Before Joss Whedon conquered the superhero genre with one of the most financially successful franchises to date, the director first made his mark in the television landscape.
The Avengers director had to make a name for himself after years of writing, and finally got the chance with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then he did Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse—those last two didn’t run as long, but were critically acclaimed all the same—before he got the chance to direct the box office-smashing Marvel crossover.
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And since he’s seemingly left the TV game behind, the landscape has completely shifted in the wake of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon began offering streaming options as well as their own original programming. Now viewers like to binge watch their shows, watching multiple episodes in one sitting and sometimes even viewing an entire season in a day.
But in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Whedon recently said he isn’t a fan of that aspect of streaming.
“I would not want to do it,” Whedon said. “I would want people to come back every week and have the experience of watching something at the same time.”
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He explained that was the reason for releasing the Doctor Horrible online series as they did.
“I grew up watching miniseries like Lonesome Dove. I loved event television,” Whedon said. “And as it was falling by the wayside, I thought, ‘Let’s do it on the internet!’ Over the course of that week, the conversation about the show changed and changed. That was exciting to watch.”
He was quick not to discredit or disparage the original content that streaming companies release, however.
“Obviously Netflix is turning out a ton of extraordinary stuff,” Whedon offered. “And if they came to me and said, ‘Here’s all the money! Do the thing you love!’ I’d say, ‘You could release it however you want. Bye.’ But my preference is more old-school.”
Buffy, especially, was notable for its episode structure, telling unique and focused offerings while building a season-long narrative that focused on a “Big Bad.”
“Anything we can grab on to that makes something specific, a specific episode, it’s useful for the audience,” Whedon explained. “And it’s useful for the writers, too. ‘This is what we’re talking about this week!’”
Whedon explained that aspect is getting lost in streaming offerings nowadays.
“For you to have six, 10, 13 hours and not have a moment for people to breath and take away what we’ve done … to just go, ‘Oh, this is just part seven of 10,’ it makes it amorphous emotionally. And I worry about that in our culture — the all-access all the time. Having said that, if that’s how people want it, I’d still work just as hard. I’ll adapt.”
Despite being willing to change to the current style, he said he’s still apprehensive of what it means for the culture and viewing impact newer shows have.
“The more we make things granular and less complete, the more it becomes lifestyle instead of experience. It becomes ambient. It loses its power, and we lose something with it. We lose our understanding of narrative. Which is what we come to television for. We come to see the resolve. I’m fond of referencing it, but it’s ‘Angela Lansbury finds the murderer.’ It’s becoming a little harder to hold on to that. Binge-watching, god knows I’ve done it, it’s exhausting — but it can be delightful. It’s not the devil. But I worry about it. It’s part of a greater whole.”
It would be interesting to see Whedon develop a show for Netflix, a distributor and producer that would probably offer less interference with his output than he’s used to but would ultimately change his approach to making the final product.
[Embed id=31115]Marvel’s The Avengers[/Embed]
More Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The 10 Best Episodes Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer / David Boreanaz On The Possibility Of A Revival / Sarah Michelle Gellar On The Possibility Of A Revival
[h/t] Slash Film
