Table of Contents:Overview
Slayers & Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy & Angel by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman follows the successful format of Gross and Altman’s critically acclaimed two-volume series The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek. Slayers & Vampires: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy The Vampire Slayer & Angel takes you behind the scenes of two of the most innovative TV shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Joss Weldon’s vision of a teenager girl going into a dark alley and kicking a vampire’s butt was realized in these popular series. As Gross and Altman describe Buffy and Angel, “Two decades after its groundbreaking debut, millions of fans worldwide remain enthralled with the incredible exploits of Joss Whedon’s Buffy Summers, the slayer and feminist icon who saved the world…a lot; as well as Angel, the tortured vampire with a soul who fought against the apocalyptic forces of evil.”
The authors interviewed almost 100 writers, producers, directors, filmmakers, sociologists and stars from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. The interviews included:
Joss Whedon
Guillermo del Toro
Felicia Day
Anthony Stewart Head
Charisma Carpenter
James Marsters
David Boreanaz
Amy Acker
J. August Richards
Eliza Dushku
Christian Kane
Julie Benz
If you’re a fan of Buffy and Angel, this is a must-buy. Even if you have a casual interest in these two franchises, Slayers & Vampires includes plenty of information about movie-making, TV script writing, directing, acting, and the business side of Hollywood. Highly recommended! GRADE: A
Table of Contents
ONCE MORE, WITH KNEELING by Mark A. Altman, 9
VAMPIRES AND SLAYERS, OH MY! by Edward Gross, 15
PART ONE: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER “She saved the world … a lot.”,
BLONDE ON BLONDE, 19
HELLMOUTH OR HIGH WATER, 37
HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, 65
BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BUFFY, 96
SOUL MAN, 121
YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH, 153
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, 174
A FIGHT FOR LOVE AND GLORY (aka DEATH IS YOUR GIFT), 192
MORE THAN A FEELING, 214
LEAVING SUNNYDALE, 258
PART TWO: ANGEL “Fangs, don’t fail me now.”,
BACK IN BLACK, 291
OUT OF THE PAST, 367
HERE COMES THE SON, 400
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 421
L.A. LAW, 452
PART THREE: ACROSS THE BUFFYVERSE “If there is no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”,
BEYOND BUFFY, 499
GIRL POWER FOREVER, 506
Acknowledgments, 521
About the Authors, 523
Saw the movie. Never got into the tv show. On another subject the new issue of F&SF has a new novella by Matthew Hughes. I know you like him.
Steve, you’re right. I am a big fan of Matthew Hughes so I’ll pick up a copy of F&SF this weekend. Thanks for the heads up!
He also has a novelette in the new Asimovs.
Steve, Matthew Hughes is a hot writer right now. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!
I feel like Rick on this one. Let’s just say I’m not the target audience for this one. I know Beth is a big fan.
Jeff, I enjoyed the early episodes of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. After reading SLAYERS & VAMPIRES I may watch the first season of ANGEL which is described as a noirish detective series.
ANGEL, as you might’ve gathered, had some difficulty finding its rhythm for most of its run, but some episodes were quite good, some arcs as well.
Todd, I’m just waiting for ANGEL: THE COMPLETE SERIES in Blu-ray. I’ve also heard some of the story arcs were very good.
I never got into the series, but I know Beth was a big fan. I wonder that there wasn’t an interview with Sarah Michelle Geller or Alysa Hannigan.
With the DVR, I wonder what I would have also watched had I not had to chose between programs.
I did get into another of Beth’s favorites: Veronica Mars. It was filmed in SD and Beth came out once and we went on a veronica mars tour. My friend scott works at a book store on Adams ave, and he called me to say they were filming down the street. I went there but filming had stopped. One of the crew was in the store, and I got to tell her how much I enjoyed the show. We didn’t find the site the bus went off the cliffs, but I’ve heard since we were close. There is a site IIRC called fanboy that has the info now.
Maggie, Katie was a big fan of VERONICA MARS. I think with Netflix and HULU and HBO we’re living in a Golden Age of TV!
VERONICA MARS was in many ways BUFFY with the fantasticated elements replaced by criminous ones. There were even relatively close character correspondences. And cast crossover, notably Alyson Hannigan, Chrarisma Carpenter, and Joss Whedon took a cameo role. The producer’s new, DC Comics-based series iZOMBIE is the best thing on the CW network…faint praise for some, but it’s quite good, more consistently so than BUFFY or VERONICA.
Todd, like BUFFY, VERONICA MARS has a devoted fan base. You’re right about the parallels to BUFFY.
The television in the hotel here – but, sadly, not the one in Florida – has Netflix, so we watched the first episode of FREAKS & GEEKS last night, as well as an episode of THE WEST WING (the first appearance of Stockard Channing).
Tonight we’ll be in southern Georgia. Can’t wait to get out of the cold.
Jeff, plenty of places in Florida got snow for the first time in decades! We’re supposed to warm up to the 30s by the end of next week.
Jeff, have a safe trip!
How many miles are you on the road until you arrive?
Wolf, we’re in no hurry, so do 300 or so miles a day. We’ll be there tomorrow. We’re in Kingsland at the bottom of Georgia now.
I hardly call September 2017 as a “forgotten book”, George. You need to be posting on oldies on Fridays.
This isn’t for me, that’s for sure, though I did watch the first season of Buffy (Geller is/was so cute), but didn’t keep going with it.
Jeff, get the Florida condo people to add Netflix, if only for the 3 month trial period.
Rick, this is a book about forgotten TV shows. I’m hoping both series are released in Blu-ray format this year. I’ll buy the complete sets! I have several seasons of BUFFY in DVD format.
Really?
I’ve never been interested in these US tv shows – found them often too predictable and generally too much “Kitsch”…
Just can’t help it, don’t know why …
Btw my wife is similar though she grew up in totally different surroundings in “Socialist” Hungary – she never was a party member though, that’s why she didn’t have a career, stayed a lowly secretary …
And when after 1989 all the US series appeared on tv in Hungary she was maybe too old already to enjoy them.
Wolf, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER broke new ground back in the 1990s because it featured a woman character who kicked vampires’s butts. It was the opposite of the traditional “damsel in destress” template.
Alright, that’s acceptable, I guess. I’m just grumpy this morning (bad numbers) but I shouldn’t take that out on you. My apologies.
Rick, talk to your doctor about Trulicity. It really made a difference in my numbers.
Wolf, BUFFY’s best episode, “The Body,” is the best tribute/pastiche of Ingmar Bergman I’ve seen in television not written nor directed by Bergman himself. As well as being a key episode of the series. This was a series which at its frequent best was very good indeed.
My “problem” is that there’s so much to read (in books and on the ‘net) that I don’t have time or don’t want to spend time watching tv right now …
But I’ll keep that in my “Tomorrow File”. (pun intended)
Wolf, I try to balance my “free time” by spending it 50% reading and 50% watching TV/Blu-rays/movies.
By the way, today, finally, the house is un-decorated, including trees, table decorations, mantle decorations, etc., etc. and even outside lights, George, you have another month to get it done. 🙂
Rick, Diane usually de-Christmastizes the house over Martin Luther King weekend. I help with taking down the Christmas tree and lugging all the Christmas stuff down to the basement for storage.
Never watched either show, ergo no interest in the book!
The one Buffy episode I remember is the one where (SPOILER ALERT) her mother dies. (END SPOILER)
That’s “The Body”, the one I cite as the best episode of the series. There are others nearly as good.
Jeff, the producers of BUFFY were not afraid to kill off Major Characters.
I got this one for Christmas but just skimmed thru it so far.
Angel was OK but not “must see” TV. Buffy still holds up.
And, yes, I also love Veronica Mars and iZombie (the only zombie show I watch).
Beth, Katie is a big VERONICA MARS fan, too!