Pateman's Ponderings - the musings of Matthew Pateman

Amazon.co.uk Widgets Giles is one of my favourite characters in the whole Whedonverse - erudite, awkward, brave, shy, resilient, loving and, oh yea, British he is a rich, textured, lovable, complex figure. When it was reported years ago that there might be a spin-off television series include BBC involvement and to be called Ripper , I was so excited. As I was to hear about the new four-part mini-series from Black Horse that will feature Giles investigating disappearances at an inner city LA high school Whedon  worked with global franchises long before  Buffy  aired on TV, and the Marvel brand in particular. Whedon had been involved on the X-Men film project in 1994, although very little of his input can be seen in the final movie, and then in 2004 he was given the opportunity to take over the comic book series. The first two limited seasons had run in the 1990s, and Whedon with illustrator John Cassaday took the helm between 2004 and 2008. A rev...

Amazon.co.uk Widgets Superstar is one of my favourite Buffy  episodes. As Espenson makes clear, the idea came straight from Whedon, with the teaser pretty much fully-formed. But even so, the shifts (even subtle tiny ones from draft to draft in the teaser) demonstrate again, the writer's craft and the fraught relationship between structure, form and creativity. Even the development of the stage directions between drafts one and two relating to the opening of scene 11 (presumably to provide the production design team with as much information as possible) illustrate the attention to detail that is required to get an episode (the outcome of which seems inevitable) on air. Espenson makes some interesting comments about it, some snippets of which are below. There is no outline for this episode so we start with draft one Here is draft two  And draft three For the shooting scripts, check out this link to Amazon and this one for Buffy's 20th Anniversar...

Amazon.co.uk Widgets Pangs is one of my all-time episodes from the whole Mutant Enemy catalogue. Very ordinary in amny ways (none of the plot drama of Innocence or Surprise, for example, or the formal reach of Hush or Once More With Feeling, or The Body, it is an exemplary demonstration of how extraordinary Buffy  is, even when it is just being normal. The serious, if flawed, treatment of the theme; the cross-over aspect with Angel ; the casual generic hybridity; the brilliant cuts from scene to scene with astonishing tonal, narratorial and character-related balancing. It is a tour de force of an experienced writer and director working together in an established franchise and creating something both thoroughly recognisable, and totally new in that franchise. As we shall see below, Espenson has interesting things to say about its genesis and composition, but for now, here are the drafts. They are just brilliant!! The outline is here . First draft here Second dra...

This is an episode I turn to with amazing regularity. It was the cornerstone of my first major keynote address at the Whedon Studies Association conference in Arkansas in 2008; the image I'm using here will, I hope, be the cover image of my new book, and the episode's importance in showing us the post-Angel Buffy and the post- Angel Buffy  is staggering. Espenson has some great insights into the ep, a couple of which I offer below. The Outline is here  First draft Second draft Third Draft Espenson says, "You'll notice a big change in Parker between the first and second drafts –- Joss pointed out that his insincerity was too clear in the first draft, so I tried to write him more genuine after that". and also, "This episode was another case, like ‘Superstar’, in which we wrote an extended role for an actor who had previously only had a much smaller part (Mercedes, Harmony). We gambled that she'd be able to do this and she was mu...

Amazon.co.uk Widgets When I was born for the 7 th time – The rise of Cool Britannia and the continuation of the legacy of cruel Britannia Released about a week after the death of Princess Diana, and three days after Mother Teresa’s,   When I was born for the 7 th time by Cornershop found itself imbricated in a complicated British national culture. At once represented as radically changing, a post-Diana re-alignment of loyalties to royalty ; an expressive, emotionally literate civil society; an artistic power house of Cool Britannia; and a modern, progressive post-imperial nation whose global ambitions centred on the benevolence of the Commonwealth, the trading strength and righteousness of the European Union, and the expanding peace-bringer of NATO; Britain was re-branding itself (and its history) for the new millennium to come. Cornershop fitted this moment perfectly. Ironically named by its founders Tjinder and Avtar Singh, two Wolverhampton lads whose band...

This is the next instalment of my series of drafts to scripts by Jane Espenson during her time at Mutant Enemy. 'Earshot' is one of the most controversial episodes of  Buffy  due to its coincidental scheduling in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre. The CEO of the WB (the network that aired the show at that time), Jamie Keller announced that, 'the episodes ‘Earshot’ (3.18) and ‘Graduation Day II’ (3.22) would be postponed out ‘of sympathy for the people in those […]’. The seeming acceptance that media violence is more of an issue in relation to attacks such as these than, for example, gun control, mental health, inequalities etc. etc prompted Sarah Michelle Gellar to issue a statement that said, ‘By cancelling intelligent programming like Buffy , corporate entertainment is not addressing the problem’. Whedon, in typically acerbic fashion said the following on a Bronze post: On the inevitable subject, as far as pre-empting the ep, I agreed ...

The next re-release from The Boy and the Moon. With apologies to foot fetishists...