Joss Whedon Interview

Stephanie: What are your favorite "Angel" and "Buffy" episodes?
Joss: Favorite episodes. "Buffy": Hush was so exciting to make and just felt really cool when we finished it. It felt like we'd done something new and that was a nice experience. Ultimately, Innocence, the episode where Angel goes bad, is my favorite. That was the moment when everybody working on the show realized we had done something that was emotionally true and really different, and taken the show to a whole new level, so I would say Innocence probably comes in first. "Angel": so far the episodes that are about to air. I'm not sure when these answers will come out, but the episodes that follow, 17, 18 and 19 of this first season, get into some very interesting and creepy personal stuff with our characters and the people around them, and they made me more excited about the show than I've been yet. Apart from that, I'd say the "Buffy" crossover I Will Remember You. 'Cause it kinda broke my heart.

Susan: Why is Angel shown in the daylight so often now that he has his own show? The "indirect light is okay" excuse seems pretty lame given that no vamps in Sunnydale ever seem to appear in the daylight. Angel should clearly have fried in every episode to date.
Joss: Angel being shown in daylight now that he has his own show is just a problem we're having every week. The second episode of the show was color timed incorrectly, so what was supposed to be the dim blue of fading night became the bright orange of early morning. People just get sloppy every now and then when you're working on a show every day. Every now and then they'll send us dailies where it looks like a big shaft of sunlight is hitting Angel and we try to cut around it, and we're trying basically to do better, but yes, every now and then we look at the show and go, 'Was he a vampire at some point?' You know, I've got two shows to run here, I'm very busy and have a lot to do and I don't appreciate you guys attacking me like this… (breaks down and weeps.)

Lisa: You're stranded on a desert island. Which two "BTVS" and "Angel" characters would you want with you and why?
Joss: Stranded on a desert island with two characters. Do I get two from each show? Okay, well with "Buffy," I'd want Buffy, 'cause she could probably kill my supper and build a hut. And Willow, 'cause she's wicked smart and could figure out how to get us rescued while I sat under a lazy palm with a drink made out of a coconut. If it was "Angel," I would probably want Angel for the same reasons as Buffy, and Cordelia 'cause you know, who knows when we're gonna be rescued?

Amy: Why does Angel always get out of breath when he's "suffering," but it's repeatedly said on the shows that vampires don't breathe?
Joss: What Angel said was that Xander had to give Buffy CPR, because, as he put it, "I have no breath." That meant that he had no life to breathe in to Buffy, it didn't mean that he couldn't get winded. He meant that what comes out of him does not make the trees grow. Angel has a line about "vampires appearing in photographs" -- why do they appear in photographs and not in mirrors, and as he puts it, "It's not physics, it's metaphysics." This is stuff built on legend and it doesn't always follow logic. Which is convenient for those of us who are too dumb to actually have any.

Jennifer: How far in advance do you come up with your plotlines on "Buffy" and "Angel"? Are they ever swayed by popular opinion (such as the massive fan base dedicated to bringing Doyle back, etc)?
Joss: Plot lines: Basically I track out the show about a year in advance, fairly specifically for the first third of it, somewhat less so for the second third, and then just the great big markers in place for the last third. That way we can adjust. If an actor seems to hit really well, we can increase their part. If they don't seem to be working, that can go away. If we have suddenly interesting ideas and changes of direction. We always have to know where we're going, but we must keep open for the things that are gonna happen. Like SETH [GREEN] dropping out in the middle of this last year, we had to scramble to make that seem integral to the show. But challenges like that are actually part of what makes the show good. Whenever we have something like that, I think we do our best work. I really like the episode when Oz left. When SARAH [MICHELLE GELLAR] suddenly got the chance to host "Saturday Night Live" and we needed to come up with an episode in a week that had no Sarah in it for four days, we came up with Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered where Xander becomes a love god. That was also one of our finest hours, I thought. So a little adversity makes it interesting, but as far as the big arcs are concerned, we have them mapped out pretty specifically. Doyle's not coming back. You heard it here, not first, but finally.