PARTIE II
Lire la partie I

IGNFF: Now, I've always been interested in the butchering of the film script in execution. Looking back in hindsight, with the skills you have now, was there anything you could have said, could have maneuvered, that would have had an impact on how the script was realized?

WHEDON: Yes and no. The fact of the matter is, I remember having a conversation with Kristy Swanson. She was like, "Please, tell me how to do this. Tell me what you want." I literally said, "I can't." Because I have always treated film and television like the army, and I'm very strict about it. It was not my place. It was the director's movie. At that point I was there to try and help the director realize her vision, and that's all. Even though it was my script and all this stuff, the director... who had also financed, gotten the film off the ground. Fran Kuzui came in when nobody else wanted the film, said, "We're going to put this together"... And they did. Howard Rosenman and Sandollar and all of that. Without them, there would be no film – and possibly not this phone conversation. So I didn't agree with the way the movie was going, but I also kept my mouth shut because you respect the director. You do that. You respect the person above you, and you make suggestions and you do your best. You know? But you don't ever disrupt the chain of command. You have to have faith in the person who's running it or things will fall apart. I believe that part of the problem was that the director was unable to control the big, fat, wannabe movie star who came – you know, the old guy...

IGNFF: Initials D.S.?

WHEDON: Donald. They were changing their lines and running roughshod over her and everybody else, and I'm sorry. You can't have that. You have to have faith in the leader, and in that situation the leader has to be the director. In TV, it has to be the producer.

IGNFF: So it was a lesson you learned from Roseanne?

WHEDON: It was just something I've always believed. I thought they were f***ing up and I thought they should have filmed some of the things I wrote. I thought that they should have let me into the process. Sometimes I know that I haven't spoken out when I should have, and I've been too timid – because I'm basically terrified of confrontation. Or there's times when I think, "Ahh, if only I'd taken over and done something Machiavellian to get control of this or that." But I've always believed you have to respect the person who's doing it, no matter what. If you're John Wayne in Fort Apache, you follow Henry Fonda – even though he's going to get everybody killed. That's what you do.

IGNFF: You'll get them back four pictures later when you've had a promotion.

WHEDON: I'm not interested in getting anybody back or getting at anybody. All I'm interested in is when it's my turn to lead, that I can lead. That people afford me the same respect that I did. Because now that I'm actually in charge, I do things the same way. I'm open to suggestion, I'm interested in what people have to say – my word is final. I will not brook anybody basically coming down against it, once it's been said. That's just how it works.

IGNFF: Is there any way that you see that you could have possibly enlightened Fran a bit more, as to the tone or style that the script was written in?

WHEDON: No. She had a thing she wanted to do. She was into the comedy of it – she didn't want to make a B horror movie, that's not her style. That's her decision. That's her right. What can you say? The director gets to take over. Now, somebody should protect the script, somebody should be there to do that. Directors have to be storytellers and all that stuff, and some are better than others. I'm talking about movie directors, because a TV director has to do that as much as they can, but ultimately are in service to the executive producer. The producer is the one who has to do that. But, you know, as Jeanine put it once, or probably more than once, "A director doesn't have to create anything, but he is responsible for everything." Same thing goes for an executive producer on TV. I don't have to write a line of the script – although there's not a script for my shows that I don't have a line in, or a scene, or a pitch, or something. I don't sew the damn costumes, I don't say the words – but I'm responsible for everything in every frame of every show. That's my job, whether or not I'm directing the episode. So that's why you have to have that complete faith, that kind of blind faith in a leader who has the ability to lead. I don't know... I just also think leadership is something that is earned. I respected those above me, and demand the same from those below me. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's one thing that helped keep the show together, is I had a clear vision and I was willing to share the credit with my extraordinary staff, crew, and the cast. I mean, obviously, I'm not writing novels – I'm doing collaborative work. But at the same time, I had a couple of people challenge me on my authority, and they found out quickly that they do not brook that.

IGNFF: Where would those challenges originate from? In what aspects?

WHEDON: People becoming unhappy if I changed something or if I was controlling or if I had something ... either pull something out from under me, or complaining about me to staff or something. I'm all for giving people their due and all, but I wouldn't let it lie. You just can't.

IGNFF: How would you deal with those challenges?

WHEDON: I would take them either aside or up to my office and explain why they mustn't do that. It's very simple. I said to one director... he said, "One of these days, I'm going to come down and look over your shoulder while you're shooting." I brought him up to my office the next day and I said, "Let me explain something to you. It is my job to control the way you shoot, not your job to control mine. My name comes at the end of every show. You do very good work and you're going to come back for us, but I am never going to let you do something that I don't approve of."

IGNFF: He understood that?

WHEDON: Yeah. He did, actually.

IGNFF: Do you think occasionally, as part of the position, you do have to lay down that "mission statement" for people?

WHEDON: Yeah, and I think I could have done a better job of doing that with the actors on Buffy. I think we were all so young and so fresh and so crazed when we started, that I let a lot of tension on the set. In trying to be everybody's friend, and so excited to be doing this work, and sort of assuming we'd all get along, I let a lot of non-constructive emotion take open sway on the set, when I should have just put the hammer down and said, "You know what? We're here to do the work. Everybody, just get it done."

IGNFF: Does it make it harder to try and do that later?

WHEDON: Yes. Yes, because you'd set precedent, and that's something you have to learn. I was 31, had never run anything before, and most of my people were pretty new. We all were just sort of, "This is so exciting!" It seemed like we were all going to link arms and march towards the camera singing "La Marseilles." That ain't the case. It can't be.

IGNFF: "Let's make our single season on the air something to remember"...

WHEDON: Exactly. I mean, it felt like that. Come season two, it's like, "Well, you're our buddy! We can just misbehave, because you're our buddy, right? So it doesn't matter, because you're just one of us." I was like, "Whoops. I think I can do that better."

IGNFF: What was the biggest problem with trying to rein it in?

WHEDON: You know, it was just people getting their personal issues or their rivalries or whatever it was, letting them creep into the energy of the set. That was the problem. I should have been more in control, more concerned with the energy of the set as it affected the crew. Because, ultimately, the crew are people you have to protect – more than people I think sometimes realize. It's funny... I said to one reporter one time, and I told my wife this, I said, "You know, the first year, it was like we were all on Ecstasy. Everybody loved each other, everybody hated each other, and nobody wanted to go home." Because I was literally there all night – I'd sleep on the couch. My wife very quietly said, "Not anymore." I was like, "This round to you. The game is far from over!"

IGNFF: "We'll meet again!"

WHEDON: "We'll meet again! Probably when I come back into the kitchen." It's very true, the energy of a set is a very important thing. My cast... by the way, I'm talking about things that, on a Hollywood scale, are tiny. My cast always came to play, always came knowing their stuff, doing the work, doing the best. Whatever bad energy they had before the cameras rolled, they didn't put it on the screen. But at the same time, there was a lot of tension. Who that bleeds into are the crew, people who come in before – I was the only person coming in before the crew, and staying after the crew, and I get paid better. So I can't complain. They were the people there first and there last, and energy like that flows down a chute, it makes it not as much fun a place. Still, this stuff kind of calmed down, we went seven years, we all kind of grew up. By the end, more professional.

IGNFF: Were relations frayed in this past season?

WHEDON: Well, you know, there was some things...

IGNFF: There was a recent interview that came out with Freddy Prinze, Jr. ...

WHEDON: The thing about the nonsense? He was quoted as saying, "Sarah had to deal with a lot of nonsense," and I was like, "Okay, Fred. I never saw you on set, so I'm not really sure what you're referring to, but bless ya. Bless ya. By the way, I still know what you did last summer, buddy."

IGNFF: Scooby Dooby Doo.

WHEDON: Oh god. There was tension on set. Not everybody was best of friends, and in fact we did not link arms and sing "La Marseilles." But we made the show as well as we could for seven years, and you know, everybody made it together.

IGNFF: Was there a sense of burnout towards the end, as far as everyone looking on to what the future was going to hold?

WHEDON: Yeah, that started around season three. So it was sort of like, "We're still here, guys. I know you guys are doing movies, it's very exciting ... Oh, so it's Dangerous Liaisons, but with kids – that's going to be fun. We still have to make the show. Is anybody with me?"

IGNFF: "It's a movie about a pie? That's great..."

WHEDON: My one biggest priority of the show is that Aly becomes a sex symbol, and now she has – so I'm very happy about that. But, you know, you have to keep people's head in the game.

IGNFF: There was this perception towards the early years that it was one big happy family, greatest set in Hollywood, and I guess the only time that anything belying that ever came to the forefront was the transition from the WB to UPN.

WHEDON: Yeah. Well, you know, again, the tensions I'm talking about are a small thing – but you asked what lessons I had learned, and one of the most important ones was "When you're a leader, you can't be everybody's buddy." You have to be a leader. That doesn't mean you can't be kind, that doesn't mean you can't be friends, it just means you have to be a leader. You have to know the difference and when to exercise the difference. And the fact of the matter is, in year five, we all planned to come back. The problem was with outsiders. The problem was with the network and the studio – it wasn't with each other. Ultimately, the move to UPN wasn't really a test of anything, because they were still working for me – same crew, same cast, you know? Same 48 audience members.

IGNFF: I hear it made it to 49 by the end of seven. A friend told a friend.

WHEDON: You know, I never even looked at the ratings for the last episode. I don't even know if they went up at all.

IGNFF: I know there was an upswing.

WHEDON: Oh, that's nice. You know, that was just dispiriting – but then Dean Valentine rode in on his white horse and made it all better, but that wasn't a problem on the set. On set, it was the usual.

IGNFF: I know one thing that I definitely wanted to ask... there's a lot of people that noticed a tonal shift when things moved from WB to UPN....

WHEDON: Yeah.

IGNFF: In retrospect, looking back at season six, it tonally existed for a reason – that's where the character was at...

WHEDON: That's why that tonal shift. It wasn't like UPN said, "Make it different," or we had a feeling that UPN wanted to do things differently. That was where we went in our heads for season six. The funny thing is, I came out of season five and I said to the writers, "You know what..." – I looked at the season as a whole, and I would do this every year – "here's what I loved, I'm really proud, we did great work. Here's what we could do better on. Here's what we need more of." One of the things was, "I feel like we need to be funnier." And then I came up with season six. But it was true. I was like, "You know, season five, we got very much into this one space. And there was a feeling – I like that anarchic feel we had in the earlier seasons, of bouncing back and forth between comedy and tragedy. Let's try and get back to that." That was why we had the nerds. But at the same time, bringing somebody back from the dead is not something you do lightly. I had done it before, so I knew. I'm not talking about Buffy, I'm talking about Ripley.

IGNFF: The original draft.

WHEDON: Yeah.

IGNFF: It seemed like the shifting in season six was to extremes...

WHEDON: You know, it was very extreme. We really went to a dark, dark place. We got sort of... people talk about the creative meltdown. I've said this before, that I think when people look at the seventh season, as a story, they'll understand season six better. I also understand that it got too depressing for too long, but I don't think all of my instincts are perfect. In fact, the interesting thing was that Sarah took Marti Noxon aside and said, "You know what? I feel depressed. I feel like I want Buffy back. I feel like we've run on this path, and I feel like it's time to sort of reclaim her." I had the exact same conversation with Marti on the same day. So she had her conversation with Sarah and came back to me, "You're not going to believe this." That was always the way it was.

IGNFF: Well, the interesting thing was to compare that to season seven. Looking at season seven, it started off completely different than what it evolved into. Because I remember you had made comments that it's going to be a return to roots, and Sunnydale High is opening again. But, tonally, it seemed like Buffy almost regressed back into the dark things that one had thought she'd grown out of over the course of season six.

WHEDON: Well, the problem was season six took us to a dark place, and that dark place we lost Buffy – and I think that's why people didn't respond to it, because they always had Buffy to lean on. No matter how sad she got, she was still Buffy. In six she was really questioning her very identity. People didn't want that. That upset them. It was like they didn't have their anchor. So it didn't matter if you have something tight or interesting or thematic or funny – they wanted that anchor back. I get that. In season seven, it wasn't like we weren't going to put her through her paces. Buffy in pain is a staple of the show from season one. As [David] Greenwalt and I told each other very early on – "Buffy in pain, story more interesting. Buffy not in pain, story not interesting." So we couldn't just have her be like, "La-di-da, do-di-do, all is well," for a season, because – hey, show not about that. The dark place we took her to was about, "I'm accepting my power, my responsibility, and my leadership, and those are hard things to deal with." So, inevitably, she got kind of bummed out, because that's how you tell the story. The hero goes through something and then they resolve it.

IGNFF: I think the odd thing was when you had a dozen episodes of a different speech each episode...

WHEDON: You know, we got into some speeches, because she had these potentials. I think the flaw of the season for me was that we were so clearly focused on what we wanted to do at the end of the season that we had to sort of get to it in a lot of episodes. Even though they contained things that I loved individually as single episodes, they were just part of a whole – not of themselves enough, a little bit. Also, when you're dealing with potentials, you have huge guest casts – which is just a nightmare to try and find people who work, and register. We found some good ones, but it's really hard – especially when you have an ensemble that's large, that your audience really cares about. But I had to get the potentials in there.

IGNFF: I think what's interesting, especially dealing with the potentials, is that I know going in – with the comments you had made previous to the season – my thought was it's going to be a rededication to the core group throughout the season. It seemed the introduction of the potentials – and here's a dozen potentials and new characters accompanying them – that it diluted the core group that we care about ...

WHEDON: Yeah, I think it did, and I had to get to that ending. The problem is it's very hard to find a bunch of people that can suddenly come in and be important, or even just be sort of noise in the frame while you're dealing with your characters and really get it done. Like I said, we found really good people. But, you know, you do want to deal with your core characters. The other thing is, you've been dealing with your core characters for seven years. It's kind of hard. You know their tricks, you know their strengths and weaknesses, and you're trying to drum up a new thing for them to go through, you know, a new thing for them to express, and it's harder. It's just harder.

IGNFF: I know personally, looking at the characters, it's almost like the things that happened to every one of them through those last two seasons – right down to what happened with Xander and Anya – it's almost like the audience was being punished for having an investment in the characters. Can't somebody have a happy ending?

WHEDON: Well, you know, everybody had a happy ending... except, well, not so much Anya.

IGNFF: I can understand relationships tend not to work, but couldn't one relationship work?

WHEDON: Well, Willow and Kennedy worked. Maybe you weren't invested in that in the last one, but they were hanging at the end ... One of my characters will still have a girlfriend when they cancelled the show, and it was Willow.

IGNFF: The Kennedy thing almost seemed more of a predatory relationship.

WHEDON: Kennedy is, as she herself said, a bit of a brat. What I wanted was an anti-Tara. I wanted somebody who was as different from Tara as possible. Tara was very reticent, and she was somebody that Willow caused to blossom. What I wanted was somebody who was further on down in dealing with her sexuality than Willow ever was. Somebody who was totally confident, who was totally not earthy-crunchy, who was a completely different person. What I wanted to explore was the concept of Willow moving on. We did that with the first kiss, that turned her into Warren. The first time they had sex, the things that Willow has to deal with emotionally, her fear of her power and stuff, and Kennedy's kind of involvement in that. That's what Kennedy was for.

IGNFF: In execution, it almost seemed like it was a predatory, stalker type, "I'm always here, you're going to give in to me. You're going to give in to me – I'm in your bed!" kind of relationship...

WHEDON: Well, it didn't seem like that to me. It was more like, "I'm really cute. I think you're cute and let's get it on." People are always like, "Oh, they didn't even have a relationship." They had a long talk about, "When did you come out?" and this whole thing at the Bronze that we had never done with Tara, that we very deliberately saying, "Okay, they're starting a relationship." What I was interested in was Willow's guilt, that her life could go on, that her love life could go on after Tara, because that's a part of living. Quite frankly, that was not plan A. Plan A was to bring Tara back.

IGNFF: I heard there were some failed discussions about that.

WHEDON: Amber didn't want to do it. She wanted to do other things. I had a whole – I used to tell people, "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to have her in a couple of flashbacks, keep her alive, and then at the end ..." I had a whole show figured out that ended with the return of Tara. I used to cry every time I pitched it. It was going to be Tara's her one true love, people are going to be blown away, they'll never see it coming – except on the Internet – and it's going to be just about the biggest thing. Quite frankly, Amber just didn't want to do it – which is her decision. I was like, "Okay, the thing where I cried, and we all cried, and I told you about? That's gone. So, instead, we're going to go out and find somebody really hot, and we're going to make this about moving on, because that's the only option we have. I don't want Willow stuck in typical gay celibacy on TV. I'm interested in where her heart will go once she's lost her true love, so let's do that instead." So, you know, hence Kennedy.

IGNFF: On a side tangent, what was the purpose of the – I hesitate to use the phrase – sort of clumsy storytelling with the whole "Giles not touching things" thing...

WHEDON: It was just us having fun.

IGNFF: It didn't seem to really pan out besides making a lot of people crazy on the Internet...

WHEDON: That was just a fun runner for the diehards, so you watch every episode and you're like, "AH! You're right, he leaned on it, but he didn't touch it!" It was just us having a little mystery fun.

IGNFF: It almost reduced the intelligence level of the characters themselves.

WHEDON: Not really. As soon as they figured out he hadn't touched anything for a few episodes, they ran off and dealt with the problem, and figured it out. Boom. It wasn't like they were being idiots. Fact of the matter was, it really was just something to make people wonder. Just to have a little fun in the sense of pulling a mystery. You know, it was never supposed to be a huge thing. It wasn't about Giles's character, it was just about, "Uh, we don't know where the bad guy is, we don't know where he's coming from. Our trusted mentor could be the bad guy." That's a nice creepy thing to do to people, and playing the game of, "Is he touching something? Why didn't he hug her?" You know, it was an exercise, something to spice things up. It was not like a big, dramatic deal. If it didn't work, then oops – but I don't think it's the most important part of the season.

IGNFF: Are there any characters that you think got short-shrift in season seven?

WHEDON: Yeah. You know, I had wanted to go further with Dawn's character.

IGNFF: It seemed like that's how the season was starting out.

WHEDON: You know, it was. The problem was, again, we had so much work to do to get to the end of the season, that everything else kind of fell by the wayside. Unfortunately, Michelle was like, "Never did get that boyfriend you promised me!"

IGNFF: What was the purpose of Joyce's statement to her?

WHEDON: To rattle her. To make her wonder, and then, you know, it was just this sort of said thing. The First trying to set everybody against each other, was all, and I guess against themselves. But I just think Michelle's extremely talented. In season six, people were like, "Oh, she whines so much." I sort of scratched my head. I was like, "Excuse me, she's been abandoned by about six parental figures. The girl has huge issues." At the same time I was like, "You get it... we sort of run the same note for a while, they're not wrong." We needed to make some changes. I'd hoped to be able to do more with Dawn this year, and the bigger picture just got so goddamn big, that it was hard. You get into a situation that you do like to stand alone, that's about an external character – and we already had so many with the goddamn potentials... people don't like them. You're like, "I'm really interested in this little aspect of Dawn's life" – if it's not part of the bigger picture, people resent it. It's very hard to pull that off in season seven of the giant battle that's coming. "Dawn Goes on a Date" is not something that people would really sit for, unless we really nailed it. So it kind of fell by the wayside. She's not the only one, but she's a prime example.

IGNFF: It seemed almost like the pacing of the season was odd.

WHEDON: I think these aren't questions I can really answer right now, because I have no perspective of it. When you're talking about something like pacing, it's like, "Which episode was which?"

IGNFF: That's true. I can see the point... I retract the question.

WHEDON: You certainly don't have to see the point – I just don't really have a comment. I don't have that much of an overview right now.

IGNFF: So which actors are we going to see popping up again in the future, in projects?

WHEDON: Honestly, I don't know. I think of stuff all the time. "Oh, that would be perfect for this person." James [Marsters, Spike], obviously, is going over to Angel. I can't imagine not working with Aly, more than anybody else.

IGNFF: Oh, but what about Andrew?

WHEDON: Oh, don't get me wrong. Tom Lenk rules. I will hound him to the grave. This man is a genius.

IGNFF: Talk about the perfect sidekick for Giles on Ripper. Talk about an odd couple...

WHEDON: He is just a treasure... he really is a treasure. Believe me when I say he pops up in almost everything. Certainly in all my Aly projects. It's like, "There's Tom!" That's fine with her.

IGNFF: Definitely one of the biggest finds of the past two years.

WHEDON: Yeah, he blew us all away, and he's a sweetheart.

IGNFF: Much to Danny's [Danny Strong, Jonathan] dismay.

WHEDON: Danny, you know – you die, you work more then. That's our rule. No, Danny was with us since the presentation. Danny has been with us that long.

IGNFF: Is the presentation ever going to make it to DVD?

WHEDON: Not while there is strength in these bones.

IGNFF: Well, I mean, it's one of the most heavily bootlegged things on the Internet...

WHEDON: Yeah. It sucks on ass.

IGNFF: Yeah, it does, but it's sort of that archival, historical perspective...

WHEDON: Yeah, I've got your historical perspective ...

IGNFF: It would take it off the bootleg market...

WHEDON: Ah, I don't – what are you going to do?

IGNFF: Put it on the DVD.

WHEDON: Not me.

IGNFF: Have you seen the latest, wonderful Internet find of the purported leak of Spike's return on Angel next year?

WHEDON: No. How's it going to happen? Because I need some ideas.

IGNFF: Well let's see. According to this, Spike shows up in the White Room at the beginning of next season, wearing the amulet, naked, turns over, "Oh bloody hell," as Angel and crew stand over him. Cut to credits, come back, Angel and he get in a fight, Angel tries to rip the amulet off. Spike has trouble breathing, they put the amulet back on, find he's connected, and then Wes makes a determination that due to contact with Buffy at the time of death, Spike is human – but is now the first male vampire slayer.

WHEDON: Two words: Fan fic. Utter rubbish.

IGNFF: Isn't Ain't it Cool News great?

WHEDON: Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. I wish we lived in a world without spoilers – but we never will. But that is in fact not true. The great thing is – you read ten ridiculous theories about what is going to happen, and one is absolutely, totally right by accident. Then you just go, "Ha ha! Those ridiculous theories!" and start rewriting.

IGNFF: But it's not this one...

WHEDON: Not this one. It doesn't matter what they write. We'll write what we write.

IGNFF: And we'll know in a couple months.

WHEDON: Yeah.

IGNFF: What are your thoughts on the Internet's role in television production?

WHEDON: The Internet, you know... The bitch goddess that I love and worship and hate. You know, we found out we have a fan base on the Internet. They came together as a family on the Internet, a huge goddamn deal. It's so important to everything the show has been and everything the show has done – I can't say enough about it. It drives me up the frigging wall that I can't keep secrets, that I can't keep things off the Internet. The crewmembers of my own shows are feeding things to the Internet so that people will know what happens before it happens.

IGNFF: Where's the respect for the chain of command?

WHEDON: Apparently, the chain is only as strong as – well, that weak link that's me. It's not respect for the chain of command, it's respect for storytelling. People just don't have it. But you know what? Not everybody reads spoilers, not everybody lives that way. Those are the people that really love the show. I cannot conceive of a person who wants to know what happens. People who turn to the last page of a book – what universe did they come from? I don't understand it. That drives me crazy, but I think the Internet is beyond important in terms of fans communing, becoming a community and growing. People writing each other and writing fiction, and writing, well, porn. All of these things that do what I always wanted Buffy to do, which was exist outside of the TV show. Enter people's own personal ethos. The Internet has been a big part in how that has happened.

IGNFF: What is the current future of Firefly?

WHEDON: The current future of Firefly is that I'm writing a movie script that I have some hope of actually getting made.

IGNFF: Which will be a retelling... ?

WHEDON: No, it will be a completely new story that will be completely true to the series for those people who have seen it or see it on DVD, but will completely reintroduce it to those people who never did. Which makes it a very funny tightrope to walk. I'm basically serving two masters – I want to tell a mythic and exciting and timeless tale about nine people that people have never met, and yet not betray or repeat anything I do on the series. It's going to be tough.

IGNFF: Of course, you could just keep approaching Firefly actors to do more villains.

WHEDON: Yes, I know. It's great. It's great, actually. I plan to... I think I'm going to need another one.

IGNFF: They work well.

WHEDON: Yeah, they do just fine.

IGNFF: In fact, it would have been nice if Caleb had shown up earlier.

WHEDON: Yeah, I think so, too.

IGNFF: Was that naturally where that was going to be?

WHEDON: No, that was us going, "You know what? We need someone to latch onto." Having a villain who can take the form of anybody – and not being able to afford to hire the guest cast – made that really fascinating, but it meant that we didn't really have anything to push against. We needed somebody, we needed a sidekick. Somebody physical that we can see from episode to episode, and it took us a while to realize, which is why he came in.

IGNFF: What is the current production status on the Firefly DVDs?

WHEDON: They should be coming out in the fall. Late fall.

IGNFF: The full-on special edition?

WHEDON: Oh my god. They couldn't be specialer. We've got three unaired episodes, commentary by every cast member, big interviews with everybody, gag reel – all kinds of stuff. It's just bells and whistles, and they'll be in the right order. And widescreen. So it really couldn't be better DVD package... a wicked one, at that. They really went to town on it. I was like, "I don't know if they'll release them on DVD, because it was cancelled," and they're not only releasing it, they're doing everything. I did the commentary on the two-hour pilot with Nathan. He and Alan did one together... Alan Tudyk. It's really exciting.

IGNFF: What has been the difficulty in getting cast members for the Buffy and Angel commentaries?

WHEDON: I don't know. I don't know. You know, it wasn't really broached early on. I think we're getting more sophisticated about how this is done as DVDs have established themselves. DVDs of TV shows have established themselves just in the last couple years ... the only time I ever did one with a cast member was when Marti and Seth and I did one together. That was of course insane, because it was Seth.

IGNFF: Who was on his best behavior.

WHEDON: None of our best behavior is really that good.

IGNFF: Did it surprise you the reaction that the lack of widescreen for Buffy season four on DVD got here in the U.S.?

WHEDON: People were upset, right? I haven't seen the season four package ... it contains a disclaimer from me as to why it's not in widescreen, that I wrote. It's on it, it comes with it. It's not a widescreen show. We shot it in a TV ratio, and I am very, very specific with the way I frame things. To arbitrarily throw – and I love widescreen, but Buffy was never a widescreen show. It was an intimate, TV-shaped show. To arbitrarily throw wider borders on it, to make it more cinematic when I very specifically framed it. Think of "The Body" – the episode "The Body"...

IGNFF: Right, which I've seen in widescreen and full frame...

WHEDON: How could you have seen it in widescreen?

IGNFF: The U.K. sets are in widescreen.

WHEDON: Good. See, that is not the way I framed it. That's not the way it was meant to be seen, and therefore that's not the way I shot it. I'm preserving what I shot. The DVD is there to preserve what we made, for eternity. What we made, very specifically, was a certain shape. So I'm sure there'll be widescreen copies and there'll be arguments about what's better, but I'm not interested in – and I mean, I love widescreen. I'm a widescreen fanatic, when something's wide. When it's not, then I want to see it the way it was meant to be seen.

IGNFF: Were you not consulted for the U.K. sets?

WHEDON: No, I was not. Buffy was never widescreen. Angel is, Firefly was – and was not aired that way. That'll be nice, that it can be shown the way it was meant to be seen. For me, Buffy is a different animal.

IGNFF: What are you working on right now, as far as the future? You mentioned in the past you were working on a self-project completely unrelated to this universe you've created.

WHEDON: Well, I am actually working on the screenplay of Firefly, in my hopes that I can actually get it made. I am actually working on season five of Angel. Right now those are my two priorities.

IGNFF: Working on a single show will be a change after this long.

WHEDON: What a relief.