the same time new episodes of season 7 were being shown. I very much enjoyed those later seasons, including the much maligned season 6, though the final year was a little weak for me. Then, watching the early years of the show when they came around in reruns, I was a little disappointed. While there are some true classics in the high school years I found it much harder to get into. The reason I avoided buffy for years was the stereotype I had in my head - "silly show for kids about a wisecracking valley girl who fights vampires". While I am glad I gave the show a chance and realized that it's so much more than that, the first few seasons (perhaps because of the high school setting) do come closest to that campy/juvenile flavour I wanted to avoid.

Angel likewise. I only started to watch the show seriously near the end of the 4th season, caught up on some more of that season in reruns, then finally caught the early seasons when they were shown in syndication. The operatic, epic storylines of season 4 were what attracted me to the show, and I found the early years a little tame by comparison. Season one, in particular, feels a little weak. I hated most of the first half of this season, but my opinion has turned around 100% since the christmas break - the most recent episodes have been great (especially the recent threesome Smile Time/Hole in the World/Shells) and I'm very enthusiastic about the rest of this year.

Hans

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Thursday, March 11, 2004 6:48 AM

GHOULMAN

theories are for scientists. Tell me what actually happened and that's a good thread.

BTW, why the frell are people saying the last few years of Buffy and Angel weren't Joss' best? The entire Buffy / Spike season was some of the best cult TV ever while the Jasmine arc in Angel was clever and chock full of goodness. Hey, Gina Torres is prolly the only actor in Hollywoodland who could have played a Goddess of Charisma - cause she is.

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