The revolution will not be televised?

[litzie]

The thread discussing the potential end of Buffy's story got me thinking - what if season eight and nine, currently (and futurely) in comic form, had actually taken place on screen? If the stories were the same (with slight alterations based on what's feasible on television vs. in comics), would the fan reaction be different? Would people still be turned off by the plot of this season? Would the audience have shrunk? Or would it have been just as popular as say, season seven?

This is a particularly interesting question for me because I didn't watch buffy until it had been off the air for more than a year - I never saw fan response real time. But I imagine from subsequent reactions that season seven was received somewhat skeptically, and I wonder if any continuation would have been as well. My question is not so much whether any negative reactions to season 8 are purely based on the comics medium, but rather, would season 8 have been enough to keep the show going at its average audience level and popularity?

[Michael]

I think the Buffy tv series gained enormously , as others have pointed out, from being set in Sunnydale.

Sunnydale was a realistic mundane community existing side by side with a supernatural underworld. The dramatic tension between the two was magnetic, and it gave the average viewer a way into the stories.

In the same way The X-Files gained from treating space aliens and other paranormal phenomena within the context of the FBI and its mundane bureaucracy. As one who has served in bureaucratic organizations I can testify to the accuracy of the petty friction that took place.

In Buffy Season 8, so far as I have been able to look at it,
the magical fantasy element has grown too much and driven out the mundane.

It could not work on television without changes so drastic that you would be better off writing something completely different. If I were not a devoted Buffy fan I would not bother with the comic book series at all.

[ntshpp]

We all must pray, that Phony8 should never be put on television.

[Anon]

We all must pray, that Phony8 should never be put on television.

I guess you'll be glad to hear that Season 8 is being cancelled. Personally, I found the news to be something of a nasty shock.

[ntshpp]

Really???

S8 comics are cancelled???

Source please! It's too good to be true.

[Anon]

Really???

S8 comics are cancelled???

Source please! It's too good to be true.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Season 8 isn't going to be cancelled, that was just an April Fool's joke.

As for what I would think of a televised Season 8, well I doubt it would happen if only for reasons of cost. I don't think the comics would translate exactly on to TV screen, so it's hard to be certain what it would be like, but assuming the season was portrayed faithfully, I think it would get a pretty big audience. It's already selling pretty well as a comic and on TV that would likely increase even further.

[tangent]

I would perhaps factor in today's date when reading the post two above this.

As for season 8. I think another season on t.v would have been good. The comics seem to be hinting at driving the scoobies apart via Twilight's machination anf i have a suspicion this is to bring them closer togeter at it's end. Season 7 tried to be full circle but missed that sense of scoobieness, so although we have the mall scene in Chosen iInever thought the scoobies were truly the tightnit unit they were. So for me taking the story in on is definitely worthwhile and if i'm anywhere near right on how this is done i think it has a lot of potential.

As for the medium: I do think 8 gets a fair amount of stick just for being in the medium that it's in, although that's mainly people who won't buy or read comics and therefore are ignoring them. The events themselves that have caused most controversy would, i think, still have caused that controversy regardless of the medium though. Possibly another factor in this is the length of time it's taken for season 8 to arrive. A lot of people become crystalised in their ships and love for characters and any sign that their favourite are being ignored or taken forward in ways they disagree with is probably going to lean them towards calling the whole project bad. I'm by no means saying this applies to everyone or even most people but i have seen posts with definite hints of this.

I seem to have got sidetracked a little ther but going back to the main point of wether the season would draw an audience on screen, i think the answer has to be a big yes. Sure there's controversy, sure theres thing's that aren't going to be popular with everyone but it's Buffy, you know? Even in the comics some of the writing and self referential in jokes have me smiling for ages. On telly i think this would be magnified significantly. In fact these days there would probably be even more viewers as new fans have been sired and the whole thing seems to have settled much more into the public phsyche.

So yes i would happily pull up a chair, turn off the phone and tune into a televised version of season 8. No question.

[dev]

The obvious necessary differences between the season 8 we have and the season 8 that would have appeared on TV are I think basically scale.

The budget required to produce the comic book season 8 on TV would be astronomical, given the number of slayers involved, the increased FX budget and of course the sets/location visits.

You couldnt have had a giant Dawn (video-realistically), the opening sequence or the giant melee without shelling out a lot more cash than was spent on the TV series and the beauty of Sunnydale being the setting was that it was the same every week, and although there are recurring locations in the comic, there are on a bigger scale and of course when they arent at the castle the other locations are very different indeed.

So yeah, basically it would be scale. I doubt you could ever get Joss to write smaller than he wanted to (given a budget) but with the medium of the comic, our boy is thinking big!