Buffy Reunion-Paley Festival
 

This took place at the Paley Festival in Los Angeles on March 20, 2008. Almost the entire cast assembled for a Q and A.
This would have been amazing to see.


From TV Guide.

Laughter, Tears and (Yikes!) Tension at Buffy Reunion

If there was any doubt that the panel for Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the most eagerly anticipated event at Paley Fest '08, it was erased by the mile-long line of fans that snaked around Hollywood's Cinerama Dome last night. Luckily, the event — which reunited the cast for the first time since the show ended in 2004 — more than lived up to the hype. Of course, that's not to say there weren't a few hiccups....

Participants: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caulfield, Seth Green, Amber Benson, James Marsters, Michelle Trachtenberg, David Greenwalt, Marti Noxon, Joss Whedon and TV Guide's own Matt Roush.

MIA: Alyson Hannigan (?!?), Eliza Dushku, Anthony Stewart Head and David Boreanaz (so much for that taped message).

Applause meter: Whedon, natch, got the most enthusiastic reception from the packed house, followed by Gellar, Marsters and Carpenter.

Party crasher: Less than five minutes in, it was painfully obvious that Brendon had suffered a recurrence of ericbalfourism, an affliction that causes actors to hijack panel discussions with erratic behavior and unfunny banter. (Brendon was first diagnosed with the debilitating disease at the 2005 summer press tour while promoting Kitchen Confidential.) The first sign of the relapse came while Gellar was eloquently discussing the positive influence her alter ego had on young women – including her. Just as she was wrapping up her remarks, Brendon jumped in with this doozy: "You mean it wasn't Susan Lucci?" If Gellar had a stake, I'm pretty sure she would've driven it through his heart.

Music to our ears: Whedon said he's spent "time daydreaming" about bringing Buffy to the Great White Way someday.

Dark Buffy: Gellar admitted that both Whedon and Noxon had to "talk her down off the ledge" a few times during the controversial sixth season, which saw Buffy morph from a butt-kicking heroine into a dark, bitter basketcase. Ultimately, Whedon agreed that the real Buffy had "been gone to long" that season.

Quote of the day: Summing up the appeal of writing for a show like Buffy, Greenwalt said, "There's nothing like taking all your pain and misery and shoving it into good-looking people's mouths."

Nickname game: Unbeknownst to Gellar, Whedon and Greenwalt would refer to her as "Jimmy Stewart" in the writers' room. Whedon leaned over to tell a confused-looking Gellar that the nickname "was a compliment."

Choose or lose: Roush asked Gellar to once and for all choose between Angel and Spike, to which Brendon cracked, "Given the comic book, I think Willow." OK, I'll give him that one. Speaking of Buffy's lesbian tryst in the recently published Season 8 comic book, Whedon said, "It's not a giant life change. It's not Willow. It's someone who is young… with a lot of time on her hands."

Behind the tears: Caulfield at long last revealed what was going through her mind when she delivered that gut-wrenching monologue in the acclaimed "Body" episode: "I had to go to the bathroom!"

Unsung hero: Gellar agreed with Whedon's assessment of Kristine Sutherland (aka Buffy's mom) being one "of the most underrated" actresses working today.

Same-sex hysterics: Greenwalt revealed that shortly after word leaked that Willow was going to be coming out of the closet, he got a call from an unnamed WB exec who said, "Is [Joss] really going to do this gay thing?" Whedon threatened to quit when the network asked him to leave Willow and Tara's first kiss on the cutting-room floor. "It's the one time I pulled that out," he said. "And they were like, 'No, it's OK. Leave it in.'"

The infamous Emmy snub: Whedon reminded everyone that "you don't put a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the WB and think, 'I'm going to win Emmys!'" Gellar added, "We made the show for the fans." Cue painfully unfunny knee-slapper from Brendon involving an empty trophy case and eBay.

Good taste: Gellar reads TV Guide! She just referred to our list of TV's Top 10 Steamiest Love Scenes, in which Buffy and Spike's inaugural roll in the hay was named No. 1!

Show-killer: The audience Q&A portion of the show got off to a disastrous start when a fan asked the entire panel to reveal both their favorite movie of all time and what they're currently listening to on their iPods. What resulted was the most excruciating 20 minutes in Paley Fest history. Brendon spent three of those minutes inventing fake movie titles and berating Gellar for not adequately answering the iPod portion of the question. (For the record, she did. She's listening to the soundtrack from South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.)

Um, awkward: Asked to reveal the real reason she refused Whedon's offer to return in Season 7 as a demonic version of Tara, Benson joked that she was too busy "making love to Marlon Brando." All kidding aside, she wanted fans to remember Tara as the sweet, innocent lesbian she was, and not some nasty, evil beast. Judging by Whedon's body language during all this, I'm sensing he may still harbor some hurt feelings over the snub. I could be wrong.

Potty mouth: What does Green miss most about his Buffy days? Arriving to work "to find that David Boreanaz had pooped in my trailer."

More Buffy: Whedon acknowledged that "so many stars would have to align" in order to pull off a Buffy movie. "But," he added, "I think it would be really cool."

You know what else would be really cool? One specific area of TVGuide.com featuring all my video interviews from Paley Fest '08. Oh, lookie here, such an area exists! Videos are being added hourly – the Buffy vids should be up by day's end – so keep checking back for the latest.

And from Matt Roush:
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-en...ayer/800036004




Pictures at wireimage.com but you have to enroll to enlarge the Pictures:

http://www.wireimage.com/SearchResul...&sfld=C&vwmd=e

Sucks that Eliza & Mrs.Hannigan no showed. Anywhere an MP3 transcript of the thing is available?

Still a great selection of actors from the Buffyverse. I'm kinda sad Brendon is sounding like such a tool.

Alyson Hannigan may not have appeared at the Paley reunion, but we may be seeing a LOT more of her after all:


<embed src="http://www.theonion.com/content/themes/common/assets/videoplayer/flvplayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="transparent" width="400" height="355" flashvars="file=http://www.theonion.com/content/xml/75143/video&autostart=false&image=http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/ALYSON_HANNIGAN_article.jpg&bufferlength=3&embedded=true&title=FCC%20Okays%20Nudity%20On%20TV%20If%2 0It%E2%80%99s%20Alyson%20Hannigan"></embed><br/><a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/video/fcc_okays_nudity_on_tv_if_it_s?utm_source=embedded_video">FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It's Alyson Hannigan</a>


:D

If you read the reader comments, you'll see another link with a few more details from the panel:

http://ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=2714

rotfl

:up:

Read about this this morning. I was going to start a thread asking what the deal is regarding Boreanaz, but since i'm here, I figured there might be some knowledgeable Whedonite that knows the answer...

Exactly what is Boreanaz's problem with Angel? I realize he might have some of "'87 SNL" Bill Shatner in him, but is there some bad blood between him and Joss? Or him and Gellar? Or him, Gellar and Joss?

I've seen and read many, many interviews with David Boreanaz because I am a now lifelong fan of his thanks to ANGEL and now BONES, and he has always been consistent about two things for years:

-It was always about just showing up and doing his job, and not taking the character and mythology of anything he's involved in home with him.

-Go to work, put on a good show but when it's over, move on - he doesn't have a problem with Angel or Buffy or any of that, it's that he's not doing that anymore, he's moved on. He's never one to look back. When Buffy ended, he didn't want to be a part of the final episode because he's not big on reunions. While he did appear (story purposes required it anyway, and he knew fans wanted to see Buffy and Angel again one last time) he didn't attend the post-finale wrap party.

I'm sure that when "Bones" is in his past, he won't ever dwell on that either in future.

Boreanaz, completely unlike Gellar, was always promoting both his show and Buffy when he was on it, taking part in the DVD extras, talk shows, all of that, whereas Gellar is sort of famous for not doing any of that except for when Buffy first started. Now that's all in the past, and Boreanaz clearly wants to keep it that way. Gellar, who shockingly agreed to this reunion must have had a change of heart as years have gone by.

You may not agree with that, but I'm betting you can certainly understand it.

Just to share an anecdote of Boreanaz's work ethic:

At Dragon Con last year, James Marsters was talking about how Spike had to "carry" one of the Angel episodes, and James wasn't used to have so many scenes to film for a given episode since Spike was mainly a supporting character scene count-wise, so he asked Boreanaz how he does it, how he carries the show (Angel) on his shoulder each and every episode. Boreanaz just said (paraphrasing) he thinks of being a race horse with the blinders on both sides of his head, and just focuses on racing towards the finish line. The man works, simply as that. Also, I'm guessing Boreanaz and Hannigan were no-shows for the same reason, they are working on their current shows (or couldn't fit the Buffy reunion into their schedule, it happens).

I suspect Gellar suddenly finds her datebook is a bit empty and needed an ego stroke. Sorry, that's just how I feel about her based on the way she has behaved in the past.

As to Boreanaz, I respect where he comes from. I think it's pretty likely he'll rethink it when he has fewer projects going on and some dates of his own to fill. I don't blame Gellar, Boreanaz, or anybody else on a cult show for that part. I'd love it if I could get a paycheck and some adoration for what I did in the past.

Just finished reading up on the event this morning but I'm still surprised that SMG actually showed up to this event. I'm just disappointed that Eliza Dushku wasn't there. Also is anybody also surprised that with the tension that exists between Whedon and Charisma, she actually showed up too?

I found an audio link to the entire Paley panel session:
http://jossd.com/?p=80

Videos clips of the event:
http://www.mtr.org/festivals/paleyfest2008/videos.htm

Er, why does there tension between Carpenter and Whedon ?

She felt that they took Cordelia to an unforgivable level during the 4th season of Angel. A point where she, as an actress, could never get the audience reconnect with the character again in a sympathetic manner.

Funny, Geller felt much the same way during season 6 with what Whedon did with her character. She discussed that during the panel discussion.

That's funny, as Marti Noxon is really to blame for the disgust that is season 6.

I think she did blame them both.

Well, I blame Marti for screwing up Willow's arc in season six (replacing abusing magick by manipulating people with a blatant but confusing and inconsistent addiction metaphor), but wasn't Buffy's arc (assuaging clinical depression through inappropriate sex) something Joss had planned back in season five?

But then, I wasn't even aware that there was a problem with Charisma and Joss. I thought the tension on the 'Angel' set was all between Charisma and David Greenwalt, and that that was dealt with (temporarily) when Greenwalt bowed out to do 'Miracles.'

I've heard repeatedly that Joss assured Charisma that, if 'Angel' was cancelled prematurely, he'd guaranteed that she'd still have work on 'Buffy', but I could never figure out how they could have fit her back in the group should that have come to pass. By the middle of season four, they already had Anya and Spike handling the insensitively honest dialogue. Kinda wish someone had asked about that. You know, instead of the "what's on your iPod" nonsense.

As far as I know Buffys arc was not planned. In fact the end of season 5 was planned to be the end of the show. Period. Willow turning evil was actually planned for season 4, but they held off because Joss liked the chemistry between her and Tara so much.

I personally think the blame for season six belongs on both Joss and Marti. Joss for walking away from showrunning duties, and Marti for controlling the writers room with those ridicoulous storylines. I remember the horror of seeing Buffy in a fast food uniform. I was the first time I actually felt the urge to drink alcohol to get drunk.

'Doublemeat Palace'...We're opposites then, because seeing Buffy in that uniform working in that nasty restaurant was THE highlight of season 6 for me. I hate musicals, and I have never been able to stomach sitting through 'Once More With Feeling' all the way through so the "magic" of that episode and its appeal is completely lost on me which is why I don't count that episode as being a bright moment of season 6, but freely appreciate why other people (pretty much everyone else) would.

That can't be right, because they were so determined to continue (with a higher budget) that they left the WB for UPN. And the end of s5 (Buffy sacrificing herself to stop Dawn from having to do it) really only ties up the end of the season, not the series.

Willow turning evil was, of course, planned. I just wish they'd been more coherent about how to do it. Five years of character development out the window because Marti preferred the idea of Willow getting high as someone else did a magick spell on her (really - did we EVER see her getting high from performing a spell herself?!?) over her own weakness. I don't doubt that Joss was clear about how s6 should start and how it should end; it's the journey there that was flawed.

Well, that was Jane Espenson, not Marti (though it may have been her idea initially). I find DMP pretty excusable, if only because the idea of Buffy being paralized by an ejaculating penis monster and having to call in the team lesbian to shove it in the meat grinder for her, to be pretty darn hilarious.

[QUOTE=wergo]That can't be right, because they were so determined to continue (with a higher budget) that they left the WB for UPN. And the end of s5 (Buffy sacrificing herself to stop Dawn from having to do it) really only ties up the end of the season, not the series. [QUOTE=wergo]

I'm pretty sure it is. Whedonesque.com, Wikipedia and the "Just Started Buffy" thread here have plenty of information and members verifying it. It was something that had to be done in case they couldn't get another network deal.

Jane was never the showrunner. And when you put the DMP in those terms it is pretty excusable :)

All this talk about season 6....how's about we talk about a season of the show that was actually good? Please? Any other season but 6!

:)

I've never understood all the hate for Doublemeat Palace. It wasn't the greatest episode of the series, but it wasn't that bad.