Does Joss Whedon know why his shows are good?

[jthwilliams]

Looking at his history or at least what I know of it I see;
Buffy: Mostly Good, fairly popular, some episodes rank in the best ever broadcast
Angel: mostly *EDIT* weakish character with non evolving story lines *END EDIT* but popular because of its association with Buffy
Firefly: Very good written, intelligent funny, not quite as popular
Dr Horrible Sing along blog: fantastic writing and story and somewhat popular.
Serenity the movie: fairly popular, poorish story

EDIT

Glee; Very popular, some episodes are very good others are pure crap

Glee was not a Joss Whedon project, He worked on an episode and for some reason I misremembered that as it being one of his project, my apologies.

I also left out doll's House. I never really watched that show, I think I caught 1 episode so I don't know it well enough

END EDIT


He seems to be all over the place and I don?t know if he is trying to find a medium where he can have both incredible writing and popularity or if he just doesn?t actually understand what makes the projects he works on classics with extremely loyal following or popular with casual fans and just randomly hits one or the other.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Buffy.

Fairly popular. Right.

 

[Dags90]

Pretty sure Glee is made by Ryan Murphy, creator of Popular and Nip/Tuck.

Oh how I miss the Tuna twins.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I may just be sacrificing major nerd cred here but . . .

His shows are good?

 

[Stealthygamer]

Pretty sure Glee is made by Ryan Murphy, creator of Popular and Nip/Tuck.

Yep, I just wikipedia'd and imdb'd it and Joss Wheden had nothing to do with Glee at all

 

[Stealthygamer]

double post sorry

 

[Snake Plissken]

I may just be sacrificing major nerd cred here but . . .

His shows are good?

This was my thought exactly.

I can't even tell you why his shows are good. I can't think of one that is.

Or perhaps it's just that I still hold a grudge against him for ruining the Alien franchise.

 

[joshuaayt]

I'm of the "Whedon? Fuck, I LOVE Firefly! Wait, he does other stuff?" crowd. I don't care how good the rest is, because Firefly is enough for me. Even Serenity, even though it obviously had to be written to plug the gaping hole in Firefly lore left by Fox's inevitable betrayal the show's cancellation and suffered for it.

 

[DarkRyter]

I like Glee and all (in fact, besides from Dr. Horrible, it's the only thing I've actually seen that's on the list), but Joss Whedon didn't have anything to do with Glee.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Kinda tempted to put "because they get cancelled and nostalgia follows?"

 

[arikata]

Well Whedon did direct one episode of Glee...I forget which one, it was the one with Neil Patrick Harris (of course).

I'm firmly in the camp of Whedon=Nerd God.





=

 

[TakerFoxx]

Angel was crap? Okay, fourth season was crappy, but on the whole that was a solid show. And no mention of Dollhouse? The show that had five or six lousy episodes and then became pure gold for the rest of its run? And Serenity has a poorish story? For shame.

Okay, I kid (mostly). My point is, his writing and plots strike the right cord with some people. Okay, so a lot of people. I guess most of his stuff really isn't you thing, which is fine! But at the same time, there are a lot of people (like myself) who really dig his stories. Differences of taste.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Double post, move along.

 

[tFMechanic]

I would say the reason that Whedon's shows are so good is because he never looks down on the audience. He always assumes that we, the viewers, are at least as intelligent as he is and writes to that kind of level. He doesn't stop to explain all the obvious stuff, he demands your attention and focus and you give it without a second thought - especially when you've seen his stuff before because you know it will be worthwhile.

 

[WolfThomas]

I don't think he knows why they're good, he just does what he likes and for the most part it's a succcess.

Things Joss does that are in his favour:
-Dialogue
-Juggles characters
-Writes women well

 

[EvilPicnic]

Wow. Your generalisations make my eyes hurt, and you are wrong in almost every aspect. Your dismissal of Angel, inclusion of Glee (wtf) and exclusion of Dollhouse is especially ignorant.

I think Joss Whedon knows full well how good his shows are - and his knowledge has let him craft show after show of Whedony goodness. It's just a shame the networks haven't seen the same.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

I really got into Angel, the character arcs, how it complimented and added more to Buffy.
And the back in time segments in episodes, that I liked too.

Some time ago back in Ireland, people got torn up and bloody vampires make-out.