I think Joss Whedon is over-rated!

[Forbin]

It was a friend of mine (Forbin, actually!) who got me hooked on Buffy back during its second season, and I've been hooked ever since. Buffy The Vampire Slayer remains one of my favorite shows. Hush, the creepy silent episode with the gentlemen as well as the musical Once More With Feeling are my all-time faves.

I could never warm up to Angel, however. Watched the first season and part of the second before I gave up on it.

I loved Firefly--I really enjoyed the fact that it was the anti-Star Trek, with a crew of lovable misfits who were just scrambling around, trying to survive as best they could. And I thought that Serenity was the perfect bookend for the series.

I avoided Dollhouse like the plague at first, because I figured Fox would cancel it immediately. I finally saw it on DVD, and liked it enough to want to follow its second season. Epitaph One was a fascinating look into a very dark future.

If anything, I think Whedon is vastly underrated.

Sean

Ya know, Sean, I'd completely forgotten your screen name here.

 

[Lindley]

have you guys forgotten all the generic, cliched, one-dimensional writing we usually got in our scifi back then?! VOY, Stargate, Sliders, Earth: FC, Zena...

Stargate was actually good "back then". It only got lame and repetitive more recently. I mean, early Jack O'Neill would have fit into a Whedon show just fine. (Well, if Joss could write military characters effectively. I've seen no evidence of this.)

And E:FC had a fantastic first season; sadly Tribune's meddling didn't let that keep up.

I don't know how any self-respecting scifi fan could NOT have been impressed by the witty, fresh, and original writing of Whedon's shows in comparison.

A lot of us just didn't see them back then, in the time they aired. Many of us came "onboard" only after Firefly, or in some cases even more recently. So there's an understandable disconnect from the culture in which Buffy in particular was created.

Which isn't to say it hasn't aged well. For the most part it has. But it's something to keep in mind.

 

[Thrall]

Yeah, he's overrated. Overworshiped too. He'd be great if he wasn't such a nihilist emo-douche. I thought he was the worst at it, then Ron Moore hit the scene and took the title. It kind of just makes getting emotionally involved with his characters utterly pointless because they'll just turn into assholes at some point. Firefly fans don't know how lucky they were it only lasted 13 episodes. His fans were batshit crazy for a while, but they seem to have calmed down now. I mean he's really clever and unpredictable and innovative. But all of that just gets undercut by all the stupid thematic bullshit he likes to put his characters through. And it's hurt him among casual viewers honestly.

 

[IndyJones]

Well... yes. All people who are good and successful at their jobs end up getting overpraised sooner or later.

The only successful thing he has ever done was Buffy.

I'd consider Toy Story pretty successful.

 

[3D Master]

Overrated? Perhaps by some. There are a vocal minority of fans who have elevated Whedon to the status of near-divinity, but most of us fans are able to acknowledge that not everything he's done is perfect (as a few have already done in this thread).

Me, I love a lot of Whedon's work: I consider Buffy, Angel, and Firefly to be amongst the best TV shows of the past 15 years. The characters are interesting and well-written, the dialogue is very snappy, and the plots are refreshing, entertaining, and free of the usual clichés. Sure, Whedon has had a few missteps in his time, but on the whole, I do think he is one of the best genre writers out there, and I'm personally very glad that I discovered his shows.

Agreed. Whedon may not be the second coming or anything, but have you guys forgotten all the generic, cliched, one-dimensional writing we usually got in our scifi back then?! VOY, Stargate, Sliders, Earth: FC, Zena...

I don't know how any self-respecting scifi fan could NOT have been impressed by the witty, fresh, and original writing of Whedon's shows in comparison.

I mean, for me it was a HUGE fucking breath of fresh air-- characters that weren't complelely predictable and evolved over the course of the series, dialogue that was like nothing ever heard on TV before, and story arcs that always kept you guessing about where they'd go next (yeah I know X-Files and B5 did some of those things, but they weren't NEARLY as much fun).

You've never actually watched Xena (that's written with an X, yes) have you? Xena is as far removed from cliched, one-dimensional writing as you can get. It also produced three musical episodes before Joss' one musical episode was even a glimmer in his eye. And that whole thing about Buffy being the first kick ass girl? Nope, that would also be Xena.

 

[Daneel]

^^^^
Hey, I like Xena too, but while she's one of the most notable kick-ass girls, even she's hardly the first.

And Xena had three musical episodes? I remember two ("The Bitter Suite" in Season 3, which was excellent, and "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire" in Season 5, which wasn't as good. Also, the former had original musical numbers, whereas the latter used existing songs). What was the third?

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Hardly anybody watches his shows, they keep getting cancelled. How can he be overrated?

One had a 7 year run, very good by modern standards. One had a 5 year run, not bad either. Of the other two, one was and the other is on a network notorious for prematurely pulling the plug on programs.

Hardly a "losing" record.

By network TV standards all of Whedon's shows are very low rated. And lets's not even get into the BO performance of Serenity

By network TV standards, every show Sci-Fi channel ever showed was low rated, and that includes outstanding work like SG-1 and Atlantis.

"Big 4" scale ratings can only be sustained by one of a few things: "tried and true" formulas like police procedurals, "realiTV", and star pieces. Very rarely does something like Heroes come along that breaks past the "Lowest Common Denominator" barrier.

oh fuck, who woke him up?

Wish someone would lul him back to sleep...

 

[davejames]

You've never actually watched Xena (that's written with an X, yes) have you? Xena is as far removed from cliched, one-dimensional writing as you can get. It also produced three musical episodes before Joss' one musical episode was even a glimmer in his eye. And that whole thing about Buffy being the first kick ass girl? Nope, that would also be Xena.

I admit I saw more of Hercules than Xena at the time, but neither one really impressed me all that much.

Although to be fair, I was never a huge fan of that kind of fantasy genre to begin with.

 

[DWMarch]

3DMaster, I'm not going to try to convince you of anything about Joss Whedon since I already know where you stand and I respect your right to hold your opinion. But I have to observe that you sure watch a lot of this guy's material despite your strong dislike (would it be fair to call it hatred even?) of his work.

Just FYI, he's got a movie coming out soon called Cabin In The Woods. Don't watch it, you won't like it.

 

[3D Master]

^^^^
Hey, I like Xena too, but while she's one of the most notable kick-ass girls, even she's hardly the first.

And Xena had three musical episodes? I remember two ("The Bitter Suite" in Season 3, which was excellent, and "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire" in Season 5, which wasn't as good. Also, the former had original musical numbers, whereas the latter used existing songs). What was the third?

I think you've missed the Wild West Town episode which was also a musical.

"The Bitter Suite" is where Xena and Gabrielle get sucked into a circle and have to deal with their problems through song.

"Lyre Lyre Hearts on Fire" is IIRC the Greek Hollywood / Broadway episode.

Then there's a third musical Wild West Town episode, of which I don't know the title of. I may also have switched the latter two.

And were their strictly speaking a kick-ass females before Xena, yes, but not those who had their own tv series. (And I'm not counting 70s/80s Bionic Woman and Charlie's Angels. They were never kick-ass. They outsmarted their opponents and pointed a gun, they weren't genuinely as tough as men and actually fought like men, and were sweet girly girls throughout their shows.)

 

[Pingfah]

By network TV standards all of Whedon's shows are very low rated. And lets's not even get into the BO performance of Serenity

By network TV standards, every show Sci-Fi channel ever showed was low rated, and that includes outstanding work like SG-1 and Atlantis.

Erm, every show Sci-fi Channel ever showed wasn't on Network TV.

 

[Amaris]

His work is cliche ridden

Anti-cliche-ridden, actually. He's always been about taking the cliches and then doing the opposite, ever since the beginning. The very concept of Buffy was to take the "blond girl enters dark alley and is killed by monster" cliche and turn it around to "blond girl enters dark alley and kicks monster ass."

Remember "The Train Job"? The cliche would have been for Crow to give his bad-guy speech, and then the show to be about him chasing down Serenity for the rest of the season. Instead, Mal just disposes of the threat immediately.

If breaking cliches in this manner has at this point become the cliche, it's in no small part due to Joss' own success at the matter.

and filled with corny one liners

Yeah, but he does them so much better than most other writers! And they flow so naturally from the characters who speak them (which isn't, contrary to popular belief, all of his characters) that any cheese value they might have had is generally swallowed up by awesome. Not in every case, but in many.

his plot lines are unoriginal too.

Granted. But then, Joss' plots have always been a showcase for the characters, not the other way around. Nobody watched Buffy for the monster-of-the-week.

In many of his shows It's the fact that the actors bond so well and invest much into their characters to make the shows better than average.

Which is in no small part a credit to his (and his associates') casting choices.

I wasn't too enthusiastic about Dollhouse for most of its run. I'm still fairly lukewarm. But now that I've seen "Epitaph One" and I know just where it's all going.....I would be disappointed if we didn't see it get there.

"Epitaph One" is exactly the sort of thing I like Joss for. He takes a show about a brothel and turns it into a show about the apocalypse in a single episode.

So, is Joss Whedon overrated? By some, probably. But he seems to be underrated by just as many people, if not more. The truth is somewhere in the middle, as always.

You've managed to sum up exactly how I feel on the matter! Convenient!

J.

 

[Lindley]

 

[sidious618]

Come to think of it, I did enjoy Toy Story.

 

[Lindley]

Joss also did an uncredited rewrite of the first Speed movie. A significant amount of the dialog and even a couple of the plot twists are his.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

By network TV standards all of Whedon's shows are very low rated. And lets's not even get into the BO performance of Serenity

By network TV standards, every show Sci-Fi channel ever showed was low rated, and that includes outstanding work like SG-1 and Atlantis.

Erm, every show Sci-fi Channel ever showed wasn't on Network TV.

Network or cable, it would have gotten the same ratings...my point is that low ratings (in the eyes of the Big 4 networks) does not mean a bad show, as there are plenty of very GOOD shows on cable that would be considered failures by Big 4 ratings standards.

 

[Infern0]

He as far away from not overrated as he can get. He's so overrated an new word should be invented just for how overrated he is. Like say: Whedon-level overrated.

Hahaha

I love it, that's going to be my new saying for anything overrated "that's so overrated, id almost go so far as to say its WHEDON overrated"

 

[I am not Spock]

Gee, I didn't know there were so many haters.

Personally, he hasn't let me down yet. I've loved all of his shows.

 

[barnaclelapse]

For the most part, I've never been a fan of Joss Whedon's work. That's pretty far from a new development in my life. I've watched a great majority of his work and only bits and pieces of it have managed to keep my attention. Nothing against the people who enjoy his work. I've just never really been able to get into most of it.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Gee, I didn't know there were so many haters.

This? This is nothing! You should have been here duing the war over Serenity...we like to fought the Unification War all over again!