Monday, October 1, 2001
Buffy back to life
A new season and network await TV's vampire slayer
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON -- Calgary Sun
SPOILER ALERT! Read no further if you don't want to know anything about the new season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Still there?
Buffy comes back from the dead.
Ok, so maybe it wasn't that big of a spoiler.
"It is called Buffy The Vampire Slayer," producer Marti Noxon notes dryly from the show's Los Angeles production offices.
As fans know, the blond bombshell (Sarah Michelle Gellar) who battles demons and bloodsuckers in her spare time, died at the end of last season while saving her sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) -- and, oh yeah, all of existence -- from an evil god named Glory. (Really, it's no more ridiculous than The Practice.)
Tonight's sixth-season opener -- which debuts on UPN tonight at 6 p.m. -- finds Buffy still six feet under.
By the end of the episode, she's alive -- if not quite herself. "I think our fans will be happy with it," says Noxon, who wrote the episode. "From our end, we just want to earn it. We didn't want to bring her back and brush it off. There will be serious repercussions from it.
"It'll be believable -- you know, despite the metaphysical impossibility of it."
Buffy's other big change -- beyond the whole return from the dead thingee -- is the series' move in the U.S. from The WB network to rival UPN, which is doling out an eye-popping fee of $2M per episode for the show.
The change worried fans, since UPN, home of Star Trek and The WWF, has a predominantly male audience. Would Buffy be butched up to fit in?
"Basically, it's exactly the same. And the network has been very supportive. They obviously believed in the show, and they have pledged not to fix something that isn't broken."
In fact, Noxon says Buffy isn't the only one feeling re-energized these days. "We all feel revitalized."
The network switch does, though, mean that the off-again, on-again romance between Buffy and brooding vampire do-gooder Angel -- who has his own show on The WB -- is definitely off.
"I still get three to four letters a week, asking for Angel and Buffy to get back together. I had one fan burn their poster of Angel and Buffy and send me the ashes," Noxon says. "They're in a whole hooting bucket of denial. I tell them, they're not even on the same channel anymore; they must move on.
"Look at Spike. He's a nice vampire and he's even on the same network."
If that's a hint there's romance in the cards for Buffy and Spike (James Marsters), the acid-tongued vampire who has long nursed a crush on the slayer, Noxon says the two's love-hate rapport isn't changing soon. "There will still be that tension, with Spike mooning over her."
There's also plenty of time to get together -- both Gellar and Marsters are committed to the show for the duration of the show's contract with UPN, which runs through the end of next season. "We're all pretty happy here."
Despite that, the series does lose one of its original cast members this year. Anthony Stewart Head, who plays Buffy's mentor Giles, is headed home to London to be closer to his family, and to star in a proposed Giles spinoff, Watcher, for the BBC.
Of course none of this will surprise anyone who frequents spoiler-heavy Web sites, like Ain't It Cool News, which post Buffy plotlines months before the episodes air.
"Yeah, it bothers me. We all work so hard to surprise the audience and keep it a fresh experience. It's like people ruining a movie for you, but on a much grander scale.
"They've been better lately, but they have a leak and we've been trying to find it, but we haven't been able to."
Could that be the basis of a new reality-TV series. "Yeah," Noxon laughs, "the hunt for the Buffy mole."
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