DBWI: Pop Culture WI/AHC - Buffy runs for longer

Something that came up at work today as a conversation piece - what would have happened if Joss Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer had run for more than one season?
Whedon was clearly an excellent Sci-Fi writer, but could he have handled Supernatural Horror? Could anything have come of it had Fox not canned Buffy before the first series even finished?

If you go the AHC route, extra points of you can get Buffy to run for at least four seasons to match Firefly and Dollhouse without going ASB.
 
It has a devoted fanbase, especially among women, so perhaps that will come into play. Having a big franchise with mainly female fans would have a big impact on nerd culture in the 90s and 2000s.

Now, as for how to achieve that... the one season we got was somewhat of a mixed bad overall. From some of the concepts and plots that get tossed around at conventions a lot, the latter seasons sounded far more interesting.

If it does become a long-running hit, I wonder if it impacts Firefly's casting. Could Allyson Hannigan have played a witch on Buffy AND Kaylee on Firefly?
 
Something that came up at work today as a conversation piece - what would have happened if Joss Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer had run for more than one season?



What one season? It ran for seven seasons, 145 episodes, 1996-2003.
 
What one season? It ran for seven seasons, 145 episodes, 1996-2003.

(Not in the timeline we're posting in!)

thekingsguard is right. Buffy was definitely a painful learning experience for Whedon. I think its failure was a benefit to him in a lot of ways. You don't see the random goofiness (puppet demon hunters? cannibal hyena spirits?) in his later works like Firefly and Dollhouse.

I will say that Sarah Michelle Gellar showed some promise as Cordelia. Maybe she'd have escaped the WB and Syfy ghetto if the show had lasted a year or two longer?
 
I will say that Sarah Michelle Gellar showed some promise as Cordelia. Maybe she'd have escaped the WB and Syfy ghetto if the show had lasted a year or two longer?

Possibly... I liked her, but Eliza Dushku played the lead really well. OTOH, maybe that was what doomed it - she was kind of a goth. Would've been better if the vampire slayer had been the Valley Girl type.

I have to wonder if Firefly would've been the success it was if Whedon had been focusing on Buffy. And let's face it, Firefly did kind of lead to a renaissance of sci-fi. I doubt that Terra Nova* would've been made without Firefly - and that show broke Eliza Dushku out of the ghetto. Even if it did rip off Sid Meiers' Alpha Centauri...grrrr...

OOC: ITTL, Terra Nova is a high-concept sci-fi series that aired between 2004 and 2006. It tells the story of the plight of a group of colonists on an alien world, who moved there to escape an unspecified disaster on Earth. The colonists, a UN-approved secular group, must fight against religious fundamentalist colonists known as 'The Reclaimers' and the dangerous fauna of the planet, which seems to be alive...as well as internal divisions between the colony leader, Governor Daniel Archer (Scott Bakula), an idealistic, democratic leader, and the head of security, Colonel Faith Read (Dushku), a survivalist who prioritises order and safety over all else. Basically kind of a fusion between Alpha Centauri and the short-lived British show Outcasts OTL
 
Possibly... I liked her, but Eliza Dushku played the lead really well. OTOH, maybe that was what doomed it - she was kind of a goth. Would've been better if the vampire slayer had been the Valley Girl type.

This was part of the problem with the Buffy TV show. The Buffy character, and I think the actress as wll, were too far removed from the movie Buffy. I do think Sarah Michelle Geller was the better choice for Buffy.

Almost OT here, but Kristy Swanson hashad a good run playing a middle-aged housewife turned vampire hunter in the Hunters, Inc. show.
 
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