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Joss Whedon Is Creating a Sci-Fi Drama For Fox

Posted by chrisd on from the this-man-can-do-no-wrong dept.

grafikhugh writes "An article on Yahoo! News states that Joss Whedon, the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel", is close to closing a deal with Fox. He will create thirteen episodes of a "Anti-Trek" Sci-Fi Drama to be a big player in Fox's fall 2002 line up. Its seems Whedon wants to avoid aliens as the big bad, and concentrate on making "scary-ass" humans Living in a "Dark Place"." It's also worth noting the IMDB entries for a possible buffy spin-off Ripper and an animated Buffy.

2 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. The Anti-Cliche Man by fm6 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    In a way, this development was sort of inevitable. There's a big market for SF on TV. But the genre's in a real rut. Most shows are invented by some semi-literate hack with one Big Idea that runs dry after a few episodes. On the rare instances where somebody has done something really creative and interesting, the project is soon taken over by media suits who judge story quality by the number of explosions, shootouts, and chase scenes.

    Joss Whedon is the antithesis of all this. Not that he's any great literary genius. He just makes up ordinary, low-brow stories. But he hates hackwork, and he hates repeating himself. Most of all, he hates cliches.

    You can see this in his biggest success, Buffy. The premise makes no sense at all, except as a kind of anti-cliche. It takes the biggest horror cliche of all, the helpless, clueless, personality-deficient teenage bimbo, and turns it on its head. Critics love to talk about how Buffy keeps "raising the bar", with ever stranger and more suprising stories and chracters. But really all that's happening is Whedon telling his writers, over and over, "No, we did that already."

    So is good news, not just for TV SF, but for the whole genre. As bad as the idea-deficient Hollywood SF writers are, they're easier to take than all those bloated-epic writers who think that a clever idea is all you need. Somebody needs to teach all these people the basics of good storytelling, and Whedon is just the person to do it.

  2. Re:Buffy and Angel? by amnesty · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You know, I would have agreed with you maybe a year ago. Who would want to watch a show called Buffy: The Vampire Slayer anyway??

    But then one of my friends started raving about how good this series is, and he's the kind of guy who doesn't watch a show just for the good looking women.

    Slowly he managed to convince me to watch the show. While season 1 was pretty bad and gave the necessary backstory, season 2 and 3 gave me some of the best hours of TV I've watched.

    Angel is one of the best villians I have ever seen in my life. Sure, Darth Vader killed a lot of people and Kevin Spacey in Se7en made you want to throw up, but Angel was cruel, vicious and stabbed you in the heart with every mean word he said. The buildup of Angel as a good guy beforehand is what creates the intense emotional weight of Angel as a bad guy.

    Meanwhile Xander, Willow, Oz, and all the regulars have such a great ensemble together. Joss Whedon gives them some great, witty dialogue and you find these people would be people that you'd actually want to be friends with.

    This is a show that never sells out for an easy plot. When the show has twists, turns and surprises, it earns it. Even in all the silliness of the episode Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered, where Amy's love spell screws up and makes all the girls go after Xander, this act has repercussions. Willow is upset afterwards for how she was forced to act with Xander, for example.

    Hush, an episode where the characters can't speak, nominated for an Emmy.

    The Body, an episode where Buffy's mother dies, and the BEST episode ever for portrayal of a death. Many long cuts, slow scenes, very realistic, and no music through the entire show.

    Recently, the Buffy Musical was a great achievement, even UPN allowed the show to run 9 minutes longer than the usual 44 minutes for an episode.

    The show sounds really cheesy, the ideas really campy, but it never takes itself too seriously and makes fun of itself a lot. Throws in some excellently written emotional plotlines and earns the audiences' feelings. Even actors who want to get on the show usually have to convince their Agents. "You want to be on Buffy the WHAT??"

    And the spin-off is quality. Angel can be described as the best stuff on TV you're not watching.

    If you're not convinced, check out Buffy creator/writer/producer/director/superhero Joss Whedon's interview on The Onion and you can see how intense and visonary this guy is.