Jane Espenson talked with some Internet personalities at The Succubus Club, post-finale. They do a live Internet radio show. After the live show they post a mp3 of the interview and do a transcript. The transcript is not yet available for this interview, but I found a source of info and have posted it for your enjoyment. When the full interview is available I will put in a link to it.
There's lots and lots of info for those interested in Buffy behind the scenes and hints for next season.
Warning!!! Spoilers abound for this season and next.
These transcripts were recorded live, off the cuff, not meant to be 100% accurate:
C=Candy K=Kitty J=Jane
---
K: Right next to me in the hotseat, Jane Espenson.
C: You didn't write a lot at this season.
J: I wrote a lot of episodes early in the season. I was just sitting there twiddling my thumbs. I did the four part Buffy comic Haunted, that took some of my time. We are hoping we all get more this year with Buffy, Angel and Firefly.
C: Isn't like a Western.
J: It's very much a western, there are horses in the pilot.
C: What entailed the co-writing process? You seem to be the only one involved in co-writing.
J: Cause I am the one always volunteering, if you need help.
J: I wrote Mummy Hand and Kitten Poker part of Life Serial. I like writing the comedies.
C: Your first episode this season, Afterlife was serious.
J: Normally I would be third in the rotation, Marti, Fury and then me. Joss said I could wait for a comedy, but you probably want to take this one. So I thought ok, we'll give it a try. I had a wonderful time writing it. It turned out very well, I was pleased with it.
C: Best one liner - Spike's where he says "every night I save you."
J: Thank you, normally Joss gets all those good lines. Marti really liked that scene and I was very fortunate it stayed the way I wrote it. Joss wrote the Anya cutting herself scene.
C: Questions about DMP and AF. Jane can only stay until 7, but we will be on until 8.
J: And you guys need to talk about me. I dyed my hair blonde, it's quite shocking.
C: She went blue once. Ok, about After Life. When Buffy went to Spike's crypt in After Life, why do you think she is there. What is going through Buffy's mind?
J: She went there and sat with him there, right. Um, I think she didn't know why she was there, except she wanted to be with someone who wasn't demanding anything of her.
J: Buffy doesn't open up to people. She doesn't like to show what she is thinking. She tends to be very closed off. I think the most brilliant thing we did this season was her insane delusion. It makes so much sense when you think about it.
J: I think it makes so much sense because Buffy is always in her own head. It didn't really not work out, the fact that she can't love him has so much more to do with her than him.
J: And of course anytime we talk about B/S relationship, that it's a very bad thing. I like Spike and I was very worried about the attempted rape, that is not something you play around with. It's very hard to come back from. You have to be very careful with it. We are not saying anything about humans, when you see that Spike looked into himself and saw that he wanted to go get a soul. We knew the whole time he was going to get a soul, the chip was an intentional mislead.
J: When we are vague, we are vague for a reason.
---------------------------------------------
*More talk about Spike soul stuff
C: If you make that he went to go get a soul for her, it makes it romantic.
J: Yes that makes it very dicey. A human guy that says I saw the badness in myself, might not be the same thing. We have to be careful not to say that. He is a vampire with a soul, not a human.
C: That is the most interesting question, would it be fair to say that Buffy / Spike and Angel / Cordy are becoming a lot alike.
J: You can make that argument. We are certainly fighting that. Suppose we don't change Cordy, because it's too Buffized. Then we screw Cordy out of being a strong female. About souling Spike, it's only like Angel if we let it be. They have a much different relationship than Buffy / Angel had. What keeps Buffy and Spike from being together is their natures. They are thwarted by who they are. To me it feels very different. We don't repeat a formula. I think we succeeded in making it different.
---------------------------------
*More on Spike's soul stuff
J: He's Love's bitch.
C: Scene in Seeing Red, in his crypt talking with Clem.
J: We love Clem.
C: Who doesn't love Clem. People want Sophie and Clem together.
J: We should put him with Dawn.
J: There were a number of Clem scenes we added in late, because the episodes ran short.
C: Doublemeat Palace, was the Demon deliberate?
J: It was an enormous penis, but we did not realize that at the time. We thought it was going to look eel like. It wasn't intentional. Would we have a lesbian cut off a giant penis? No, that's icky. But once it happened we felt free to comment on it. We had the W/T conversation about it, that I thought went really well. It's called hanging a lantern on it. You have the characters point it out.
J: We don't want to mock the show or its characters, but we will do, that's a funny thing. You can think it's a cheat, to point something out. So I was very pleased with whoever wrote that exchange. Might have been Drew.
J: We did not intend that to look like a penis.
C: Who decided on a fast food restaurant? Did someone have specific experience in fast food?
J: Everyone did but me. Marti had done a lot, worked at McDonalds. We almost backed off it when Joss pointed out she had waitress-ed.
J: Food is funny. I love food. No coincidence that Band Candy and Gingerbread are also mine.
C: Lets talk about W/T. The whole Tara death and Willow what happened to her. Obviously people are upset.
J: As we intended, we're upset ourselves. I didn't think Joss was going to be able to do it. We really struggled.
K: How do you feel about the backlash?
J: I wasn't aware of it, but we talked about it. What happens is one is introduced to be killed. She had been on the show, she was not brought in to be cannon fodder. She was not gay bashed, she was shot accidentally. We did talk about, we're doing that thing, we're killing the lesbian. But it didn't feel that way to us, because she wasn't that lesbian character.
C: But Willow went evil.
J: She went evil out of deep loving grief. I think we are shirking ourselves if Willow goes out and hooks up with a boy.
C: People want to know, the backlash, they are going to be tuning out.
J: People always say they are not going to watch anymore and our numbers stay the same.
C: But the numbers are down this year.
J: Yeah but our boy numbers are up. We certainly feel we did a really bang up season. We really like this season, we feel we did a really good job. Even if you take the musical out I think it's a really good season.
C: What about next season?
J: More funny, more standalones. I am distressed to hear people are going to tune out. Tara was not our only gay character. Willow is still around and is a good role model. There is no reason to say we won't be seeing a little more of um Tara or something resembling Tara.
C: She is picking her words very carefully.
J: If people are saying they are tuning out because they miss Amber Benson well...mumble mumble mumble.
K: Is Willow going to go to jail?
J: Um no she doesn't go to jail. She is somewhere interesting when we open the season. She is up somewhere doing something with someone we know.
------------------------------------------
C: Does Spike's chip still work?
J: Yes he has a soul, but his chip still works.
C: I have never been a big fan of Dawn. One of my favorite moments in last night's show was Willow being mean to her. What does last night mean for Dawn (fighting with Buffy)?
J: Dawn doesn't have strength. She can be a Scooby, she can do what Willow does, but she has certainly been dumped into the gang. I love the line I have been protecting you from the world, what I really want to do is show you the world.
J: You may noticed that Dawn is at the right age to start high school. She is at a good age to start participating in more things. She is going to be a little bit different next year and she is going to be in the thick of things. And she is not going to always be the damsel.
J: At the beginning we had a lot of people that didn't have powers and one that did. We had a lot of damsels. Now we have a lot of people with powers and not enough that don't. So Xander and Dawn were our only damsels. Now what do you do when the Xander saves the world and Dawn has a sword, you run out of damsels.
--------------------------
*Break
C: Joss involvement this season. You did mention about the first episode for next season.
J: Yes it is my understanding that Joss will be writing that episode himself. He will also be more involved with Angel.
C: Her digging out of the hole, had to be intentional.
J: Absolutely, crawling about out of the grave.
K: Did you dye her hair?
J: No it was a wig. She was really uncomfortable. Plus she had those enormous contact lens. Painful to put in. She was out on the bluff and they had scattered charred earth around and it was blowing all this dirt in her eyes. You can see she her eyes are almost closed.
K: Has Sunnydale always been on the coast?
J: We figure it's near Santa Barbara, and of course that is why the Shumash tribe would be the local tribe.
C: How do you feel when the fans transfer their anger to you on the boards etc.
J: It does get tiring because you bond with the show so much and even if the decision isn't yours. You have to take responsibility for it and defend it. Where maybe if you were a fan you would not be happy about it. Also the fans know the episodes better than we do. We always have a blast at the PBP. This Tara thing is probably going to be really hard on us, because you do find yourself getting defense and feeling misunderstood.
C: We asked David Fury about defending things last week. We asked him how difficult that is, how about you.
J: Less difficult for me. Fury has very independent ideas. He is the most extreme and I am the most likely to hop on board. I tend to pretty much love everything we've done. Here's one, a think cut from sleeping with Parker. Harsh Light Of Day. All the fans were very upset, that Buffy got so hung up on this guy. A bit got cut where she said look at me, I am doing something that doesn't have to do with Angel. I was upset that got cut.
J: I had to defend Buffy being with Parker and that cut. There have been some where I have been skeptical, the attempted rape. But then I saw it and I was like I can groove with that.
--------------------
*Talk about Giles
J: We thought about having him come back for the wedding, but we felt the impact to wait was better. Cut scene about how Giles sent the flowers for the wedding.
K: I thought it was so great, that Giles showed up, but then there was this fear that he might die.
J: Yeah that was very plausible, we thought you all might fall for it.
C: What is the situation with Ripper.
J: I think we will have some Giles next season on Buffy. Ripper I have no idea, I think Joss was working on a treatment, but then Firefly got all hot and hairy. I haven't heard about it lately.
C: No glasses.
J: Yes Joss specifically said no glasses for Giles in this episode.
J: Ok, who thinks Giles and Anya should get together?
-----------------------------
*Talk about Giles and Anya
J: I think it would be interesting, I think it's better to have relationships with obstacles in them.
C: Otherwise it's Buffy and Riley.
C: So cast for next season is exactly the same for next season?
J: Well Tara won't be back next season. There are going to be new recurring characters but I don't think any new regulars. Possibly a new high school principal.
K: New Sunnydale High?
J: They are rebuilding it right now.
C: Anya has not shown any remorse, everyone seems to have forgotten her past.
J: I believe Anya does have a soul.
C: As a Vengeance Demon?
J: Yes. Would you say have Lorne has a soul?
C: Clem, Clem.
J: Vengenace is not random evil. Remember what Hallie said, we prefer Justice Demons. I don't think that Anya just happens to be a demon, means she is soulless.
J: It is very sad that Tara is gone. It discredits her to say she not more than just a lesbian. She is not just a label. Even as we debate the politics of killing her... It is a tricky situation and I don't want to make light of it. We make our characters very fully faceted. We make them with so much texture and reality, I like to think they are so much more than if they write demon on their college application.
-----------------------
There's lots and lots of info for those interested in Buffy behind the scenes and hints for next season.
Warning!!! Spoilers abound for this season and next.
These transcripts were recorded live, off the cuff, not meant to be 100% accurate:
C=Candy K=Kitty J=Jane
---
K: Right next to me in the hotseat, Jane Espenson.
C: You didn't write a lot at this season.
J: I wrote a lot of episodes early in the season. I was just sitting there twiddling my thumbs. I did the four part Buffy comic Haunted, that took some of my time. We are hoping we all get more this year with Buffy, Angel and Firefly.
C: Isn't like a Western.
J: It's very much a western, there are horses in the pilot.
C: What entailed the co-writing process? You seem to be the only one involved in co-writing.
J: Cause I am the one always volunteering, if you need help.
J: I wrote Mummy Hand and Kitten Poker part of Life Serial. I like writing the comedies.
C: Your first episode this season, Afterlife was serious.
J: Normally I would be third in the rotation, Marti, Fury and then me. Joss said I could wait for a comedy, but you probably want to take this one. So I thought ok, we'll give it a try. I had a wonderful time writing it. It turned out very well, I was pleased with it.
C: Best one liner - Spike's where he says "every night I save you."
J: Thank you, normally Joss gets all those good lines. Marti really liked that scene and I was very fortunate it stayed the way I wrote it. Joss wrote the Anya cutting herself scene.
C: Questions about DMP and AF. Jane can only stay until 7, but we will be on until 8.
J: And you guys need to talk about me. I dyed my hair blonde, it's quite shocking.
C: She went blue once. Ok, about After Life. When Buffy went to Spike's crypt in After Life, why do you think she is there. What is going through Buffy's mind?
J: She went there and sat with him there, right. Um, I think she didn't know why she was there, except she wanted to be with someone who wasn't demanding anything of her.
J: Buffy doesn't open up to people. She doesn't like to show what she is thinking. She tends to be very closed off. I think the most brilliant thing we did this season was her insane delusion. It makes so much sense when you think about it.
J: I think it makes so much sense because Buffy is always in her own head. It didn't really not work out, the fact that she can't love him has so much more to do with her than him.
J: And of course anytime we talk about B/S relationship, that it's a very bad thing. I like Spike and I was very worried about the attempted rape, that is not something you play around with. It's very hard to come back from. You have to be very careful with it. We are not saying anything about humans, when you see that Spike looked into himself and saw that he wanted to go get a soul. We knew the whole time he was going to get a soul, the chip was an intentional mislead.
J: When we are vague, we are vague for a reason.
---------------------------------------------
*More talk about Spike soul stuff
C: If you make that he went to go get a soul for her, it makes it romantic.
J: Yes that makes it very dicey. A human guy that says I saw the badness in myself, might not be the same thing. We have to be careful not to say that. He is a vampire with a soul, not a human.
C: That is the most interesting question, would it be fair to say that Buffy / Spike and Angel / Cordy are becoming a lot alike.
J: You can make that argument. We are certainly fighting that. Suppose we don't change Cordy, because it's too Buffized. Then we screw Cordy out of being a strong female. About souling Spike, it's only like Angel if we let it be. They have a much different relationship than Buffy / Angel had. What keeps Buffy and Spike from being together is their natures. They are thwarted by who they are. To me it feels very different. We don't repeat a formula. I think we succeeded in making it different.
---------------------------------
*More on Spike's soul stuff
J: He's Love's bitch.
C: Scene in Seeing Red, in his crypt talking with Clem.
J: We love Clem.
C: Who doesn't love Clem. People want Sophie and Clem together.
J: We should put him with Dawn.
J: There were a number of Clem scenes we added in late, because the episodes ran short.
C: Doublemeat Palace, was the Demon deliberate?
J: It was an enormous penis, but we did not realize that at the time. We thought it was going to look eel like. It wasn't intentional. Would we have a lesbian cut off a giant penis? No, that's icky. But once it happened we felt free to comment on it. We had the W/T conversation about it, that I thought went really well. It's called hanging a lantern on it. You have the characters point it out.
J: We don't want to mock the show or its characters, but we will do, that's a funny thing. You can think it's a cheat, to point something out. So I was very pleased with whoever wrote that exchange. Might have been Drew.
J: We did not intend that to look like a penis.
C: Who decided on a fast food restaurant? Did someone have specific experience in fast food?
J: Everyone did but me. Marti had done a lot, worked at McDonalds. We almost backed off it when Joss pointed out she had waitress-ed.
J: Food is funny. I love food. No coincidence that Band Candy and Gingerbread are also mine.
C: Lets talk about W/T. The whole Tara death and Willow what happened to her. Obviously people are upset.
J: As we intended, we're upset ourselves. I didn't think Joss was going to be able to do it. We really struggled.
K: How do you feel about the backlash?
J: I wasn't aware of it, but we talked about it. What happens is one is introduced to be killed. She had been on the show, she was not brought in to be cannon fodder. She was not gay bashed, she was shot accidentally. We did talk about, we're doing that thing, we're killing the lesbian. But it didn't feel that way to us, because she wasn't that lesbian character.
C: But Willow went evil.
J: She went evil out of deep loving grief. I think we are shirking ourselves if Willow goes out and hooks up with a boy.
C: People want to know, the backlash, they are going to be tuning out.
J: People always say they are not going to watch anymore and our numbers stay the same.
C: But the numbers are down this year.
J: Yeah but our boy numbers are up. We certainly feel we did a really bang up season. We really like this season, we feel we did a really good job. Even if you take the musical out I think it's a really good season.
C: What about next season?
J: More funny, more standalones. I am distressed to hear people are going to tune out. Tara was not our only gay character. Willow is still around and is a good role model. There is no reason to say we won't be seeing a little more of um Tara or something resembling Tara.
C: She is picking her words very carefully.
J: If people are saying they are tuning out because they miss Amber Benson well...mumble mumble mumble.
K: Is Willow going to go to jail?
J: Um no she doesn't go to jail. She is somewhere interesting when we open the season. She is up somewhere doing something with someone we know.
------------------------------------------
C: Does Spike's chip still work?
J: Yes he has a soul, but his chip still works.
C: I have never been a big fan of Dawn. One of my favorite moments in last night's show was Willow being mean to her. What does last night mean for Dawn (fighting with Buffy)?
J: Dawn doesn't have strength. She can be a Scooby, she can do what Willow does, but she has certainly been dumped into the gang. I love the line I have been protecting you from the world, what I really want to do is show you the world.
J: You may noticed that Dawn is at the right age to start high school. She is at a good age to start participating in more things. She is going to be a little bit different next year and she is going to be in the thick of things. And she is not going to always be the damsel.
J: At the beginning we had a lot of people that didn't have powers and one that did. We had a lot of damsels. Now we have a lot of people with powers and not enough that don't. So Xander and Dawn were our only damsels. Now what do you do when the Xander saves the world and Dawn has a sword, you run out of damsels.
--------------------------
*Break
C: Joss involvement this season. You did mention about the first episode for next season.
J: Yes it is my understanding that Joss will be writing that episode himself. He will also be more involved with Angel.
C: Her digging out of the hole, had to be intentional.
J: Absolutely, crawling about out of the grave.
K: Did you dye her hair?
J: No it was a wig. She was really uncomfortable. Plus she had those enormous contact lens. Painful to put in. She was out on the bluff and they had scattered charred earth around and it was blowing all this dirt in her eyes. You can see she her eyes are almost closed.
K: Has Sunnydale always been on the coast?
J: We figure it's near Santa Barbara, and of course that is why the Shumash tribe would be the local tribe.
C: How do you feel when the fans transfer their anger to you on the boards etc.
J: It does get tiring because you bond with the show so much and even if the decision isn't yours. You have to take responsibility for it and defend it. Where maybe if you were a fan you would not be happy about it. Also the fans know the episodes better than we do. We always have a blast at the PBP. This Tara thing is probably going to be really hard on us, because you do find yourself getting defense and feeling misunderstood.
C: We asked David Fury about defending things last week. We asked him how difficult that is, how about you.
J: Less difficult for me. Fury has very independent ideas. He is the most extreme and I am the most likely to hop on board. I tend to pretty much love everything we've done. Here's one, a think cut from sleeping with Parker. Harsh Light Of Day. All the fans were very upset, that Buffy got so hung up on this guy. A bit got cut where she said look at me, I am doing something that doesn't have to do with Angel. I was upset that got cut.
J: I had to defend Buffy being with Parker and that cut. There have been some where I have been skeptical, the attempted rape. But then I saw it and I was like I can groove with that.
--------------------
*Talk about Giles
J: We thought about having him come back for the wedding, but we felt the impact to wait was better. Cut scene about how Giles sent the flowers for the wedding.
K: I thought it was so great, that Giles showed up, but then there was this fear that he might die.
J: Yeah that was very plausible, we thought you all might fall for it.
C: What is the situation with Ripper.
J: I think we will have some Giles next season on Buffy. Ripper I have no idea, I think Joss was working on a treatment, but then Firefly got all hot and hairy. I haven't heard about it lately.
C: No glasses.
J: Yes Joss specifically said no glasses for Giles in this episode.
J: Ok, who thinks Giles and Anya should get together?
-----------------------------
*Talk about Giles and Anya
J: I think it would be interesting, I think it's better to have relationships with obstacles in them.
C: Otherwise it's Buffy and Riley.
C: So cast for next season is exactly the same for next season?
J: Well Tara won't be back next season. There are going to be new recurring characters but I don't think any new regulars. Possibly a new high school principal.
K: New Sunnydale High?
J: They are rebuilding it right now.
C: Anya has not shown any remorse, everyone seems to have forgotten her past.
J: I believe Anya does have a soul.
C: As a Vengeance Demon?
J: Yes. Would you say have Lorne has a soul?
C: Clem, Clem.
J: Vengenace is not random evil. Remember what Hallie said, we prefer Justice Demons. I don't think that Anya just happens to be a demon, means she is soulless.
J: It is very sad that Tara is gone. It discredits her to say she not more than just a lesbian. She is not just a label. Even as we debate the politics of killing her... It is a tricky situation and I don't want to make light of it. We make our characters very fully faceted. We make them with so much texture and reality, I like to think they are so much more than if they write demon on their college application.
-----------------------
