Fandom Friday: The Whedonverse

Joss Whedon Ruins Lives

Happy Friday everyone!  So for those of you who don't know, Joss Whedon is a writer and has made and directed some pretty popular TV shows and a couple of movies, and he is a life ruin-er.  Right now he is most known for his work with Marvel; The Avengers, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Agents of Shield. But before he struck it big with the comic book nerds, he had a couple of other TV shows that gave him some serious nerd cred.  The two shows I want to draw attention to today are arguably his two most beloved shows: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly.

Buffy Summers: Vampire Slayer 
This show, created back in the 90's, introduced viewers to a cast of characters that would live on in pop culture for years to come.  I stumbled upon this show on Netflix not too long ago and found myself engrossed in the world Whedon created.  I had always heard people praising the show for its great characters and interesting story line, but I didn't believe it until I witnessed it myself.  Buffy was a surprisingly complicated character, she is not just girly and can dust some vamps, but she is a leader and she developed wonderfully from the normal teenage girl (besides the monitoring of the hell mouth) to a strong and independent woman by the shows end.  She had some love ups, some soul crushing downs, and died twice and she proved time and time again that she could handle herself in almost any situation.  She would have not have made it nearly as far as she did without her Scooby Gang.  She had Giles: her British father figure and watcher, Willow: best friend, talented and powerful witch, and computer nerd, and Xander: her close, funny guy friend who could always see everything for what it was.  Some other characters worth mentioning are Buffy's vampire hunks: Angel and Spike.  Angel was Buffy's boyfriend for awhile and he has a soul, but really while he is gorgeous, he is there to brood.  This was enough to land him his own TV spinoff called Angel that followed him around while he brooded and felt sorry for himself and helped people.  My favorite character in the entire show,hands down, was Spike!  Spike was interesting and complicated.  He's funny, honest, cunning, sassy, brave, selfish, British, and so much more!  He could steal the scene by just being himself, and I just love him for sticking to who he is and for developing a great deal as the show went on.  Anyways, this show developed pretty much all of its characters wonderfully and kept the show interesting by thinking of new ways to torture the poor people in Sunnydale.  If you are looking for a show that is cork-y, somewhat scary, has compelling characters, and will occasionally make you bawl your eyes out and wish you no longer had emotions, then this show is for you!

Finding Serenity
After the success of Buffy, Whedon created a new show that was a beautiful combination of science fiction and western called Firefly.  However, for whatever reasons, this show did not have the best of luck while it was on air.  The episodes weren't shown in order and due to low ratings, the show was cancelled before the first season could even end.  This left 14 episodes to its name, but eventually a movie was made to tie up the loose ends a couple years later, called Serenity.  I am sure by now some of you are wondering why a cancelled TV show with a movie be worth mentioning, but since the show's tragic demise, it has been raised to a cult status and has millions of fans around the world weeping for the show that never continued.  Let me tell you some cool stuff about Firefly.  First, its shiny; the show is set in the future and humans have been settling on different planets across the stars wherever they can.  Some of these planets are well-off and advanced in technology while some are poorer and force their inhabitants to live almost like the the days of the old west.  So Firefly is a cargo ship and the ship is named Serenity.  The captain, Mal, leads his crew on adventures to get money by working whatever jobs they can find, often smuggling things illegally.  Second in command is Zoe and her husband, Wash, is the pilot.  Kaylee keeps the ship flying, and Jayne helps out on most of the job.  Inara is a companion who owns her own part of Serenity ans will accompany the crew whenever she is not busy with her own work.  Then in the first episode we are introduced to the other eventual members of this rag tag crew, Shepherd who is like a priest, Dr. Simon Tam and his sister River; stowaways on the run because of some program that messed with River's brilliant mind.  Together, everyone tries to survive whatever situation their jobs get them into and it is all like cowboys in space!  The show itself is well-written and creates such an interesting universe with such empathetic characters.  In the movie though, things got serious and the fandom is forever scarred by the emotional trauma caused by the cruel storytelling of Whedon.  Really though, this show is amazing and the movie is fantastic! take the time to watch both the show and the movie on Netflix, it's not like it will take that much time (just typing that made me die a little inside). 

Well that is all for this week folks!  Have you seen either of these shows?  Have you been personally victimized by Joss Whedon?  Comment down below your thoughts and I will see you all next week!  Have a great weekend!