Submitted by Unknown on 2002-08-20
Can A God Get Overwhelmed?

Well, Joss has

Here is an article from The Mercury News

CENTURY CITY - It is the late morning of just the fifth day of production on his new television series, ``Firefly,'' and Joss Whedon already looks burned out, exhausted, fried. Some of the usual twinkle has gone out of his eyes, and he is losing his voice. He doesn't so much sit in a director's chair on the Twentieth Century Fox back lot as slump into it.

Joss Whedon's life these days?

``It's a nightmare,'' he says, only half-jokingly....

Read on the full article



It wasn't supposed to be this way for the 37-year-old man many consider the finest writer in television today. In fact, Whedon was supposed to be at the top of the TV world.

Although they rarely break into the top 100 shows in terms of viewership, his ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' on UPN and its spinoff, ``Angel,'' on the WB are critically acclaimed and have become signature series for the smaller networks. And ``Firefly'' was the most anticipated new show on Fox's fall lineup, generating a lot of early buzz.

But in the weeks leading up to the start of production on ``Firefly'' -- an elaborate science-fiction show -- the wheels started to come off.

Last season, Whedon turned over the day-to-day operation of his shows to others. He still wrote individual episodes and oversaw story lines, but his focus was on developing ``Firefly.''

Then, just days before the series were to begin shooting episodes for this coming fall season, Whedon had to at least temporarily take back those reins because ``Buffy'' producer Marti Noxon went on maternity leave and -- more unexpectedly -- ``Angel'' producer David Greenwalt left to do his own show for ABC. That left Whedon overseeing three shows at the same time.

Then rumors started that ``Buffy'' star Sarah Michelle Gellar would leave the series when her contract is up next spring. That put Whedon in the position of having to at least think about either a proper send-off for the show or a way to do it without Gellar.

And if that wasn't enough, the two-hour, $8 million pilot of ``Firefly'' that Whedon had written and directed had to be shelved when Fox executives decided it didn't have enough action. That meant coming up with a new opening episode for the series' debut Sept. 20.

It's the kind of train wreck that seems to happen whenever a talented television writer takes on too much too quickly. So why did Whedon decide to do a third -- and decidedly high-pressure series -- at a time when things were going well with his other work?

``Because I'm an idiot,'' says Whedon with a laugh.

``You know, I thought about doing a movie,'' he explains. ``But I have a development deal at Fox, and they really wanted a series. And I had been thinking about doing `Firefly' for some time, so a lot of things just fell into place. . . .

``I just thought it would be something doable. It still is, but now it's a little more challenging.''

Whedon is a true child of television, figuratively and literally.

In the literal sense, his grandfather, John Whedon, was a comedy writer on the ``The Donna Reed Show'' and ``Leave It to Beaver'' in the 1950s and 1960s. His father, Tom Whedon, was a writer on series including ``Alice'' and ``Benson.'' And right after graduating from college, Whedon himself got a job as a story editor and writer on ``Roseanne'' in the early (and very good) days of that series.

In the figurative sense, no one working in TV has a surer sense of American pop culture and television's place in it than Whedon. His shows are studded with neatly phrased references to everything from comic books and pop music to obscure films and old TV series. It's as if several decades of cool poured into Whedon's brain and now come out through his fingertips.

Began with `Buffy'

Joss Whedon has dabbled in film over the years, writing -- for example -- the much-admired script for the original ``Toy Story.'' But television has always been Whedon's medium, starting with ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' in 1997.

Based on a 1992 film that Whedon wrote but was unhappy with, ``Buffy'' was considered a short-time summer-spring replacement series. No one really believed that a show about vampires, demons and the girl who slays them -- done as a metaphor for growing up in modern times -- would last more than a few episodes.

Whedon was so confident there wouldn't be a second season of ``Buffy'' that he ``wrapped up the entire story at the end of the season one, so that if there was never another episode of `Buffy,' those 12 episodes would tell the story that needed to be told.''

Instead, ``Buffy'' caught on, attracting a relatively small but devoted audience that helped to establish the WB within the television world. It also became a darling of the critics.

What Whedon has gotten away with on ``Buffy'' over four seasons is astonishing. He's killed Buffy twice -- and brought her back from the dead each time. He's delved into sometimes kinky vampire sex. (Angel, the reformed vampire, was Buffy's first lover and still her great love.) And he's developed a lesbian relationship for two of his characters.

Some of the episodes he has written stand out as among the best ever done.

One episode featured 28 minutes without dialogue -- and earned Whedon his only Emmy nomination. Another -- in which he killed off Buffy's mother -- was a moving meditation on death and the pain of those who live on. And the topper was last season's ``Once More, With Feeling,'' a magical mini-musical with lyrics and music by Whedon.

``Buffy has had a particular statement about growing up and about real life,'' says Whedon, who obviously considers the show his baby. ``There were constrictions to it that were sometimes frustrating. We just couldn't go anywhere and do anything because . . . everything has to grounded in a certain ethos.

``But while that particular type of myth-making is sometimes limiting, it's also what made the show good and it's why it resonates.''

End might be near

Which makes it painful for Whedon to talk about the end of the show.

``I hope to create other fictions that have what `Buffy' has,'' Whedon. ``But to have it as purely and as often . . . when that stops, we'll have lost something.''

Not that Whedon thinks the series couldn't live on.

``You have to keep it fresh, and if you stop doing that, we would have made a mistake by going on,'' he says. ``But, you know, I don't actually worry about that, because we just keep having more ideas. In fact, sometimes, I wish we'd stop.''

What could stop it, though, is Gellar's departure -- which some cast members think is inevitable now that her movie career is taking off. Even executives at UPN (the show's home since 2000) believe the end might be near.

Whedon himself says: ``I don't know that she'll leave. But I do know that I have the strongest ensemble cast that I could ever hope to work with and a premise that resonates beyond the character itself. . . .

``Because the show is about growing up, and that is a process that never stops, every year we find a new paradigm, a new structure, a new over-reaching message . . . I really do feel like it could go on forever. It's just a question of `what's next?' ''

But right now, Whedon is concentrating not so much on that as lightening ``Buffy's'' tone for the upcoming season, keeping the stylish, film noir ``Angel'' on track and -- most important -- getting ``Firefly'' off the ground.

Even though it is set 500 years in the future, out in space, Whedon considers ``Firefly'' his most ``realistic'' series.

After reading Michael Shaara's Civil War book ``The Killer Angels,'' about the battle of Gettysburg, Whedon says he ``got obsessed with the minutiae of life way back then: early frontier life and when things were not as convenient as they are now. We wanted to do a show in the future that had a sense of history, that we don't solve all our problems and have impeccably clean spaceships.''

As a result, ``Firefly'' is something far removed from, say, ``Star Trek.'' There are no aliens and no monsters. The spaceships are crude. The crew of the Serenity -- a small transport ship that is the focus of the show -- carry what amount to six-shooters, not laser guns or phasers.

``I wanted to stay away from the easy science-fiction fixes,'' says Whedon. ``The android, the clone, the alien, all the stuff that, for all I know, may be lurking around the corner, but I'm not expecting to see anytime soon.''

Instead, Whedon is making a series that is more ``Stagecoach,'' the 1939 John Ford classic, and ``Grapes of Wrath'' than what sci-fi fans may be expecting. It's a tricky proposition, even for a TV guy of Whedon's talents.

But Whedon is determined to make it work. In fact, he's determined to make all three of his shows work -- despite everything.

``I'm very concerned with being efficient. I'm very concerned with making sure that nothing falls by the wayside,'' Whedon says with a sigh. ``I'm not quite as nice as I used to be. It's not really a question of burnout. It's a question of letting the shows be less than they can be. And I don't like to do that.

``I feel equally strong about all three series so it's up to me to come through. I just have to be there.''

WHEDON'S SERIES

``Buffy the Vampire Slayer''

*** 1/2 (first four seasons)

*** (last season)

Airing: 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Ch. 44

Premiere: March 10, 1997

Returns: Sept. 24

Average weekly viewership: 4.6 million (Ranked No. 124 in 2001-02 Nielsen ratings)

Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, James Marsters, Nicholas Brendon, Emma Caulfield, Michelle Trachtenberg, Anthony Stewart Head

``Angel''

** 1/2 (first season)

*** 1/2 (last season)

Airing: 9 p.m. Sundays, Ch. 20

Premiere: Oct. 5, 1999

Returns: Oct. 6

Average weekly viewership: 4.4 million (Ranked No. 127 in Nielsens)

Cast: David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Amy Acker

``Firefly''

Unrated

Airing: 8 p.m. Fridays, Chs. 2, 35

Premiere: Sept. 20

Cast: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite, Adam Baldwin, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, Ron Glass


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