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Oct. 20th, 2016 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I'm falling in fannish love for Joss Whedon again...weirdly. I've loved his last two interviews. And what he wrote on Tumblr about Hillary was wonderfully moving. The latest? This charming interview where he admits that he was a Buffy/Spike shipper all along.
I feel validated. Been arguing that for years with crazy Spike and Angel shippers.
Come on, people, Spike was a heck of a lot more fun for the writer to write, and he didn't have all that much involvement with the Angel series, that was Greenwalt and Minear's baby. It wasn't until the last two seasons that Whedon was heavily involved.
{Okay enough ego stroking. I figure no on has been reading this anyway, so it doesn't matter.)
2. Frequency is bugging me -- the time travel story line doesn't quite work. They have things change in the past, but the main character isn't really all that affected in the future, physically.
The main character hunts down this killer in the present, while her father hunts him in the past. He beats her up. She beats him up. And when she's about to kill him, he disappears, because he got hit by a bus in the past, while her Dad was chasing him. So he disappears, and she's still banged up from fighting him, and still remembers all of it.
She shouldn't be banged up at all. Since it didn't happen. Nor should she remember any of it. Because didn't happen. She didn't travel back in time. So what, is there some mystical bubble around her that enables her to remember one time line and be physically affected by it, as well as the other? Also other people should be positively and negatively affected in various ways not just the protagonist. There should be more of a ripple effect.
This is my problem with Time Travel stories...the science doesn't quite gell. Timeless' writers are doing a better job of it than Frequency.
Lastly, because I've seen a lot of people arguing about this online: Buffy/Spike or Buffy/Angel?
I’m a Buffy/Spike shipper. I always felt like he was a more evolved person, but that’s like saying Juliet’s going to be so happy with Benvolio and everyone will love it. Buffy/Angel is for the ages; Buffy/Spike is maybe for me. Actually, I’m a Spike/Angel shipper. Completely re-write the equation.
I feel validated. Been arguing that for years with crazy Spike and Angel shippers.
Come on, people, Spike was a heck of a lot more fun for the writer to write, and he didn't have all that much involvement with the Angel series, that was Greenwalt and Minear's baby. It wasn't until the last two seasons that Whedon was heavily involved.
{Okay enough ego stroking. I figure no on has been reading this anyway, so it doesn't matter.)
2. Frequency is bugging me -- the time travel story line doesn't quite work. They have things change in the past, but the main character isn't really all that affected in the future, physically.
The main character hunts down this killer in the present, while her father hunts him in the past. He beats her up. She beats him up. And when she's about to kill him, he disappears, because he got hit by a bus in the past, while her Dad was chasing him. So he disappears, and she's still banged up from fighting him, and still remembers all of it.
She shouldn't be banged up at all. Since it didn't happen. Nor should she remember any of it. Because didn't happen. She didn't travel back in time. So what, is there some mystical bubble around her that enables her to remember one time line and be physically affected by it, as well as the other? Also other people should be positively and negatively affected in various ways not just the protagonist. There should be more of a ripple effect.
This is my problem with Time Travel stories...the science doesn't quite gell. Timeless' writers are doing a better job of it than Frequency.
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Date: 2016-10-21 10:42 pm (UTC)Re: AtS, I get the impression, based on how often he brought Minear around in the future, that Whedon ended up forming a closer working relationship with Minear than Greenwalt on Angel, and I suspect that some of that happened around s2-3 of AtS.
I think you're right. From what I remember of some of the back-stage dynamics. Like any working environment, not everyone got along. And the cast stated on more than one occasion, it felt like high school. Not surprising, the actors were in their early 20s, Gellar was 18, and Whedon was just on the cusp of 30. He was 28 when he started Buffy. (I know because he's around the same age as me.)
One of my online friend's (Dochawk) best friend happened to be either an assistant or intern under Greenwalt and worked on the series. We had this lengthy discussion about ATS and the backstage upheavals over lunch once in NYC. Apparently, Greenwalt and CC were making the network crazy in S3 -- and Whedon got drug into mediate and fix things. They were costing the network money due to delays -- CC would be late to shoots, and Greenwalt apparently catered to her demands. Keep in mind that delays cost the network and stupid lots of money (and by lots I mean thousands of dollars). Because you have to pay the union grips and crew who are standing around waiting on you, not to mention guest stars, extras, etc - and often overtime. And these guys hourly rates are about $250 an hour. And from what he told me -- Greenwalt was running up production costs and the show was way over-budget. So the network drug in Whedon to fix the mess. It was Whedon's production company overseeing the show -- Mutant Enemy. I'm guessing that didn't sit well with everyone involved. (shrugs)
It's also worth keeping in mind -- that Whedon hadn't come up with the idea to put CC on Angel, Greenwalt pitched it -- partly because Greenwalt had a crush on the actress. Whedon agreed, partly because it solved a problem -- CC didn't get along with anyone but David Boreanaz on Buffy. Gellar apparently despised her. So pushing her over to ATS worked beautifully. I think Whedon was ambivalent regarding CC. This was for the most part CC's first acting job. She'd been a Laker's cheerleader previously. Gellar at the age of 18 - was a television veteran who'd done Soaps -- and Soaps are hard work -- you get your lines an hour or two before you have to air. Little to no rehearsal time. And one or two takes. They move fast. And the fans are nasty. She had no patience for CC who missed her marks, missed lines, and was often late. Gellar always knew her lines. And, Gellar had been up for the role of Cordelia, lost to CC, and for a while didn't know if she got Buffy -- they kept her in suspense.
Nor was Whedon ever a huge Cordelia fan. He does not praise the character in interviews. She represented the mean girls that bullied him in school.
Add to all this...the fact Whedon is more of a Character arc type of guy, and Greenwalt is more plot driven. Minear is more like Whedon -- character driven.
So, yeah, I think you are right.
I might just be projecting because *I* like Minear's writing and Angel/Darla more than Greenwalt's writing and Angel/Cordelia.
So did I. A/C did nothing for me. Never quite could figure out why. Lack of chemistry? They felt like buds or brother/sister. Their romance never quite gelled for me, and often felt forced.
Darla/Angel worked. They had so much screen chemistry. Partly it's the friction and the history. Plus there's more you can do there -- like Angel/Spike, more territory to cover from a writing perspective.
And I have to admit, I also like Minear's writing, it's often very dark, but that doesn't tend to bother me all that much. He's very character centric -- the characters drive the plot instead of the other way around. And unlike Whedon or Greenwalt, he seems to understand and be interested in the idea of "redemption". I've liked most episodes written by Minear regardless of the series. Greenwalt's writing doesn't tend work for me as well.
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Date: 2016-10-22 01:52 am (UTC)The one Greenwalt episode of AtS I really love is "Sleep Tight," which I think benefits by playing to his strengths. It is dark, fast-paced, and plot driven, with a lot of moving pieces (different players). The character set-up and fallout -- why Wesley makes the choice he does, how Angel and the other deal afterwards -- are largely dealt with in previous or later episodes, but this is a wild ride and a big series of huge character turns and reveals. It's really powerful. Most of his other episodes leave me kind of cold and state their themes too obviously, though some I like better than others. Probably "Dead End," the last episode with Lindsey in season two, is the one I like the next most, but I don't love it (I find Angel/Lindsey interesting, but the buddy cop element is a little too well-worn for me in that episode...). IMO, the best scene in any of Greenwalt's AtS episodes is actually the big Angel/Darla scene in the convent in the otherwise (IMO) fairly unremarkable "Dear Boy"...and that scene was, as it turns out, written by Marti Noxon on a flight. There are a few Minear episodes I like less than others, but mostly I think he was responsible for most of the best episodes of AtS s1-3.
The backstage drama that you describe makes sense. The main version of events I've seen described is the one where Whedon basically "fired CC for getting pregnant" in season four, which includes the presumption of a bit of vindictiveness on Whedon's part. I imagine there's some truth to that, which is troubling. But even from watching the show, it does seem as if there were problems of sorts with CC already in season three as an actress. IMO, s3 and s4 both suffer badly from the limitations of CC's range, though with s4 it does seem partly that CC possibly was sufficiently pissed at being given the villain role that she stopped bothering to try. I do think CC is fine in s1-2 of AtS mostly. Some of this may simply be that she and DB didn't have the right kind of chemistry as romantic leads, and it would be very possible to work around that by simply walking away from the romance story, which to some extent was the plan with the evil Cordy material. Not that I universally believe any account of backstage troubles, but CC being difficult (and on some level being protected by Greenwalt) does somewhat make sense. And of course, while Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker and J. August Richards have worked with Whedon since, CC hasn't, which does tend to suggest a different kind of relationship even among AtS performers.
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Date: 2016-10-22 02:59 am (UTC)I don't buy that story. Mainly because the information I got from my inside source included spoilers of what was going to happen before the episodes aired. He spoiled me for about 90% of S4 Angel and S5 Buffy. I had this conversation with him around the fall of 2002.
According to my inside source, who I talked to face to face and not merely on fanboards, CC was actually going to be fired long before that. They'd decided to let her out of her contract at the end of S3. The network made the decision actually, not Whedon. They fired Greenwalt first -- but gave him an out -- another series. Keep in mind these people have contracts, and you have to be careful how you get rid of them. So Greenwalt was persuaded to leave. Once he left, CC had no protection. Whedon was told to write her out.
This was actually verified on the sly by Tim Minear in more than one interview -- where he stated that Whedon had written a great arc where Cordy would be the Big Bad in S4 and die, possibly killed by Angel or Connor. She was being written out. That was definite. CC didn't get pregnant and reveal her pregnancy until around late summer or part-way through filming. Long after they wrote the story arc.
Whedon intended for her to be the Big Bad and to die. He was writing her out. Minear verifies it -- when he stated that she was supposed to be the Big Bad and to die at the end of the season, but she got pregnant, and it just didn't work, so they had to rewrite it. But they'd have fired her even if she wasn't pregnant. Ironically, I think the pregnancy saved the character -- and ensured a return to the show a year later, in You're Welcome. (Which was an okay episode, but didn't completely work.)
This, by the way, happens a lot on television serials. People pull divas or they get into fights with the writers or numerous things. The writers kill them off. (See NYPD Blue, Grey's Anatomy, MASH, and various others.) It's like any organization or workplace with people. You don't get along with everyone. I'm sure CC is a lovely person. But tv is hard. Have you ever watched the dailies? Painful. You couldn't pay me enough to do that for a living. And the Entertainment World is nasty -- lots of misogynistic bullies. I know a lot of professional actors.
Some of the issues...cited, were that CC cut her hair without telling them she was going to do it. (Caused continuity issues with the filming, and they had to refilm whole scenes as a result.)
And yeah, she was a bit limited. For the most part, CC played herself. I think, Whedon was largely ambivalent towards her. And she probably would have stayed on Angel if Whedon hadn't been pressured by the network to let her go. Same thing happened with Anya in S7, the network was being nasty to Emma Caulfield, so she asked Whedon to just kill her off . This is when they thought they'd have a spin-off or continue, before Gellar quit and the network decided S7 would be the last year.
People forget that the network and studio do have a major influence. Whedon was left alone most of the time, but the WB was far more involved with Angel and Buffy, than UPN was with Buffy. UPN let them do whatever they wanted -- you can sort of tell by what the writers did in S6. WB was more hands on. And every year threatened to cancel them -- Angel and Buffy were constantly under threat of cancellation. So, to keep the show going, he had to make concessions. For example? He wanted to keep it hidden that Spike was coming to Angel. He didn't want anyone to know, it was supposed to be a secret. But the WB insisted that it be promoted and advertised. They'd paid a lot for Marsters to be on Angel and wanted their money's worth.
I'm not sure the fandom quite understands all of this. Unless you've worked in the biz, or know a lot of people who have, it's not really common knowledge. I find what people do for a living fascinating -- which is why I know so much about it. The back stage drama and process of putting on a tv show...is fascinating to me.
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Date: 2016-10-22 03:48 am (UTC)My understanding with MASH is that McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rodgers had expected that the show would be more of an ensemble, and that they would effectively be leads -- but that the show was clearly developing into an Alan Alda star vehicle, and that they asked to be written out for that reason. I'm not sure how much actual animosity there was. I think Larry Linville and Gary Burghoff left later on more because the show took its toll from going on for a long time, rather than specific dissatisfaction with their role in the show. (I've watched and really like MASH, though I don't know all the behind-the-scenes stuff.)
Yeah, I think Marsters really has built up a narrative about what Spike was that is less painful for him than really living inside the character for those performances, some of which he may have blocked out. It's very interesting that actors don't fully remember everything they did.... It is such a weird thing, the difference between the fan and the artist.
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Date: 2016-10-22 01:15 pm (UTC)It's very interesting that actors don't fully remember everything they did.... It is such a weird thing, the difference between the fan and the artist.
I thought so as well. But it also makes a lot of sense. And it depends a lot on the medium. Theater actors do remember what they did for the most part, but theater is different than tv and film -- in theater the actor is in control. They get to interpret the role, the words, and how to play it with little interference and no editing from the writer or director. In film, the director controls everything, and they get to interpret it with little interference from writer or actor. In film -- the actor is the director's puppet -- a tool he uses to tell his story. And if the actor doesn't comply, he may replace him.
In television, the show-runner/writer controls everything, and they interpret it with little interference from the actor or the director -- unless the actor is an executive producer and has a bit of power, which is rare. In TV - the actor is the writer's tool or puppet.
Another difference is the sheer volume of scripts. In theater, you have one script, you have weeks, maybe months to get down the lines. When actors are doing television, they get on average about twenty scripts to memorize a year. Often the scripts are being revised while they are memorizing or rewritten. They may film a scene one day, and get a brand new script for it the next. For prime time or night time television, they get the script about 24 hours before they have to film it. The scripts are more than 100 pages long, not all of it will make to the screen, much of it will be rewritten before it airs. Also, scenes are often filmed out of order. And the actor isn't always told the order. The actor also doesn't know what the writers are going to do to the character or their character's motivations or arc until he or she gets the script. And if it's a serial, their character could change on a dime. Add to that -- the actor will be told to do things that he/she didn't sign on for and would not have agreed to, if they'd known about it. In TV, unless you put a clause in your contract that you won't do this -- you do it because if you don't do it, you are in breach of contract. And you may not know about it until an hour or two before you are told to do it. (Gellar has a no-nudity clause in her contract, that's why you never saw Buffy naked.) Imagine not being a singer or dancer, you can't hold a tune, have no rythm. and being handed a script to do a musical? That's what happened to Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy. (David Boreanze and CC came to Whedon after that and informed him that if he attempted to do a musical episode on Angel, they'd quit.)
Also on TV, there's no character bible, no direction on motivation, you don't have the whole story in front of you. The writer's are often writing it as it goes. And most are intutitive writers...and grab what the actors show them. Marsters said he had to make his own motivation for staying in Sunnydale, it wasn't clarified in the script or told to him.
So one day he tells Whedon, I've decided Spike is hanging around Sunnydale because he's in love with Buffy and can't shake her. That's why he hasn't killed her and sticks around and occasionally helps out. Whedon's response is "whoa, why didn't I see that? That's brilliant, let's go with that!"
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Date: 2016-10-22 03:11 am (UTC)Marsters take on the character he played always amused me. Because I don't think he was aware of what he was doing on screen half the time. Also, I think he probably forgot most of the stuff he did. Actors tend to. I read recently an interview with Anthony Hopkins regarding Westworld, where he indicated that he forgot everything he filmed. He has an automatic delete button. After he films it, he forgets all of it. So when he watched it, it was like watching something new. (By the way, Westworld is rather good, I think you'd like it. Or at least the first two episodes are.) Hugh Laurie admitted the same thing about House.
As has Marsters...in Q&A's, when people ask him questions about stuff he's done, and he can't remember it, while they do.
So, he's not reliable on the character at all. He basically interpreted the words as he got them and played the character in the moment. Then let it go. Also, I think he put so much of himself into the character, because he's a method actor, that remembering any of it -- is insanely painful. Filming S6 almost gave the actor a nervous breakdown. You can sort of see it happening in the later episodes...where the performances become rawer and rawer...I find his performances in S6 to be painful to watch at times, because it's so raw and so real. As a result of that, he's pulled way back, and no longer exposes himself in quite that way in his roles. I noticed this when I tried to watch him in other things. It's weird, he's not been very good in anything else.