Today's writing discoveries

[oakenguy]

1) The thing about writing a Buffy script that's an Amelie homage, strangely enough, is that it's easier than writing a 'normal' Buffy script. Which is still more difficult than a root canal...but easier than having a root canal while on fire, which is what trying to write my "Xander gets possessed" script felt like. Argh.

2) Reading scripts from the second season make me *really* realize just how different the show's gotten.

Comments

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

When you say "different," is there a qualifier there? Better, worse, older?

Re:

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Gah. Long over-analysis deleted after an hour spent writing it. (Silly Jason, asking a Virgo a question like this.)

Basically, in the first few seasons you had the school, which meant you had an obvious place for Our Heroes to all be and encounter something. You had very little convoluted backstory, so new viewers could hit the ground running and Our Heroes weren't spending large portions of each episode dealing with repercussions of events from previous weeks.

The past couple of seasons, you instead have, as the head writer put it, "'Party of Five' with monsters". The primary dangers are internal and based on the ever-more-convoluted relationships that've built up over the last seven years. That whole Good vs. Evil thing? Gone. I'm trying to think of a major villain in the past two seasons who couldn't have been straightened out by either a good therapist or medication, and the only thing I'm coming up with is the phallus-head fast food worker.

Phrased that way, I bet you can guess which is easier to write a spec script for. :) It's not a matter of better or worse (I have a definite opinion on which I *like* better, but that's another rant), it's that Buffy started out horror/comedy, which is difficult to write, and has become soap/action/comedy/horror.