Joss Whedon: The Biography Read online

  In addition, the networks they approached in 2002 had trouble imagining how they would schedule such a series; Buffy: The Animated Series was deemed “too adult” to be placed in a more traditional children’s animated block of television, yet it didn’t have broad enough appeal to be worthy of a prime-time airing. Today the media landscape has shifted further, and there are far more adult animated series airing in prime time. It raises the question: could an animated Buffy series be a viable property once again?

  “I’ve always said—sometimes to Joss’s teasing dismay—that the best Buffy stories had to do with resurrection,” Jeph Loeb laughs. “So why not bring this back again? Joss has never been more popular and Buffy is firmly implanted as a TV icon. Who knows, we might even get Sarah [Michelle Gellar] now.”

  As the saga of Buffy: The Animated Series was making its way toward its premature conclusion, back in the live-action world, its parent series was headed toward an unexpected end point of its own. In 2001, the show found itself caught in a battle between two things far more fierce than anything to come out of a Hellmouth: a television network and a production studio.

  Buffy was nearing the end of its contracted run at the WB. If the network wanted to continue running the series past season five, it would have to agree on new terms with 20th Century Fox. It wouldn’t be easy; during their earlier negotiations, the studio had already offered up veiled threats to take the show elsewhere if the WB didn’t agree to its demands for higher licensing fees. When asked if he would consider moving Buffy to the studio’s own network, Fox’s Sandy Grushow had hedged his comments—“The first time we move a show like that is the day our business is in serious jeopardy”—but added that if the WB’s Jamie Kellner “attempts to lowball and refuses to step up to fair market value,” such a scenario would certainly be possible. “Fair market value is fair market value.”

  These comments had not engendered goodwill between the two men. Kellner had long been concerned about the WB’s financial stability and was frustrated that Grushow was muddying the waters of public opinion at a time when Buffy still had two seasons left on its contract. He felt that Fox had a potential franchise on its hands and could capitalize on syndication deals, spin-offs, and merchandising instead of pushing for more money from his network. In fact, the WB had already bought the spin-off Angel and solidified a two-hour block of Joss-produced television each Tuesday night. In Kellner’s opinion, the studio should have been grateful for all of the attention and promotion lavished on Buffy, instead of expecting more money.

  Through Buffy’s third and fourth seasons, the financial disagreements had quieted, but in spring 2001, with the network’s contract nearing its end, the parties readied themselves for battle once again. And this time, Joss himself would be drawn into the fray.

  16

  ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING

  The first shot in the battle over Joss’s flagship series came from the WB’s Jamie Kellner at the Television Critics Association press junket in January 2001. He told reporters that if his network went along with 20th Century Fox’s plans to raise Buffy’s licensing fee from roughly $1 million to $2 million per episode, it would actually lose money by airing the show. Kellner suggested that the WB’s final response would be to say, “We will take all the revenue we can generate with ‘Buffy’ and we’ll give it to you in a giant wheelbarrow…. And if that’s not enough, then take it to somebody else, and you’ve demonstrated that you’re not the kind of partner we should be doing business with.”

  Sandy Grushow, now the Fox Television Entertainment Group chairman, snapped back in his own executive Q&A session at the TCAs, “They don’t have wheelbarrows at the WB, they have Mercedes.”

  While the two men aired their grievances in the press, Joss tried to stay out of it as much as he could. He liked being on the WB, the small network that had taken a chance on him and his stories. His girl hero was not too keen to make a move, either, and she chose to go public with her feelings. “The WB has been so supportive, such a great network over the past four years,” Sarah Michelle Gellar told E! Online. “It feels like home. I don’t want the show to move, because I feel that we belong on the WB. It’s where our fans are.” She added, “I will stay on Buffy if, and only if, Buffy stays on the WB. And you know what? Print that. My bosses are going to kill me, but print that. I want them to know…. If Buffy leaves the WB, I’m out.”

  The renewal drama was spreading, but with no clear sense of when a decision had to be made, Joss focused on the more urgent task of guiding two series with complex narrative arcs toward satisfying season finales. By March, however, Joss could no longer leave the fight to other people. On March 23, 2001, Kellner landed a devastating blow in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Nobody wanted the show,” he argued. “It didn’t perform [at first] but we stuck with it…. It’s not our No. 1 show…. It’s not a show like ER that stands above the pack.” He also claimed that Buffy’s audiences were getting too old to warrant a heftier price tag. “Our audience is a younger audience,” he said. “Maybe what we should be doing is to not stay with the same show for many years, and refresh our lineup.”

  Joss responded in the same article, countering Kellner’s slams about Buffy’s aging demographics by pointing out that he had been told that the show’s median age was “26 to 29 years old in year 2 of the show,” so it shouldn’t be a bargaining point in year five. He also pointed out that Buffy might not have been the network’s highest-rated show (that was the wholesome 7th Heaven), but it “put the WB on the map critically” and remained their second-highest-rated series. The WB, he argued, should “step up and acknowledge that financially.”

  In light of Kellner’s disrespectful and dismissive comments, Joss no longer felt such a strong pull to stay at the WB. He explained his views on leaving: “Other networks reach more people, but other networks also have more hit shows they need to promote. We could be exposed to a new audience, but we could also be buried. But if we decide to move, I’m fine with it.”

  Many assumed that 20th Century Fox would move the series to the Fox network. That move, however, would create an even bigger drama in the television industry. While television series had jumped networks in the past, those moves were precipitated by the original network’s choice to cancel a fading series, not the studio’s desire to make more money from a successful show. Fox didn’t want to endanger its ongoing relationships with ABC, NBC, and CBS by suggesting that it might pull other hit series from those networks to air on its own.

  Instead, Fox offered Buffy to the big three networks. But while the series was a hit by WB standards, its average audience of 4.4 million viewers per episode in the 2000–01 season was not comparable to the ratings of their hits, which regularly netted around 18 million viewers. A better fit was the other small netlet, UPN. At the time, UPN aired four nights of original programming a week, and its biggest hits were the male-skewing wrestling series WWF Smackdown! and Star Trek: Voyager. Even though Buffy brought in fewer viewers than either, it had a strong core female audience that the UPN wanted to court. The netlet immediately became the front-runner to be the new home of the Slayer, even as Fox executives made it clear that they would give the WB the chance to match any UPN offer to acquire the series.

  According to then–WB programming chief Susanne Daniels, the WB’s staffers couldn’t believe that Kellner would let Buffy go, and the more panicked their pleading became, the more obstinately resolute Kellner was that the WB would not pay a higher cost per episode. “The studio did everything it could to keep the show at the WB,” a Fox source told E! Online. “But the more Jamie opens his mouth, the more he says things like ‘this is a niche show,’ ‘maybe we should replenish our schedule every year.’ We started to realize our vision for the show was not the same as [the WB’s].”

  As Joss was directing “The Gift,” Buffy’s one hundredth episode and fifth season finale, he still hadn’t received final word as to whether it would also be the show’s final episode on
the WB. The network sent yet another mixed message by requesting that Joss and crew take part in a publicity stunt; they’d bring press on set to celebrate the hundredth episode with cake and a photo shoot. “The whole thing made me so angry, I had to stop shooting,” Joss said. “I was like, ‘Shut it down! I just can’t be here right now!’”

  The WB’s final offer was roughly $1.8 million per episode, and on April 20, Sandy Grushow called Jamie Kellner to offer him the chance to counter UPN’s offer of $2.33 million and a two-year contract. UPN’s deal also included a commitment to pick up Angel, should the WB cancel it after the last year on its contract expired. Kellner declined, even passing on Grushow’s offer to knock the fee down to $2.25 million per episode. Buffy and Joss had been evicted.

  With three episodes left to air, the supportive network that Gellar had revered quickly changed its attitude. By May 2, Buffy stock photos had been pulled from the WB’s official website, in a move that a spokesperson explained was to protect their “contractual right to exclusively promote the show.” Also pulled was an advertisement in the Hollywood Reporter to congratulate the series on its hundredth episode. (UPN quickly jumped into the vacancy with its own congratulatory ad.) While it was well within its rights to no longer support the series, the WB behaved like a teenage girl burning all photos of an ex-boyfriend after a breakup.

  On May 22, 2001, the WB aired “The Gift,” in which Buffy sacrifices her own life to save her sister and stave off another apocalypse. (The last shot of the season is her tombstone, which reads, SHE SAVED THE WORLD A LOT.) This ending lent the last WB episode a disturbing sense of finality; the Bronze posting board exploded with discussions of Buffy’s death and speculation about the new season at UPN. Joss took to the board to assure fans that Buffy’s death would have taken place whether the series jumped networks or not, and that the writers had planned out much of the next season well in advance of the season finale. He insisted, as he had many times before, that the viewers should trust the tale:

  The STORY is in charge, the story that keeps on speaking to me, that says there is much more to tell about all these characters. An ensemble this brilliant could easily carry the show even without the Slayer—but the fact is, even though she reached some beauty closure, Buffy’s story isn’t over. When it is, I’ll know. And we’ll stop. Till then, have faith.

  Soon thereafter, when the WB shut down www.buffy.com, the Bronze, too, ceased to exist. UPN set up a new official site with its own message board, but its more complicated layout, with organized topics instead of one chronological stream of posts, didn’t appeal to most Bronzers. They moved to a new, privately run board at BronzeBeta.com that replicated the linear structure of the board they had lost. The fate of the community was finally in the hands of the users themselves, but the replacement site never quite gelled. Whether it was the loss of the connection to the official Buffy site or just the inevitable erosion of interest after being so deeply involved in a community for so long, fewer and fewer fans showed up to participate in the discussion. The most devoted Bronzers would remain, and Joss and the writers would still post from time to time, but their intimate connection to a vibrant fan community was fading.

  “The community, [their debates about events in the show] and everybody being pretty darn smart about their comments was wonderful for him. It was his salvation at the same time, and it came at a time that he needed it,” Kai says. “Because he wasn’t getting it from the executives. People didn’t know what he was doing—luckily, they just let him do Buffy before they understood that they didn’t want him to do it anymore.”

  Over at UPN, the executives were quick to lavish gifts on their prized new addition. They gave Joss a nineteenth-century edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, Gellar got a new Gucci jacket, and the supporting cast received Cartier watches. After all the insults hurled at Buffy by Jamie Kellner, the recipients greatly appreciated the acknowledgment that the series and they themselves were important to the network. Those not in the title role were especially grateful; a cast member told Entertainment Weekly that it didn’t seem as if the WB “realized there was anyone else on the show but Sarah and David [Boreanaz].”

  While Buffy’s death was a surprise to fans, Joss had let UPN in on the plans to resurrect his hero. “They were actually really excited,” he said, “because rebirth is kind of the theme they’re going for; they want to re-create the image of their network. It’s very fitting Buffy would be coming back from the dead.”

  Joss’s idea was to bring back Buffy as a different person than the one who gave her life for her little sister in the fifth season finale. In the sixth season premiere, an increasingly powerful Willow succeeds in casting a spell to raise the Slayer from the dead—but it turns out that in doing so, she has dragged Buffy out of heaven. Buffy’s time in the afterlife finally brought her peace, and now she is faced with paying bills, raising her sister, and keeping Sunnydale safe from demons. She chooses to keep the fact that she was in heaven from her friends in consideration of how much they did to get her back, but the isolation and desperation push her into a deep depression and a series of terrible mistakes.

  “The college years can be supremely self-destructive, particularly for women who have a dark side—that’s when a lot of bad choices can get made,” Marti Noxon says. “Speaking from my own experience, bad things will happen if you go to the dark place, and so I was definitely pushing that kind of stuff.” Noxon had been a writer/producer on the show since the second season, and in the sixth she was elevated to showrunner, overseeing issues such as “reading new writers, making wardrobe calls, and all the day-in, day-out of the production” that Joss or David Greenwalt had handled in earlier seasons. Greenwalt was now occupied with Angel season three, and Joss had taken a small hiatus to work on two projects: a new space western series that he was developing for Fox—and a very, very special Buffy episode.

  Joss had always wanted to write a musical episode of Buffy. He and Tony Head had discussed the idea for years, ever since they were shooting the pilot presentation back in 1996. As they were waiting for the lighting to be set up for the initial meeting between Giles and Buffy, Head and Joss were chatting, and the discussion turned to the fact that they both loved musicals. “Sarah Michelle piped up and said, ‘I like musicals too!’” Head remembers, which led them to muse that if the series ever got picked up, it would be fun down the line to do their own musical.

  It was perhaps a natural inclination for Joss, a man whose life had been scored by Broadway soundtracks. After all, both his father and grandfather had written musicals at Harvard and staged original musical theater in New York, and he himself had written three songs for a musical film that never came to pass. “He’s a huge musical theater aficionado. He seems to know every musical ever written,” writer Dean Batali says. “I think, deep in his heart, he’d rather win a Tony [Award] than anything else.”

  Although Joss had never been known as a musical lyricist, many of his colleagues recognized, consciously or subconsciously, the musical quality of his writing. Howard Gordon pushed Tim Minear to take a job on Angel because he knew that, like Marti Noxon, Jane Espenson, and David Fury, Minear could “sing in the key” of Joss. Fox’s Jorge Saralegui compares Joss to a composer in the way that he can balance darkness with humor. “That’s really almost kind of like music, it’s a rhythm thing in your head,” he says. “Most writers don’t have that. They’re more like a songwriter that knows how to put together a song: verse, verse, chorus, bridge, whatever. But they don’t hear everything in that way where one thing balances the other—counterpoint, in effect. I think you either hear it or you don’t. Joss is excellent at it.”

  So the skillset was always there. But Joss faced a huge obstacle: practicality. He was always so involved as the show’s creator and showrunner that he couldn’t take more than two weeks off in a row. That was not enough time for him to write an entire score. Joss also felt that in the established universe of the series, he’d have a hard ti
me justifying a musical’s heightened reality—that is, why everybody suddenly starts bursting into song. If there wasn’t a justification for it in the story, Joss felt, it would look like they just ran out of ideas and reached for a gimmick. Consequently, every season Head would ask if they were doing a musical that year, but Joss always replied, “No, it doesn’t feel right.”

  That didn’t keep him from bringing his love of musicals, particularly Stephen Sondheim, to the set. When Danny Strong was playing Jonathan in “Earshot,” he remembers, “I was doing this jump backwards that was a bit too choreographed looking. Joss came over to me and said ‘Can you make the jump a little less …’ and I jumped in and said, ‘West Side Story?’ He totally freaked out and said, ‘That’s exactly what I was going to say!’ Then we realized that we had both played Baby John in West Side Story and bonded over our mutual love of Sondheim.”

  Finally, during the impromptu sing-along at one of their early Shakespeare readings, Joss had been inspired by his cast’s singing abilities. He decided that it was time to challenge himself again. With the show moving to UPN, it was the perfect time to remind people why Buffy was such a pop culture touchstone—and what better way to do that than to write a musical completely from scratch?

  Joss had finally found a compelling reason why his characters would break out into song. In “Once More, with Feeling,” Sunnydale is plagued by a demon with the power to compel people to express hidden truths musically. Though it’s far from the most extraordinary thing to occur in Sunnydale, Joss made a point to have his characters remark on the strangeness of their choreographed musical outbursts, in a nod to any viewers who might not be particularly fond of musicals and might resist the notion that the characters will suddenly start singing about their feelings. Joss also took care to tie this mystical development into the ongoing emotional arc of the characters. As in “Hush,” there has been a great lack of honest communication within the Scooby Gang, and everyone has been keeping secrets—the biggest one being Buffy’s revelation that her friends ripped her out of heaven. The demon revels in the chaos and misery that’s caused when those secrets are finally revealed. “Say you’re happy now,” he taunts them in song. “Once more, with feeling.”