Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy (24 page)

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Authors: Candace Havens

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Joss is like a present, he’s like a gift as far as I’m concerned.
—Ron Glass
 
“He’s done an amazing job of pulling all of these different people together,” says Glass. “Joss is like a present, he’s like a gift as far as I’m concerned. He’s so bright, creative, and inspiring, and he creates this ideal situation for actors to come in and do their thing. I’d never seen his other shows, but I consider it sheer luck that I ended up here. I had no idea what a blessing it would be.”
The idea had come to Joss several years earlier, but when Fox called, he had to pull it all together incredibly fast.
The show itself met several challenges before and after the pilot was shot. After the advertisers met in May 2002, Fox wanted Joss to reshoot the pilot episode. They wanted more humor and action. There were also a few cast changes.
 
Adam Baldwin plays Jayne, who serves as both the muscle and the source of much of the humor in
Firefly.
“Sometimes you do things on the business side that’s not the best thing for the creative side,” says Fox Entertainment president Gail Berman, “and when Joss came in and pitched his one-hour idea for a pilot, it was a very big show, and it would prove to be an expensive one. And we felt, corporately, that we might do better with it as a two-hour, be able to launch it as a feature internationally.
“So we asked him to expand to a two-hour and it went into a lot of back story, and when we saw the two-hour, as good as we thought it was, we felt there was a better way to launch this, with a more action-packed one-hour. And so we sat down with Joss and discussed it with him, and he too felt at that point that starting this thing in a more aggressive way would probably be a better way to start the series. And so we decided to push the two-hour to a special event in season, and then launch [with] the one-hour.”
Whedon took the comments from the network in stride. “Like anything you do, there are always things you work out as you go along,” says Whedon. “Your initial vision is always there but you have to make it work within the context of what you are doing, and within a budget. There are always going to be changes in the beginning and as you go through the process. It never stops.”
 
Summer Glau plays disturbed psychic River Tam. Glau won the role after impressing Whedon in
Angel’s
ballet episode, “Waiting in the Wings.”
 
Jewel Staite plays Kaylee, the ship’s mechanic and resident sweetheart.
“I’ve worked with a lot of very creative people in my time,” says Berman, “and I think Joss is as close to a genius as I know one to be. He has an incredibly keen understanding of storytelling in a way that I’ve rarely seen displayed elsewhere. He’s so funny and smart, and I’ve worked with him as a colleague and producer, and I’m working with him now at the network. He’s one of the great pleasures of my career.”
“When I first read the script, I knew that he had something wonderful with
Firefly
, if they let him have the freedom to make it the way he wants too,” says Professor Basinger. “See, that’s where you run into trouble, is when the network wants to make this change or that. If they let Joss make his show, and trust him as the WB did with
Buffy
, then it is fantastic.
“With
Firefly
we talked about it being this group of people flying through space as a kind of a metaphor for plowing across the prairie. I was raised on the prairie and he asked me questions about what that was like. I told him about being surrounded by wide-open spaces. He [is] always thinking and questioning. It isn’t just ‘well, we will have guys with big foreheads on a spaceship.’ It’s not going to be like that. It’s going to be something different.”
He has an incredibly keen understanding of storytelling in a way that I’ve rarely seen displayed elsewhere. —Gail Berman
 
Whedon is as much a fan of westerns as he is science fiction. He uses many of those early influences in his work and blends them together seamlessly. “I’m a huge John Ford fan. I’m a huge westerns’ fan. Anthony Mann, particularly. The ‘70s westerns, Altman, you know they were a huge influence. The ’70s, because they really stopped using the iconography that had become ossified and said ‘What was it really like?’ a bit more, and you really got that sense of life in things like
McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Ulzana’s Raid
, and, actually, I’ll probably get in huge trouble for mentioning this,
Heaven’s Gate,
” he laughs.
“Life is hard out there,” says Whedon of the world he has created in space. “I wanted to see that world I miss. You know, a world without the Internet and Pink Dot. A world where, you know, things have to be made from scratch, including decisions, ethics.
“You create a civilization when you go into space. You bring it with you. And how you do that is a really personal process, and to me, a fascinating one. And the harder things are, the more times your ethics and your moral structure are going to be tested. Plus, more adventure.
“And to me, you know, when I pitched the show, I said, ‘This is about nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things,’” says Whedon. “And that’s really what I’m fascinated by, is how they all react to this.
“I think it’s just more interesting than, you know, ‘Because he’s our client, dammit!’ But that’s me. I mean, a lot of people do that well. I can’t do that well. ‘I’ll allow it, but you’d better be going somewhere with this,’” he laughs again. “I just feel like there’s a group of people that aren’t represented, in a way, the people who really are just living hand-to-mouth... that’s what fascinates me.”
 
Ron Glass plays Book the Shepherd, a spiritual man with a decidely worldly past.
Because
Firefly
is so different from
Buffy
in tone, not every
Buffy
fan has appreciated the series. But the quality of the series is strong, and, although there was some negative buzz surrounding the network maneuvering on the pilot, criticism has been fairly positive. In particular, critics have noted that in a field of very similar programs,
Firefly
is truly unique.
TV Guide
says “Bucking the timidity of a TV season lacking in originality, Fox’s funky
Firefly
may be guilty of overcompensating. You don’t get more offbeat that this ... But once you get used to it,
Firefly
is very entertaining. The characters are cleverly conceived and the crisp writing balances action, tension and humor nicely.”
 
Morena Baccarin plays the companion Inara, the most respectable member of the crew.
Like
Buffy, Firefly
integrates multiple genres.
Bushwacked,
in which we first encounter the Reavers (or, at least, their handiwork) is genuinely scary, but with moments of great humor. While
Our Mrs Reynolds
, written and directed by Joss, is an almost pure comedy, hysterical, but with moments of great action.
From the beginning,
Firefly’s
ratings have been mediocre and its future in doubt. Despite the enthusiasm of fans and the encouragement of critics (
TV Guide
said “let’s hope Fox exercises some patience. Cult followings aren’t born overnight”), the show was given a fairly short time period to find its audience. Despite some encouraging sign, including the ordering of new episodes by Fox, by mid-December of 2002 it was clear that
Firefly
, technically on “hiatus,” would not return. Joss acknowledged as much in his December posting:
Four AM. Can’t sleep. Who’d have thought?
 
 
There’s a couple of things I’d like to say. And a few things I really can’t. First of all, I’m prouder of this show and the people I worked with on it than I can express in words, monkey noises, or hieroglyphics. I believe this has been some fairly great TV And the experience of making it... I’ve had crew members who’ve been working for 20 years say they’ve never worked around such excitement, support and love. You walk on that set, you’re transported. The cast: 9 count ‘em 9 incredibly talented actors who are all decent, wonderful people. This phenomenon cannot be explained by science.
 
Second of all, don’t think for a second that I have given up on this show I think it has been mistreated shamefully, but the Fox network has indicated that they would not stand in the way (which they can) of my finding a new home for the show. That’s no easy prospect. But I will do everything in my power, as always, to keep this bird in the air. Of course I’ll post if there’s any news.
 
But even if the show goes back up elsewhere, I’m going to lose a good portion of my crew. Production will halt, they’ll need to find new jobs. You can’t imagine how that feels. How much they brought to the table, how hard and well they worked. And their Christmas bonus is this. As much as the cast, the staff, and my not so secret lover Minear, I honor those guys, and hope to get them back on board.
 
So for now, I proudly take my place beside
Profit, The Ben Stiller Show, the Tick
, and
Action
. But I won’t rest until I’ve found safe harbour (no, not the Gregory Harrison show) for this vessel.
 
I’ve got the time.
 
It ain’t like I’m sleeping.
 
-joss

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