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Television Quest
By Beth Laski

Joss Whedon ditches the big screen hassles to take creative control of his ideas and resurrect the Slayer.

When Joss Whedon decided to create a TV show based on his first feature film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, those close to him, including his own agent, wondered what kind of supernatural demon had possessed him.

But these days, Whedon says "I told you so" to those naysayers who nixed his TV series idea for a slayer of vampires with a fang-sharp wit.

"I knew it would be a great, thundering hit because I had to," says Whedon, who also writes and executive produces the show. "Everyone said, 'For the love of God--don't do it,' and I said, "This is going to be a great hit.'"

Starting its third season, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its star Sarah Michelle Gellar have made quite a name for themselves. The show has since put the WB Network on the map, as well as earning rave reviews and ratings that continue to improve, particularly since a move to Tuesday nights paired it with Dawson's Creek.

Buffy's hour-long hybrid brand of comedy, horror, camp, and action deals with the sometimes demonic-proportioned problems of being a teenager. It is based on the 1992 feature film of the same name that starred Kristy Swanson and was written by Whedon.

The TV show stars Gellar as Buffy Summers--a seemingly normal high school senior at Sunnydale (which sounds a little like Whedon's own high school of Riverdale), where she beats up bloodsuckers and battles high school insecurities. Using a variety of methods, including a silver crucifix she wears around her neck, Buffy mostly punches and kickboxes her opponents into submission.

Gellar, who went from daytime soap stardom on All My Children to prime time stardom on a different kind of melodrama, has the highest profile of any teenage heroine on television today. Her character is one that appeals to girls because they want to be her friend and to boys because they want to date her.

"She's incredibly talented and not bad-looking," Whedon says only half- kiddingly of Gellar, 21. "She's a great big TV star and a hard worker. She prepares well and certainly puts in the hours."

As does everyone who works on the show. It's not unusual for Whedon himself to stay up all night writing for Buffy, or for co-executive producer David Greenwalt to stay holed up all weekend writing. Sounds a lot like those typical high school all-nighters, or missing out on a football game to study.

But Whedon's enthusiasm for Buffy is a big part of why the show works so well. The 30-something creator recalls quite easily his own miserable high school days.

"I had a harsh time in high school and my experiences are a great deal of what I write about," says Whedon, who attended a posh private high school in New York City before transferring to a British boarding school. "This is the most personal work I'll probably ever do. It's pretty much me up there on the screen--that is, if I was cute."

The show deals with real and metaphorical teenage angst, from parental woes to supernatural foes, beaus, and even whether to say 'yes' or 'no.' In the last season, Buffy lost her virginity to her on-again, off-again, on-screen boyfriend, Angel (David Boreanaz), a young 242-year-old vampire.

"It seemed the right thing for the characters," says Whedon of the one-time interlude. "Buffy's 17 years old and that's not that young. She and Angel are very much in love and it made sense for them." From the story perspective, it also made sense for the show and its writers.

The intimacy created a huge amount of conflict in that it dealt with real, teenage fear and its scary, sometimes even devastating, aftermath. "The Angel turning bad plot that followed was a metaphor for the 'I slept with him and he didn't call me' thing that sometimes happens," Whedon explains.

So what's next in season three for Buffy and her co-stars, which include mentor Giles (Anthony Steward Head) and loyal friends Xander (Nicholas Brendon), Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter)?

"The future is bleak and grim," joshes Whedon. "This year they'll graduate from high school and be forced to make some life choices. The pain of life doesn't end in high school. There's a lot more to explore and I have so much more to say."

Buffy, whose mom recently learned she was a vampire slayer, will have to deal with that discovery, as well as deciding whether to go to college. The new season will also have some new twists and turns, and even a couple of new villains, including Mr. Trick, who is sort of the 'anti-Spike,' says Whedon.

The show will also inevitably need some new sets. The interior of Sunnydale High School is shot in nondescript warehouses, as is the Bronze nightclub and Buffy's house. The exterior of the high school is shot at Torrance High School, the Los Angeles-area school that was also the backdrop for Beverly Hills, 90210.

And last, but not least, season three will lay the groundwork for Angel, a series spin-off planned for the 1999-2000 television season. In the new show, the troubled vampire (Boreanaz) moves to Los Angeles, where he will continue the good fight against evil. Buffy the Vampire Slayer will continue simultaneously.

Whedon said the original idea for Buffy the movie came after years of watching horror movies during which "beautiful, vivacious blondes got themselves killed. I realized I wanted to see a movie in which the beautiful girl was the hero--that she was confronted and trounced. That's how it evolved, and now it's been 11 years I've been living with this bitch," he says with a laugh.

The biggest surprise for Whedon is how much he likes working on the show. "I didn't expect to fall in love with it," he says.

Writing for TV is not a completely alien concept for Whedon. His grandfather John wrote for The Donna Reed Show, and his father Tom produced The Golden Girls. The younger Whedon found his way into the "family" business shortly after graduating from college with a film degree. He worked on Roseanne for just a year before selling his Buffy the Vampire Slayer screenplay and moving into the more prestigious world of feature films.

But Whedon was nearly blinded by the bright lights of the movie business. In fact, he says he found his film experiences downright distasteful, despite reaching A-list status as a screenwriter. He even worked on such blockbusters as Speed, Twister, and Toy Story, just to name a few. He says most of his original screenplays remain buried in development hell and his much-heralded script doctoring went off like a botched operation.

"Did you see Alien Resurrection? It was a crappy-ass movie," Whedon says of another movie in which he was involved. "I decided I wanted to swim in a smaller pond at that point. With Buffy, I had a story I wanted to tell and I wanted to tell it my way."

Due to his enormous success in screenwriting, Whedon was in a rare position that would have allowed him to walk away from the show had things not gone his way. But Whedon got the nod he wanted from the fledgling network, and has been working tirelessly on the project ever since.

"Freedom is not the norm," Whedon acknowledges. "They've been rather un- network like in their collaboration. They've been great."

But even with all the support and creative freedom from the network, the task of recreating a movie for television was not an easy task.

"I had the character and the premise, but I had to think of what I could do to maintain it for five years," Whedon explained. "The horror of high school made it all sort of click."

And it's that horror--at least in part--that makes the show continue to click.

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