Long rambling Buffy entry ahead!

[frelling_tralk]

I recently finished reading Slayers and Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorised, Oral History of Buffy the Vampire Slayer & AngelThe reviews for it seem in the low side, and I suppose the way it’s put together with just assorted bits from various interviews is a bit haphazard, but I really enjoyed it anyway. Even as a longtime Buffy fan, it

Comments

[_profiterole_]

Thanks for sharing all this! :-)

I would have loved a Faith show so much! I watched one season of Tru Calling and that's where I first saw Matt Bomer, iirc. I was glad she did Dollhouse afterwards, because I liked it more than Tru Calling.

[frelling_tralk]

No worries :) Haha I didn’t realise how long it would turn out though, reading it back now it looks like I got a bit carried away!

And yeah I was surprised at David Fury saying that the potentials were *never* there for a spin-off, because I definitely the rumours that a lot of different spin-offs were being considered (Willow running a slayer school, a Dawn spin-off with her new friends from Lessons, a Faith spin-off with Spike), but he was very clear that they only ever considered doing a show with Faith. And that makes sense I suppose as that was the one that I remember being the most seriously discussed definitely, and seeming like it was going to happen at one point

I never saw Tru Calling, but I really enjoyed Dollhouse as well, and think that Eliza was very underrated in it :) It bugs me a little how so many fans dismiss Echo as the weak link, wishing that one of the other actresses was the lead instead, I thought that Eliza was great as Echo :shrugs:

[_profiterole_]

I could have been interested in a slayer school spin-off, but Dawn was never that interesting. In a way, it kind of was the point, for the Key to be unnoticeable.

I agree, she did a great job as Echo. The weak link was the pacing of the show. S1 was too slow, and then, they probably knew they wouldn't get past S2, so it felt like they stacked the content of 2 seasons into 1.

[frelling_tralk]

Yep he acknowledged that it wouldn’t work to have Dawn headlining a show because she just wasn’t a fan favourite, while the writers all seemed pretty into the idea of the Faith spin-off possibilities

:nods: Dollhouse was great once they got going with the main arcs, but the one-offs were mostly pretty boring unfortunately. Even when they got a second chance with season 2, for some reason they still stuck a couple of middling one-off adventures at the beginning (the one with Echo as a mother...), but then on the other hand they could produce totally amazing episodes like Belonging which made it all worthwhile, and then the final arc was of course amazing

[roxymissrose]

Interesting! Makes me think much more was going on than we knew. I'd heard that that Cordelia story-line on Angel was a hot mess--I don't think I've ever hated a storyline more.

I still miss not having Alexis on my TV screen.

Christian Kane...lol! I kind of figured he was an asshole, but I can't help but like him anyway. :D

[frelling_tralk]

He came off as such an asshole to me tbh lol, it seemed like he was just never happy playing a lawyer in a suit instead of a real physical badass

[ever_neutral]

THANKS FOR THIS JUICE!!

so they had the idea to cast her as a sex slave robot as that’s how they felt she was presenting herself at her shows at the time. Britney balked and didn’t want to do that

lmao Team Britney

Oh and there were a few different comments on how well Sarah and Eliza got on, even though Faith was brought in as a rival for Buffy, the actresses themselves really liked one another and there was never any competition there.

♥

It was only after she signed the contract that David decided to tell her that they were killing Cordelia and she was really upset, but he asked her to hear out his script which changed everything for her. She also notes that Joss left her a bouquet of flowers in her trailer, and a really nice note which she had framed where he thanked her for coming back

Hmmm.... Interesting. (I seriously never know what to make of the Charisma v Joss pregnancy drama, the story seems to change every time????)

[frelling_tralk]

Yeah I thought that was a bit confusing because in the infamous convention clip Charisma is talking along the lines of feeling so betrayed at being tricked into coming back for Cordelia to die, only hearing the script idea convinced her otherwise because ‘Joss is good’, but then in her interview for this book she talks about that in regards to David Fury. (It didn’t sound like she had any contact with Joss at all on the set of season 5 actually, other than the flowers and the thank you note in her trailer.) Which makes sense because the script was written and directed by David Fury, and I believe he was actually the one who had the idea to bring Cordelia back for the 100th episode after plans with Sarah fell through, so that seems like one thing the fans blame Joss for (bringing Cordelia back to kill her off without being upfront with Charisma about it) that he really didn’t have anything to do with

[rogueslayer452]

All of this is so fascinating. I knew some of these things, but not everything. I like reading behind the scene tidbits.

I knew that Britney Spears wanted to be on BTVS and was offered that role of the robot in the sixth season, but I wasn't aware that she was a huge fan of the show! That is super cool. I always thought it was due to scheduling conflicts that didn't have that happen in the end, but if they just wanted her to be a sex slave robot because of how she presented herself in the media that is kind of uncomfortable. I would have preferred it if she appeared as, say, just a regular girl or something that didn't hypersexualize her in anyway. That would've been more interesting, tbh.

(I do wonder if there's been any information on the casting of Ashanti in that one episode in the seventh season.)

I remember the actor who played Dracula also did a TV movie about Dracula that premiered around the same time Buffy vs. Dracula aired, looking and acting pretty much the same, and I always believed that there was a deal made to

[frelling_tralk]

Nothing was said about Ashanti, I guess that everyone involved just wanted to forget all about that one :P

[rogueslayer452]

And yeah David Fury was saying he got the idea from taking his daughter to one of Britney’s shows and feeling like she came across as very robotic and ‘I’m here to please you’, so I can see why she wouldn’t be thrilled at the character they presented to her.Yikes. That sounds rather demeaning when it comes across like that, especially since it's revealed that she's a fan of the show and yet this is how he saw her as. :/ It's understandable that Britney wouldn't be down for such a role. I mean, in a way I can see if the idea would've been a commentary about how a pop star was represented by the media as a sex symbol and how someone could be so obsessed to treat them like a literal object by creating a robot version of them and whatnot, but I don't think that was the initial plan or if it would've even come across well in the end, so I don't blame Britney for being uncomfortable with that concept

[elisi]

OOOh, fascinating. Thank you for writing all this up!

[frelling_tralk]

You're welcome :)