PollyPrissyPants

On the eve after the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast reunion at the Paley Festival in LA (which I would’ve sold my firstborn to attend, by the by) I thought I’d wax a bit philosophical on the joy that is the Joss-verse and share my excitement about some Jossian creations coming down the pipe. Also, marvel at my ability to turn Joss into any number of verbs, nouns and adjectives.

So as many of you know, I am probably what would be referred to as a “Whedon-ite”…aka a big goddamn fan. Ain’t I just! I’ve seen every episode of each of his shows numerous times, I own all the DVDs, I had websites devoted to characters, I wrote fan-fiction, I made fan art, I attended a convention, went to preview screenings, read spoilers or avoided them like the plague, had posters around my dorm room, stayed up late chatting with other fans on boards around the ‘net, bought actions figures, books and related CDs…basically lived, breathed and slept each Joss creation. I learned HTML, Photoshop, CSS and other super useful skills because of my love of these shows…and my intro to the whole social networking and online communities happened because I needed to share my obsession with “others like me”.

I discovered the power of the Jossverse one night in high school while flipping channels. There was nothing on and I passed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and decided to stop to watch since I’d read some good reviews…it happened to be the Season 2 premiere episode, “When She Was Bad”. I was a fan of Anthony Stewart Head (Giles) so I was happy when I liked the show right off the bat…but I was doing homework and only half paying attention…until this exchange:

Willow: That’s what it was! I mean, why else would she be acting like such a b-i-t-c-h?
Giles: Willow, I think we’re all a little too old to be spelling things out.
Xander: A bitca?

Not the funniest line I’ve ever heard but I thought it was genius..the cast was awesome and their delivery was dead on. I put down my homework and didn’t miss an episode for the rest of its run (with the help of my VCR). I don’t know what in particular resonated with me the most but I think it was the fact that they were written in a way that gave the audience credit for their intelligence. It was smart, fast, full of pop culture references and super compelling. It trusted that you “got it” and had no pretenses of being anything other then exactly what Joss wanted it to be. He respected his audience but rarely pandered to it and never let them/us get comfortable. Which was slightly unfortunate since it meant you got emotionally invested in each character and then he’d kill them! Or he would throw a main character in the credits for the first time and kill them off before the episode ended. He was never afraid to “go there” which meant the show was consistently awesome. Sure each episode wasn’t perfect…but even the less than stellar episodes (“Beer Bad” anyone?) and even seasonal arcs were still better than anything else I’ve seen on TV (past and present).

So it was perhaps not at all surprising that when he created other shows, I watched them with rapt attention. Again, the characters were flawlessly written…always witty, always drawing you in…be it Firefly or Angel. Buffy coming to an end was sad but it was time – the last season was not its strongest but was still very well written and was a fitting send off for a fabulous show. The ends of both Angel and Firefly were far more devastating because they were canceled in their prime…which I suppose is better than letting them linger past their peak. Angel had more time to plan for the end and was able to come up with a kick-ass last episode, frankly, but that show still had seasons left of story-telling to do. Firefly…well…it got canceled half-way through its first season. One of the biggest network crimes EVER. No chance to wrap anything up…but that shouldn’t have really come as a surprise to anyone involved with the show as they never really gave it a chance…constantly pre-empting it, moving the day and time, and intentionally playing episodes out of order. Fox…your reckoning will come…you have slightly redeemed yourself with Family Guy and House…but you still have a long way to go. Yes, I do realize that Firefly led to a feature film, Serenity (which is amazing), but there is so much of that world that should be explored. There is still hope but I’m not holding my breath! Damn you, Fox!

So imagine my excitement when I saw that Joss is coming back to TV with a new show, starring Elisha Dushku (who played Faith on BtVS and Angel). It’s called Dollhouse and is going into production in April! You just know with Joss’ history that some alumni from his other shows will turn up…so excited!

But even MORE exciting is the news that Joss (and his brothers) spent the Writer’s Strike coming up with a musical exclusively for the web. It’s called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and stars Neil Patrick Harris AND Nathan Fillion!

*Photo courtesy of PopSugar

Joss says that it’ll consist of 3 episodes – each about 10 minutes – and will deal with a low-rent super-villain (NPH), the hero (NF…natch) who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to. I don’t think I can possibly be more excited. Shooting wrapped on it minutes before the reunion last night so here’s hoping it’ll premiere online soon!

So yeah – to conclude. I worship at the altar of Joss.

That is all.