Le staff et la saison 6

Opinion de Joss assez détaillée sur la saison (merci à Enisy ) :

Citation :

What do you have to say to the people who complain about the final seasons of Buffy, who don’t get Season 6?

"Sorry. We do the best we can. We do what we think is right. Sometimes we sway too far one way, sometimes too far another. Season 6 was incredibly dark and that happens. I know that people said that Sarah complained; there were times where she said, 'I feel lost.' That's what we were going for, and eventually we realized that we had taken Buffy away from people, and they're not going to accept it. There were some members of the audience who had trouble with it and that I understand and that I respect, but that's where I thought the story had to go. When I started to feel it, I brought her back. The funny thing was that Sarah asked to talk to Marti [Noxon] and had a conversation with her at the end of the season and said, 'Now I feel like we're starting to miss the point, we're starting to miss the idea of the strong girl going to the dark side of what power is.' I was astonished because I had the exact same conversation with her the day before."

"I love Season 6. It's really important. But it was a very stark thing to do. It wasn’t just putting Buffy in a very bad, abusive, weird relationship, it was some sort of an end to magic. For me because childhood is so rich with metaphor, a lot of it had to do with leaving that behind. Instead of a bigger than life villain, we had the nerd troika. Instead of drinking blood and doing spells as sexual metaphor, we had sex. Things became very literal and they lost some of their loveliness. I still think that a lot of the best episodes we ever did were in Season 6. I don’t agree with the detractors, but I understand it. And I respect it. Everybody has their opinions. There are people out there who love it very much. But as I’ve learned from my latest arc on the X-Men, you can’t please everybody all the time."

"I would love to give you a more in-depth coherent explanation of my view of the soul, and if I had one I would. The soul and my concept of it are as ephemeral as anybody’s, and possibly more so. And in terms of the show, it is something that exists to meet the needs of convenience; the truth is sometimes you can trap it in a jar; the truth is sometimes someone without one seems more interesting than someone with one. I don't think Clem has a soul, but he’s certainly a sweet guy. Spike was definitely kind of a soulful character before he had a soul, but we made it clear that there was a level on which he could not operate. Although Spike could feel love, it was the possessive and selfish kind of love that most people feel. The concept of real altruism didn't exist for him. And although he did love Buffy and was moved by her emotionally, ultimately his desire to possess her led him to try and rape her because he couldn’t make the connection -- the difference between their dominance games and actual rape.
With a soul comes a more adult understanding. That is again, a little vague, but... can I say that I believe in the soul? I don’t know that I can. It’s a beautiful concept, as is resurrection and a lot of other things we have on the show that I’m not really sure I can explain and I certainly don’t believe in. It does fall prey to convenience, but at the same time it has consistently marked the real difference between somebody with a complex moral structure and someone who may be affable and even likable, but ultimately eats kittens."

There's been a lot of talk regarding exactly when this relationship/rape between Spike and Buffy was created?

"It was not at the very beginning, but it was certainly not added at the last minute. It became apparent that it was the logical extension of that unhealthy relationship, and that when they were investigating those boundaries and sort of pushing at them and role-playing with them that eventually they would begin to blur and something really ugly would happen. A lot of that season was also about power and abusive power, and misunderstanding of power and also about male power. The fact is what we wanted to show was the impotence of rape and the impotence of guys like Warren who are firing guns at people and relate them together. What started out as very light hearted or romantic or sexy on one side and funny on the other, we really wanted to get to the dark and some people were like, 'Okay, that's enough of the dark', but it was just sort of the natural flow of the season that that should happen and it should happen in the same episode where Warren kills somebody."

"Cool!" says Buffy creator Joss Whedon, speaking to TV Guide as he eyes the program of 63 lectures for the first time. Zeroing in on the session linking Buffy's last season to the W.B. Yeats poem "The Second Coming," he says, "I'm psyched because [last] season is the bastard child that everyone's mean to. We had a purpose. And for people to take it seriously and not just to say, 'That season was depressing and the villains were nerds,' makes me feel good."
"This is not a fan convention," says Claire Thomson, one of the conference organizers, who had expected to receive about 10 papers from graduate students in the United Kingdom but got more than 100 proposals from as far away as Australia. "People take it incredibly seriously."
Considering another lecture that Whedon fixates on, we believe her. Titled "The Spike/Buffy Relationship: Law, Morals, Rape and S&M; or You Always Hurt the One You Love," the session promises legal, social and feminist interpretations of Buffy and Spike's infamous Season 6 bathroom scene. "I wish I could be there hearing the live debate," says Whedon. With his Buffy, Angel and Firefly shooting schedule, he'll have to borrow someone's notes.

"Well, last season was very much about Buffy doubting herself and the concept of power, sort of hating herself and fantasizing about relinquishing power and getting into a really unhealthy relationship because of that."

In retrospect, looking back at Season 6, it tonally existed for a reason – that's where the character was at...

"That's why that tonal shift. It wasn't like UPN said, 'Make it different,' or we had a feeling that UPN wanted to do things differently. That was where we went in our heads for Season 6. The funny thing is, I came out of Season 5 and I said to the writers, 'You know what...' -- I looked at the season as a whole, and I would do this every year -- 'here's what I loved, I'm really proud, we did great work. Here's what we could do better on. Here's what we need more of.' One of the things was, 'I feel like we need to be funnier.' And then I came up with Season 6. But it was true. I was like, 'You know, Season 5, we got very much into this one space. And there was a feeling – I like that anarchic feel we had in the earlier seasons, of bouncing back and forth between comedy and tragedy. Let's try and get back to that.' That was why we had the nerds. But at the same time, bringing somebody back from the dead is not something you do lightly. I had done it before, so I knew. I'm not talking about Buffy, I'm talking about Ripley."
It seemed like the shifting in Season 6 was to extremes...
"You know, it was very extreme. We really went to a dark, dark place. We got sort of... people talk about the creative meltdown. I've said this before, that I think when people look at the seventh season, as a story, they'll understand season six better. I also understand that it got too depressing for too long, but I don't think all of my instincts are perfect. In fact, the interesting thing was that Sarah took Marti Noxon aside and said, 'You know what? I feel depressed. I feel like I want Buffy back. I feel like we've run on this path, and I feel like it's time to sort of reclaim her.' I had the exact same conversation with Marti on the same day. So she had her conversation with Sarah and came back to me, 'You're not going to believe this.' That was always the way it was."

"Well, the problem was Season 6 took us to a dark place, and that dark place we lost Buffy – and I think that's why people didn't respond to it, because they always had Buffy to lean on. No matter how sad she got, she was still Buffy. In 6 she was really questioning her very identity. People didn't want that. That upset them. It was like they didn't have their anchor. So it didn't matter if you have something tight or interesting or thematic or funny -- they wanted that anchor back. I get that."

"Thought I was out, but.... had one more thing to add. I killed Tara. Some of you may have been hurt by that. It very unlikely it was more painful to you than it was to me. I couldn't even discuss it in story meetings without getting upset, physically. Which is why I knew it was the right thing to do. Because stories, as I have so often said, are not about what we WANT. And I knew some people would be angry with me for destroying the only gay couple on the show, but the idea that I COULDN'T kill Tara because she was gay is as offensive to me as the idea that I DID kill her because she was gay. Willow's story was not about being gay. It was about weakness, addiction, loss... the way life hits you in the gut right when you think you're back on your feet. The course of true love never did run smooth, not on my show. (only Dennis Franz has suffered more than my characters.) I love Amber and she knows it. Eventually, this story will end for all of them. Hers ended sooner.
Or did it......?
Yeah, it did."

"A lot of people were confused at the end when Spike wanted his fish order changed. SOLE, people. Jeez. We HAVE a vampire with a SOUL, you think we're doing that again?"

"For me, [Tabula Rasa was] a hugely proud achievement, simply because it came right after the exhausting musical, was gut funny, and quite moving, and proved that the episodes we really care about every season number twenty-two and not one less."

"How will we bring her back? With great difficulty, of course. And pain and confusion. Will it be cheezy? I don't think so. (I've loved some of the theories here on how it might be done.) The fact is, we've had most of next season planned before we ever shot this ep. Same writers you know, same actors you love, same crappy little warehouse we've been shooting in for five years... Different network. But we've never been controlled by the network -- WB was great about that, UPN has already shown they will be too. The only difference is that Marti will share exec prod credit with me, and it's about time she did. I'm in charge.
Okay, that's a lie. The STORY is in charge, the story that keeps on speaking to me, that says there is much more to tell about all these characters. An ensemble this brilliant could easily carry the show even without the Slayer -- but the fact is, even though she reached some beauty closure, Buffy's story isn't over. When it is, I'll know. And we'll stop. Til then, have faith. (not faith the character -- she's making movies and stuff.)"

"The songs [in 'Once More, With Feeling'] will rhyme like actual songs. I wouldn't call the show sondheim influnenced stylistically so much as thematically. I'm trying to walk the line between pop and classic showtunes - i.e. contemporary music with lyrics that move the narrative instead of just repeating. RENT, Aimee Mann, Elvis Costello -- but again, the sound will be different from any of those cuz I have NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. I just hope Chris Beck (And Jesse Tobias of Splendid, who I'm hoping will help produce it) can make it all sound coherent, not just a hodgepodge. There will be much comedy and many heartfelt ballads, if it comes together AT ALL it'll have some classic moments. That much I can promise."

"The nerd troika. It's SO PATHETIC how much the writing staff IS those guys, and I do include me. We're constantly having nerdtriv arguments and realizing they must go in scripts."

"Buffy was the centered person who had herself to rely on, and she lost that. Coming back from the dead will do that to you."

"I knew we weren't finishing, I knew I was gonna bring her back, and Season 6 is clearly about 'But I was done! Why am I back?' and dealing with the pain of 'I had closure, but life continues'."

"It was a naughty year for us, and that was deliberate also, partially because, yes, they're getting older, partially because her relationship with Angel was All About Romance, and her relationship with Spike was Not. And there are two very different, passionate, intense kind of relationships that we had done the one, and wanted to do the other. And as you get older, you can get into relationships that are truly unhealthy. But at the same time, there's also the fact that we had played metaphor for five years, and ... eventually, you sort of have to leave the prettier cards on the table a little bit. Even though we still played metaphor, it was like, when Buffy and Spike first had sex, my first comment was 'Au revoir, Monsieur Metaphor!', it was *so* graphic -- but at the same time, they were *in* a metaphor, they were in a falling down house, which was very very clearly what was happening in her life then, she was losing herself. So, on the one hand, and the same thing with Willow and Tara, when we started, it was a metaphor -- spells, magic -- and then we wanted to come out and say 'Okay, eventually we're just being too coy about this, we're losing the reality of it if we don't just say it', and they became girlfriends, truly, and became physical with each other. At the same time, we still could play the metaphor, we could play it about magic, but there is a point at which you sort of, you know, part of the process of doing a show for six years *and* part of the process of growing up means you say goodbye to some of these more sensual metaphors, you lose some of them in a period of your life when you're growing up. Life suddenly isn't this great battle, it's this tiny, mundane, very real thing. And so, necessity and, I think, trying to be true to the process of growing up is what caused us to become more graphic and more physical and more literal, while still trying to tell the metaphorical stories that the show is about.

"One of the things that it was nice to say: again, this world becoming more literal. When Buffy killed Angel, it was all mystical and you could buy it back, and it was with a sword and a kiss and a thing, and they were fighting a bigger than life villain -- he was the bigger than life villain -- but everything was sort of grand and romantic. Our villains this year were such shimps. And the fact that he used a gun was something that we had talked about from the very beginning as part of this literalism that kind of sucks the life out of the metaphor and is so hard on our growing people. And in the fourth episode, Buffy has the line 'Guns -- these are never useful' and she says it again in episode fifteen, and we put that in deliberately, because we knew we were gonna shoot Tara, not just kill her, but shoot her, because we wanted it to be the most mundane and appalling thing that we could think of, and not in any way related to the grand mysticism and intense metaphor of the show. And to make a statement about guns that I think is always good to be able to make."

"In Season 6 we went to about the darkest place we've ever gone in Buffy."

"She really questioned why she was back, why she was there, who she was, what her power meant, and really had a very negative view of herself and what her whole heritage was."

"The whole season was built around the idea that by the end of it she would finally understand why she was back, and accept it, and be able to enjoy it."

"[Katrina's murder] is kind of appalling, and it has to do with male insecurity, and it has to do with, you know, sort of the idiocy of our culture."

"Spike was someone that we wrote as we experienced him. We didn't know from day to day how the relationship was gonna be, and we had long arguments about this from seasons ago."

Some fans have complained that the show’s core characters have become less likeable in recent seasons. Do you agree?

"I think it’s probably just taste in some respect, because when you have characters over several years, you want to avoid the 'MASH' syndrome of everybody being so likeable. A lot of times, the most interesting drama comes from when there are two people with totally valid perspectives who can’t agree... I think things have gotten tougher over the last few years, but we want to challenge the characters so that we can examine what’s so important about them."

You’ve said before that you give audiences what they need and not what they want. What do you mean by that?

"What I mean, and I got a little shit for saying that after Tara’s death -- fans thought it was demeaning, but it’s not; I am a fan, I watch the show every week to see what will happen -- but the fact of the matter is, no one wants to see Romeo and Juliet die happily married. Everybody feels terrible for them, wishes they could get away, but if they did, people wouldn’t remember the damn play as much... I think that people need two kinds of fulfillment -- one in which you give and one in which you hold back.
Part of fulfillment is need, is longing, is being unfulfilled, that’s the nature of tragedy and a lot of drama. Very often, what the fans want, they get. But very often, what they want, they can’t quite have, because we want them to feel the way our characters felt, we want them to feel how Willow felt after Tara died. Some people will never forgive me for making that statement, but I'm not saying I know better, I’m saying that the narrative exists beyond me."

"Season 6... okay, she's come back from the *dead*, so you have to deal with that in a big way. Season 6 was basically about, 'Okay, now we're grown-ups'. Now we take away Giles, because Tony wanted to go back to England. You see, a recurring theme is, whenever the actors are unavailable, we work around it. But it made sense. We have no mentor, we have no mother, we have no parental figures, we're dealing with marriage and alcoholism and a really abusive relationship, we're dealing with someone who is practically suicidally depressed -- which, weird, people didn't respond to that so much! But we're dealing with... what was metaphoric sex has become very graphically real sex, what was mystical demons has become three nerds with guns. Very real death, very mundane. House payments -- we're doing an episode about house payments! It's like... the idea was to break down the mythic feeling of the show because there is a moment at childhood's end where you no longer get that, you no longer... Everything isn't bigger than life, suddenly everything's actual-sized, it's a real loss. And at the same time, the darker, dark, dark, dark side of power, and Buffy's guilt about her power, and her feeling about having come back to the world and getting into a genuinely sort of unhealthy relationship that was all about dominance, control, and, ultimately, deep deep misogyny. And how lost did we get? Well, our villain turned out to be Willow."

At one point last year, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) began to believe she was actually a crazy person who had dreamed up the whole vampire slaying thing. It was a way for Mr. Whedon and his writing staff to comment on the creative process.

"Emotionally, it dealt with stuff that Buffy was going through," he says. "But what I liked about her laughing at the implausibility of the life she's created is that it's really talking about the TV show, and about the idea of fictions and why we create them. And so, yeah, there was a wink in there."
Some viewers were put off by how dark the show got, and Mr. Whedon has said it will lighten up this year. But don't count on it. "We want something to feel real in a way that it hasn't before. Making people uncomfortable, generally speaking, interests me."

"How important ["Normal Again] is in the scheme of the Buffy narrative is really up to the person watching. If they decide that the entire thing is all playing out in some crazy person’s head, well the joke of the thing to us was it is, and that crazy person is me. It was kind of the ultimate postmodern look at the concept of a writer writing a show."

So, how are you bringing Buffy back?

"Aw, I'm not supposed to tell."

I'm teasing. I know you get that a lot.

"Yeah, it's the first thing everybody asks, including my developers. And the answer is, I can't say, because that's why you watch the show. The one thing I can say is, I think we earn it. There's no Patrick Duffy in the shower, there's no alternate-universe Buffy. It's not going to be neat. Bringing her back is difficult, and the consequences are fairly intense. It's not like we don't take these death-things seriously. But exactly how she comes back, I can't reveal."

"I don't think that [it got off track]. But I understand that people do. It got very dark, because we wanted it to get very dark, and not everybody responded to that. And we're doing something different this year, partially in response to that, but mostly because we do something different every year. ... Year four was about the freedom of college. And then year five was about being drawn back to family. Year six was about the fear of going into the adult world. And this year is about being drawn back, you know, to school and those things. So every year has a different mission statement.
Buffy ... goes through horrible pain every year. But last year, she really lost herself. And I think the audience felt that lack. They felt the lack of the strength ... of, you know, grabbing that sword when Angel's about to stab her and saying, 'I've still got me.' That thing that she had in season two. And I understand why they need that, and we are going to have that back, because I need it, too. And the interesting thing is, right when, you know, we were getting about two-thirds of the way through [last] season, I told Marti, 'You know, I've been thinking, and I think next year we should go back to, like... that very positive message that we had at the very beginning of the show, and really see Buffy empowered again, instead of seeing her at the mercy of her life.' And the very next day, Sarah talked to Marti and said the exact same thing. And that's one of the great things about working with her, is that she's so in tune, not just with her character, but the show, that literally... on the same day, we had both come to the same conclusion. Just, you know, it's time to take back the night."

Can you tell us about some of your favorite Buffy moments or stories from the past seven years?

"... I would have to say the moment Amber and Tony started singing together. That made my hair stand on end. That makes me so happy. First of all, it was the first counterpoint I've ever written. It was beautiful voices raised in song about really depressing emotions. My two favorite things put together."

"You know, every year has its criticisms. I do think sometimes we hit the same note a few too many times. But I am also very proud of the year and the episodes in it. We did what we set out to do. We said what we wanted to say. And if we didn't get it right or if people didn't respond to it, all we can do is take responsibility for it. We had sort of a similar situation in Season 4. I understand the reasons for that, too, but I think Season 4 had probably the hardest string of great episodes in a row of any season we've ever done."

"Everything suddenly isn't bigger than life -- everything is incredibly life-sized, including the villains. That was really what it was about. It was about the literalisation of your life. When you're fifteen you're thinking, 'I'm slaying dragons,' and when you're 22, you're thinking, (groan) 'I'm working in a video store!' And they're very different experiences and we wanted to capture that. We wanted to explore the dark side of her power and her relationships and all that stuff, and how hard it is to enter the grown-up world. And boy, we succeeded in showing that it was hard. Not everybody's glad we did..."

"I'm very happy [about Willow's arc]. I thought Alyson did an amazing job and a lot of last year was about, 'Let's show them what Hannigan is capable of.' She really earned it and the character had, too. I loved what happened with her. I thought it was fascinating. And she was really funny and sexy when she was bad."

"I'm not really sure we ever made the distinction, but if [Spike's soul-quest] was completely reacting to what she did, then there's no power to it, so [the motivation to change] would have to come from him."

"On a very practical level, James was up for a movie. And so we were like, 'You know, Spike may have to be thin [in fewer scenes] towards the end of the season.' And so I had that in the back of my head: can he go somewhere? What would that be about? Also, we thought, 'Well, this is an unhealthy relationship,' and if it reached its conclusion, the only way to take it would be to make him a new man, or at least make him try to be, which is a classic thing - trying to just become the person you think your girlfriend will like more. So it worked on both those levels."

En vrac, plein d'infos intéressantes (encore merci à Enisy : http://www.buffyforums.net/forums/showpost.php?p=220247&postcount=41)


Marti Noxon: We were looking for villains who were a little more organic, in the sense that it wouldn't be a god from another universe. It was all Joss's doing and it just made so much sense to me because it was characters we knew.

~*~*~

Steven S. DeKnight: I wish that I could say [the Spike/Buffy balcony scene in Dead Things] was my idea but it's something Joss had in the back of his head for a year. It just so happened that it happened in my episode.

~*~*~

Marti Noxon: Joss came up with the idea of the house coming down around [Spike and Buffy] while they made love. It was perfect, because we needed something catastrophic to go along with this huge dangerous union.

~*~*~

Jane Espenson: There was stuff in [After Life] that was completely changed, much of it was Joss. The moment I think is so amazing of Anya cutting herself and laughing, was something Joss pitched just off the top of his head. "What if this happened?"

~*~*~

Marti Noxon: It was Joss's notion that they all lose their memory [in Tabula Rasa].

~*~*~

Drew Z. Greenberg: Well, [Spike/Buffy in Smashed] is all Joss. It's allllll Joss. Joss came up with the metaphor, Joss said this is what he wanted to happen, this is how it should happen. He said "You know what would be cool? If we did this." and we all said "That would be really cool".

~*~*~

Steven S. DeKnight: [Tara's death scene] is a Joss decision. Joss came in and he described the scene -- originally, it was going to be outdoors, Willow and Tara were going to be having coffee and Warren was going to be several blocks away and the shot was going to go off, and we cut to her. And he explained it exactly the way it was filmed -- that Willow gets splattered with the blood, you go to Tara, and she's been shot, she says "Your shirt..." and keels over.

~*~*~

Scott Allie: Also gotta consider Joss's love of [Dark Willow].

~*~*~

Sarah Michelle Gellar: Joss has had certain episodes planned from the get-go. ... Willow was always supposed to go bad. Willow was supposed to go bad a year before she did, but Joss loved Tara and Willow, so that storyline was pushed a year...

~*~*~

Marti Noxon: The bit when Spike seems to be by himself when, in fact, he was having sex with the invisible Buffy was something that Joss and David Fury got all excited about, whereas I was like, "Ewww!" It was disturbing to me; it still is. It just shows you that even I have my limits.

~*~*~

Steven S. DeKnight: Nice catch. We did re-shoot Spike getting bloodied. In the original, we completely demolished his face. It was really brutal. UPN, to their credit, didn't have a problem with it, but Joss felt it was so horrific that it took away from the emotion of the scene. And he was right.

~*~*~

Steven S. DeKnight: Joss had always planned to set the troika up as comedy relief -- then have them turn dark. Trust in Joss! I sure do.

~*~*~

Rebecca Rand Kirshner: (on the Hell's Bells Spike/Buffy scene) This is a scene that Joss wrote.
David Solomon: I know. It's beautiful.
Rebecca Rand Kirshner: Very beautiful. So subtle, too.

~*~*~

Interviewer: Okay, now some Buffy questions... You started off as a writer and then you became a showrunner at the beginning of Season 6...
Marti Noxon: Yeah, I got promoted to an executive producer and the reality is I was already doing a lot of stuff that I did on Season 6 before, but I got credit for it. And people also thought that meant Joss wasn't around and that just wasn't the case. He was very much around.

~*~*~

Marti Noxon: [All the Way was] a wonderfully written episode, but at the same time I don't think it resonated the way Joss and I had hoped because I don't think the audience was quite with Dawn from the beginning. We were spending time with other characters. What I loved about the episode was that it was classic Buffy, where you could do some cool metaphors with Dawn because she's younger. I love the high school stories and the clear-cut metaphor that boys just want one thing. At one point Joss said, "Do you think we should cut the line where the vampire gets staked and says, 'Dude, that sucks'?" I said, "That's old school Buffy. Don't cut it." This was definitely an episode we might have shot in our first or second season.

~*~*~

James Marsters: I never thought Buffy should reciprocate. I just thought she should torture him the whole time, and I expressed that to Joss. He kind of winked and said, "Well, you know, I'm writing the show and I have something a little more interesting than that". So, then he became the heartfelt love interest.

~*~*~

David Fury: For those who doubt, I'm here to say Joss is every bit around. Every day. The ship is still being steered by him, so quit speculating otherwise.

~*~*~

Interviewer: Was there anything that you wrote that you turned in to Joss and he's like "no, no, no"?
Steven S. DeKnight: Oh, of course! I mean, it's that way with every script. You'll hand in a script, and, you know, you get some stuff right, you get some stuff wrong. Depending on the script, you will get a lot of notes, or a few notes. I got a lot of notes on [Seeing Red], 'cause I was having a real hard time keying into what he wanted.

~*~*~

James Marsters: Have I ever been injured on the set? Many, many, many, many, many times, oh boy. Well, the worst one was one of those things it's not necessarily that dramatic. It always happens this way in stunts. The big dramatic stuff you don't get hurt on, it's the little tiny stuff that you crunch on often. And there was a scene [in Dead Things] where Buffy was beating the crap out of me and I was laying down and I had to have my head slightly up for the camera angle and take massive head whips as if she was just beating me to death. And the bigger the head whips you make the more likely you are to risk whiplash. So we filmed it, Joss looked at it, he thought I was too bloody, we redid it, filmed it again. And it was the middle of winter and they are spraying me down with sweat so there is no way to stay warm. And I whiplashed on the first try, and then we had to go back and film it again with more make up and he didn't like THAT he thought it was too bloody and we had to go back and do it AGAIN.

~*~*~

Joss Whedon: Thought I was out, but.... had one more thing to add. I killed Tara. Some of you may have been hurt by that. It's very unlikely it was more painful to you than it was to me.

~*~*~

Interviewer: It actually spawned what will be my vote for best one liner of the entire year and that is Spike, the line where he says "Every night I saved you". That is my absolute favorite line.
Jane Espenson: Ohhh, thank you. I was very fortunate on that, because usually those moments like that are all Joss.

~*~*~

Marti Noxon: One of the reasons that Joss and I work so well together, and why this partnership has been so fruitful is that much of the time what he wants is naturally -- and not in an ass-kissy way -- what I want.

~*~*~

Joss Whedon: On a very practical level, James was up for a movie. And so we were like, "You know, Spike may have to be thin towards the end of the season". And so I had that in the back of my head: can he go somewhere? What would that be about?

~*~*~

James Marsters: Once Joss heard Derek Jacobi was in it, he was like "Oh, man, I can't take this away from you... and we're going to work this out..." and he's figuring it out. In fact, one of the reasons Spike went off to Africa instead of, like, Sunnydale, was that I went to Joss and said "The people who are doing the Star Trek movie came to me and said they are writing a part for me. They want me to be Jean-Luc Picard's clone!" and that was just too cool to be believed. So I went to Joss and I said "First of all, this is all your fault. They saw me on your cool show, looking cool, and now they want me to do the cool thing on their show." so he said "Jean-Luc Picard's clone! That's too cool! Oh, my God, I can't get in the way of that!" So he rewrote the whole season so I could get out and then they gave the part to somebody else!

~*~*~

David Fury: I should say, this exchange here? This is Joss. Behold the yellow crayon story. That is Joss's hand.

~*~*~

David Fury: (about the Buffy/Dawn scene at the end of Grave) Here's another scene that I believe Joss had a little bit of a hand in... [...] I mean, the story was everything he wanted to tell, I just told it the best way I could. And it's a couple of choice moments that he feels -- some things that he can articulate.
James Contner: And I know it was his idea to have Buffy sit on the coffin.
David Fury: Ah huh.

~*~*~

David Fury: I wrote that draft, and we all agreed, it wasn't working. It had all the elements there, but it just didn't resonate, and it occurred to us, finally -- well, actually, it occurred to Joss, as we were talking about the script. [...] And Joss suddenly realized, she has to crawl out of her grave again.
James Contner: Yeah, go full circle. That's the season. She comes out of the grave, she falls back into it, and then again has to come out of it.

~*~*~

David Fury: We're always aware of the fans' feelings, good or bad. But this was the story Joss wanted to tell, and we all understood it. Buffy couldn't just crawl out of her own grave and be fine a few episodes later. Joss felt it would be a cheat. Buffy's ambivalence toward her life, and the people around her, is a common phase many young people go through.

~*~*~

Marti Noxon: Once Joss found his hook in the story -- that she had been in a good place -- he was really committed to the idea that she would not be all cheery when she got back. [...] A recurring theme in Joss's work and both shows is that life is hard and it's people's actions and relationships that make it liveable.

~*~*~


Bonus:


+ When you visit the Internet, are you shocked how little fans know about this process?
Joss Whedon: Sometimes it's a little dispiriting when you see, "Well, Joss had nothing to do with that." Well, there's nothing that goes on screen that I had nothing to do with.

+ Joss Whedon: How sick am I of Noxon-bashing? Enough to break my rule of silence, certainly. I've had so many people rag on her for aspects of the show I developed, or praise me for things she came up with. She's been a vital part of everything people love about Buffy since she overhauled the halloween script in Season 2. She's as good a story-breaker as I've ever worked with. And she's a leader.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion, Vmars. You are uninformed and rude. That's mine.

Des interviews de différents scénaristes, qui offrent tous une vision différente (je préviens que ce sont des interviews audios qui mettent quelques secondes à se mettre en route) :

Drew Greenberg, 9 January 2002

Steven DeKnight, 8 May 2002

David Fury, 15 May 2002

Jane Espenson, 22 May 2002


(Merci à TimeTravellingBunny pour les liens).

Merci à Ubi4soft, Hayes et TimeTravellingBunny pour les liens des interviews ci-dessous.


Interview Zap2it après la fin de la saison 6 :

Citation :

With series creator Joss Whedon not as involved in day-to-day production as in previous seasons -- having "Buffy" spinoffs and a FOX pilot, "Firefly," to keep him busy -- his fellow executive producer, Marti Noxon, has borne the brunt of criticism.

"I don't take that ridiculously personally," Noxon says, "mostly because I didn't design the shape of the season alone. People are always unhappy. I have not had a season in the last four where you didn't have half the people complaining, so it doesn't feel unique to me."

"This year, I think the Spike and Buffy thing has raised more divided opinion."

This relationship -- played out with fairly graphic sex scenes and very dark undertones -- apparently has raised the ire of those who think Buffy should hold out for a reunion with her great love, vampire-with-a-soul Angel (David Boreanaz), who's off on his own spinoff series on The WB Network (don't hold your breath for this one).

It has also created a sizable cadre of fans who think a few years of microchip-induced harmlessness have reformed platinum-haired bad boy Spike, whose capacity for such human emotions as love and compassion is still counterbalanced by his lack of a soul and resultant amoral ruthlessness.

"I understand why people feel the way they do about Spike," Noxon says. "I understand why they feel that a couple of years of changed behavior is enough to warrant complete trust, but I don't share that opinion. It's OK that there's a difference of opinion."

"I don't feel like it's a failure to communicate. We've made our case. Certain people get it and understand it, and other people are going to be Spike-shippers (a term for those in favor of the Spike-Buffy relationship) no matter what. That's in no small part due to the charisma of the actor."

"It's hard to hate him, but I think I feel like we've made a pretty good case for the fact that they probably shouldn't ride off into the sunset together, at least not the way things are now."

"In general, there's controversy, and people have their feelings. I definitely don't take it personally. If people out there are like, 'Oh, the Marti Noxon season sucks,' I laugh, because Joss is just as involved in story-breaking as he's ever been."

Despite what does or does not happen to Spike at season's end, Marsters is contracted to return next year "in one form or another," Noxon says. "It's going to be a good surprise, I think. It's going to be something great."

Noxon does admit that the tone of the season has been dark, with brief breaks such as "Tabula Rasa," a semicomic tale in which the characters temporarily lost their memories.

"Certainly the story line with Buffy has been pretty overwrought," Noxon says. "She came back from the dead, etc. Given that, I think we've found as many opportunities for fun as we could, like being able to do stuff like the memory-loss episode, where you can still make your point, but do it in a lighter way."

"But again, I will say, we hear this every year, 'This year seems very dark. There's not as much fun.' And oh, boy, things are going to get even funnier!"

Another major change this season was the lack of a major villain, or, in "Buffy" parlance, a "Big Bad." This fell instead to the very human Troika, who could neither be dismissed as supernaturally evil nor dispatched with stake or crossbow.

"I do think people find it difficult," Noxon says, "because there's not as clearly a Big Bad. The bad is a little more banal, which sometimes leads to really big bad. Sometimes evil is banal. I hope that people will see that they are the Big Bad in their own way."

"Sometimes it doesn't come from being all arch and villainy; sometimes it comes from not knowing what you're doing. It's the teen-age boys who decided to be badasses for fun, and it got out of control."

As for those slagging the show, Noxon says, "I wish everybody in the whole world loved 'Buffy' all the time, but I hope that the people who hate it keep watching."

Interview E-Online :

Citation :

Fans have been pretty vocal in their criticism of this season. Does it have an effect?

We do listen, but we wouldn't let fan opinion change us dramatically. Sometimes, the fans are going "no, no, no!" and we know we are heading somewhere they will like.

What about the folks who still want Buffy and Angel together?

They call themselves the shippers. These are the people who still have their high school sweetheart's picture in a frame on the wall. They can't seem to let things go. I think Buffy and Angel's relationship was idealized. It was like a fairy tale, in the way young girls dream about--to have this perfect, unattainable man.

But you have to throw curve balls. We gave Buffy and Angel a barrier they couldn't surmount. This locks it into a romantic ideal, because they never fought over who has to do the laundry. They were stuck in the first beautifully passionate stage of love, and that's where it will be forever.

Some of the fans want Buffy and Spike together. Does that surprise you?

Sometimes, things don't go the way we intend. It seemed very obvious to us that the Buffy-Spike relationship couldn't work in the long run, so now we need to reiterate why. We need to get in there and show people the difference between loving someone who is good to be around and loving someone who is good.

I think people have forgotten the Spike of two seasons ago. I mean, he tried to kill Willow! Can you really see Spike and Buffy in a condo deciding what they should watch on TV that night? That's not our thesis. What we want to show is an independent heroine who is not defined by her relationships.

Zap2it.com :

Citation :

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - In "Dead Things," the Feb. 5 episode of UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the volatile and tortured relationship between slayer Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and vampire Spike (James Marsters) took some disturbing turns, as the series once again pushed the envelope of sexual content and violence.

In one scene, the two engaged in intercourse while on the catwalk at the Bronze, Sunnydale's favorite night spot, while Buffy's friends danced below, unaware. Then, near the end of the episode, an argument over whether Buffy should turn herself in for a murder she'd been tricked into thinking she committed turned brutally violent. A frustrated Buffy vented her anger on the unresisting Spike, punching him repeatedly until one eye was swollen shut and his face was bloody.

"I don't think anything about that is OK," says executive producer Marti Noxon. "I don't think that we were trying to say that's OK. That's definitely not offered as a conflict-resolution technique. It's part of the pathology of their relationship."

Whatever Noxon and series creator Joss Whedon intended when they brought together Buffy and Spike -- who cannot hurt humans because of a government-implanted microchip in his head (the exception being Buffy, because of a minor metaphysical loophole explained at the end of the episode) -- the best theme song for the relationship would probably be "Sympathy for the Devil."

"We've been getting so much feedback from fans," says Noxon. "They see Spike as a hero now. I've said to you and other people that the relationship is basically something we thought would reflect the kinds of relationships you choose when you're choosing the wrong person."

"People have been very upset about that. They're like, 'He's not the wrong person. He's all redeemed.' Part of what needs to happen at this point is to show that redemption is possible for Spike, but he's not redeemed now, and their relationship is really based on things that are not healthy."

"It doesn't mean that things won't get better for them, but what it's based on right now isn't healthy. It's not showing Buffy in the greatest light, but our intention was to show that they need to change what it's about, or it's never going to last."

Asked about showing Buffy -- who is supposed to be the hero of the story, and a moral person -- inflicting pain out of anger on someone who is not fighting back, Noxon says, "This will probably inflame fans of a different opinion, but my only answer to it is that this relationship isn't bringing out the best in either of them. Maybe it's bringing out the better in him in some ways, but it's not bringing out the best in her."

"This is bringing out a desperation in her, and she's going to have to deal with that. Long-term, there are definitely repercussions to what's happened."

The viewership for "Buffy" covers a wide age range, from 'tweens to older adults, but Noxon emphasizes that the show isn't targeted at very young viewers.

"I don't think kids should watch 'Buffy' alone," says Noxon. "To me, the show is definitely aimed at older teens and young adults. It doesn't mean that younger people can't watch it and enjoy it a lot of the time, but I just think responsible parents would make sure that they're watching it with them."

SFX Vampire Special Feb 2002 - Marti Noxon Interview

http://membres.multimania.fr/fanficcafe/interview/noxon_sfxvamp.html

Citation :

With "Smashed" the Willow/Tara relationship comes to an end because of Willow's over-use of magic. Meanwhile, Spike believes that his chip is malfunctioning after he's able to hit Buffy and he doesn't feel any pain. Eventually he learns that the problem isn't with his chip, but is, instead, with Buffy, who apparently came back from the grave "wrong". At episode's end, he and Buffy end up making love, literally bringing an abandoned house down around their ears.

"Lots of discussion of how we could get Buffy and Spike to the next phase of their relationship," Noxon says. "We had talked about lots of realistic ways it could happen, and Joss was like, 'It just has to be epic. It can't be a little thing.' The whole notion there was that it was going to come out of the dramatic dynamic they had, which is as much about violence as it is about anything else." Which, again, caused the production team some consternation about possible accusations of post 11 September tastelessness.

"We struggled a little bit because that imagery at the end was something we were eager to hold on to, but we didn't want to be tasteless. Given the fact that there was a lot of bad stuff going on in the real world, we wondered if they should be in a house. Should it fall down? Fortunately, I don't think it played badly."

One big question mark about the episode was Spike's willingness to put the bite on a woman - with only a moment's hesitation - when he thinks his chip wasn't working. Hadn't he evolved beyond that? Audiences had seen Spike transform since the end of season five into a more heroic figure...

"I wonder if the perspective is different when you're watching the show to when you're working on it," muses Noxon. "Maybe our perspective is a little different and we need to sort of catch up with the way people are actually viewing it. In my mind, Spike is always self-centred in his goodness. It's always about his wants and needs. He's not a moral guy and he is good when it serves him to be good. But I don't know if we've put enough emphasis on that this year. He's been a little less ambiguous and a little bit more he's this hero. But he's not a hero.

"People have come to think of him as this softer, more righteous guy," she elaborates, "but at least in my mind he would have eaten that girl; he would have bit her. It wouldn't have been easy and he probably would have had guilt about it after all this time of relating to humans and not thinking of them as snacks. But at his core, he does not have a soul. We still think of him as a sociopath in the sense that he acts the way he thinks people want him to act in order to get what he wants. But, again, maybe we need to shore that up a little bit. Everything's about Buffy and he's made it clear he would hurt people if he could. But I get why people are starting to feel the way they are about him and I think that's why some people feel, 'Why shouldn't Buffy be with him?'

"But if you've lived in the*Buffy*universe for years, the dude is just bad. It's the chip that keeps him from being really bad. It's an interesting question and certainly one that we have talked about and are aware of. Just because I remember Spike from before so well, I'm kind of like, 'This is dangerous territory. This guy should not be trusted.' You can trust him on one level, but if I were Buffy I would trust him with anything related to me, but I wouldn't trust him in the big scheme of things."

As to the rest of the season... Noxon's not talking. Suffice to say, though, that the duo have certainly mapped out the final direction the season will ultimately take.

"In terms of the villain and the kind of character arc for the year, we felt that we couldn't do another sort of apocalypse threat. There is a 'big bad' and things are going to get a lot badder in terms of villainy, but at the same time I think it's a little more organic this season. It doesn't play the same way our villains have in the past. That's just because how many times can they go, 'It's the end of the world as we know it?' So we tried to do something a little different. We had to come up with a different way to create a threat, and I think so far this season our characters are generating as many of their own problems as we're seeing imposed upon them from the outside."*SFX

Une autre interview en 3 parties :

Spoiler: