What I'd Do With #14 - Angel Spinoff
Jun. 13th, 2006 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Haven't done one of these in a bit, and I figured it was time again...
As is often the case with these things, it started with some message board post, on the topic of 'what kind of Buffyverse spinoff would you like to see?'. So, hearing the typical 'Faith and Wood', 'Spike solo series!' 'Slayers-in-Training!' type suggestions, I tried to come up with a different concept that I'd like. Much like when I did the Firefly spinoff thing, I figured I'd take only one character (although I later had to add a character who'd appeared in a few episodes), and put them in with a new group and a new mission. After giving a quick one sentence outline, I thought about it more and decided to flesh it out a bit as a WIDW.
Before I begin, this does make use of some of the ideas I used in my 'Alternate Angel Season 5' and Season 6 and 7 WIDW, but it takes place after the actual Season 5 finale as aired.
Details behind the cut, this one's a little more scattershot than usual...
Okay, the headliner of the show would be Gunn. Like in my Season 6 idea, after the end of Angel he was gravely wounded, but he didn't die. He was, however, wounded enough that he's now in a wheelchair.
He isolated himself from the rest of the group and let them go on doing his own thing while he laid low and lived off some of the money he embezzled from W&H using his legal knowhow (retconned in, but it makes some amount of sense to me as being possible off panel). He's out of the fight, but not entirely out of the game. He's still keeping tabs on what's going on, peering into dark corners and so on, learning what he can and passing it on to his friends. Until he gets contacted by an old friend... Gwen, the electric girl.
We know W&H's cultivated people with special abilities for various things, from Gwen to the Abused Jean Greyish guest star they had once. The general thrust of the series would be a group of these 'specials' rescued from horrible supernatural fates being led in the fight against evil by Gunn playing a role similar to Oracle in Birds of Prey comics. Given that Gunn's an established comic fan, there can even be some acknowledgement of this... say someone says, "And who are you supposed to be, Professor Malcolm X?" "Funny. No, I consider myself more of the Oracle type. Except obviously not a woman and don't look as good dressed up as Batgirl. (beat) I'd assume."
Maybe the pilot would involve her learning that a group of these specials have been sold to a group of noncorporeal demons who want to possess them, permanently. Anyway, the cast would be:
Gunn: Of course. He'd be the driving force of the group, wanting to do good again if only vicariously. The brains of the operation, and of course eventually there might be a plot where through healing magic or whatever he might get the use of his legs back.
Gwen: The Thief, and something of a floater. Like Spike after he turned good, she's really not all into the do gooder thing, but will help out when something strikes one of her hotbutton areas, or otherwise in exchange for Gunn helping her with information for thievery. Gradually she'll be drawn more into the group, of course.
The rest of the cast would all be 'specials' of some type, but new characters with no history in the Buffyverse. Now I haven't completely settled on these ideas, but I wanted to post before I ran out of any particular drive to finish and probably not post at all. (Plus, I'm writing some of this while my net access is down so I have nothing better to do). So here's the mostly off-the-top-of-my-head additional cast:
Unnamed Invisible Girl: For the sake of this WIDW I'll call her Showoff, although there'd be no code names in the series. In Season 1 Buffy there was an episode with a girl who was ignored in high school and so literally turned invisible. She was later recruited into an assassin program. This isn't that character, but the same thing happened to her. Except, she's not always invisible. Her twist is she's invisible when she doesn't feel like she stands out. So, in order to be visible she has to wear something that's out of the ordinary in some way. Goth stuff, really skimpy stuff, colors that painfully clash, etc, with some fear of staying with any one style too long and other people becoming used to it. The important point is that with her it matters how she _feels_ rather than what others think, so when comfortable with the group she'd be able to be visible with them but still be invisible whenever anyone new shows up.
Oh, and the original Buffy Invisible Girl? If we could get Clea DuVall on board, she could return as her trainer who is determined to get her back or kill her. Still bitter and she's never been able to turn off her invisibility like Showoff has, could make an interesting recurring foe.
Everyman: Young guy, a bit of a slackerish type, well meaning joker but with no useful skills (at least, useful to demon hunting), but the one thing that makes him special is he's under a curse. He can't die, ever, until something specific happens (don't know what exactly that is, but probably should be suitably difficult to maintain the gimmick). He gets decapitated, and he wakes up the next day somehow perfectly healthy. Same for any other death. So he gets killed a lot, sometimes to get information, sometimes to solve problems, etc. His name will not be Kenny but I'll use it for the rest of this entry. Despite not being able to die though, death hurts like hell so he tries to avoid it as much as possible.
We also need at least one hand to hand fighter or it wouldn't be a Buffyverse show. I'm thinking either one of the Slayers, undiscovered by the big Slayer group (which leads to a potential storyline down the road where they try to recruit her), or someone who's part demon, or maybe even both and just have two fighters on the team.
Or maybe someone who's actually been a W&H killer or something (or maybe one of those gladiator types) for a long while but is sick of it, or willing to switch sides if Gunn can get him out of his contract, so there's a redemption storyline going on (it wouldn't be the Buffyverse without a redemption storyline). We could also put Kenny in this role and give the 'everyman' slot to someone with a different ability, but I think that risks him becoming a Highlander type character - immortal warrior badass. Immortal screwup works better. Anyway, I'm thinking fighter guy will be the one who performs the typical Whedon 'tell it like it is' role, like Cordelia, Jayne, or Anya.
-
Episodes will typically focus on either circumventing W&H's plans and efforts to rebuild after Angel, or actually stealing from them. Sort of Robin Hood, except stealing from the evil and helping out the good while keeping some of the money. Doing some genuinely good, too, like helping out with Anne's shelter and so on, clearing out vampire nests, etc.
There'd be ongoing conflict with Wolfram & Hart's Human Resources Department, who would be the big bad of the series, including many operatives with special abilities of one stripe or another.
I'd hope not to devolve it just into 'Buffy meets superheroes' but there will be some of that, except of course with typical Whedon treatment of superhero conventions like he does with all sorts of other conventions... say, a person who tries desperately to keep a normal job and a 'secret identity' but nobody around them actually cares enough to look into them. Not necessarily that, but that sort of thing. Or the people with the least powers being the most responsible.
Of course Buffyverse guest stars will show up eventually, mostly when people want to make use of the information network Gunn's gradually setting up with infiltration into W&H systems.
And I think that's about all I really want to go into on the topic at this point, mainly cause I can't at present think of anything else to write.
Maybe I'll add to it if something occurs to me later.
As is often the case with these things, it started with some message board post, on the topic of 'what kind of Buffyverse spinoff would you like to see?'. So, hearing the typical 'Faith and Wood', 'Spike solo series!' 'Slayers-in-Training!' type suggestions, I tried to come up with a different concept that I'd like. Much like when I did the Firefly spinoff thing, I figured I'd take only one character (although I later had to add a character who'd appeared in a few episodes), and put them in with a new group and a new mission. After giving a quick one sentence outline, I thought about it more and decided to flesh it out a bit as a WIDW.
Before I begin, this does make use of some of the ideas I used in my 'Alternate Angel Season 5' and Season 6 and 7 WIDW, but it takes place after the actual Season 5 finale as aired.
Details behind the cut, this one's a little more scattershot than usual...
Okay, the headliner of the show would be Gunn. Like in my Season 6 idea, after the end of Angel he was gravely wounded, but he didn't die. He was, however, wounded enough that he's now in a wheelchair.
He isolated himself from the rest of the group and let them go on doing his own thing while he laid low and lived off some of the money he embezzled from W&H using his legal knowhow (retconned in, but it makes some amount of sense to me as being possible off panel). He's out of the fight, but not entirely out of the game. He's still keeping tabs on what's going on, peering into dark corners and so on, learning what he can and passing it on to his friends. Until he gets contacted by an old friend... Gwen, the electric girl.
We know W&H's cultivated people with special abilities for various things, from Gwen to the Abused Jean Greyish guest star they had once. The general thrust of the series would be a group of these 'specials' rescued from horrible supernatural fates being led in the fight against evil by Gunn playing a role similar to Oracle in Birds of Prey comics. Given that Gunn's an established comic fan, there can even be some acknowledgement of this... say someone says, "And who are you supposed to be, Professor Malcolm X?" "Funny. No, I consider myself more of the Oracle type. Except obviously not a woman and don't look as good dressed up as Batgirl. (beat) I'd assume."
Maybe the pilot would involve her learning that a group of these specials have been sold to a group of noncorporeal demons who want to possess them, permanently. Anyway, the cast would be:
Gunn: Of course. He'd be the driving force of the group, wanting to do good again if only vicariously. The brains of the operation, and of course eventually there might be a plot where through healing magic or whatever he might get the use of his legs back.
Gwen: The Thief, and something of a floater. Like Spike after he turned good, she's really not all into the do gooder thing, but will help out when something strikes one of her hotbutton areas, or otherwise in exchange for Gunn helping her with information for thievery. Gradually she'll be drawn more into the group, of course.
The rest of the cast would all be 'specials' of some type, but new characters with no history in the Buffyverse. Now I haven't completely settled on these ideas, but I wanted to post before I ran out of any particular drive to finish and probably not post at all. (Plus, I'm writing some of this while my net access is down so I have nothing better to do). So here's the mostly off-the-top-of-my-head additional cast:
Unnamed Invisible Girl: For the sake of this WIDW I'll call her Showoff, although there'd be no code names in the series. In Season 1 Buffy there was an episode with a girl who was ignored in high school and so literally turned invisible. She was later recruited into an assassin program. This isn't that character, but the same thing happened to her. Except, she's not always invisible. Her twist is she's invisible when she doesn't feel like she stands out. So, in order to be visible she has to wear something that's out of the ordinary in some way. Goth stuff, really skimpy stuff, colors that painfully clash, etc, with some fear of staying with any one style too long and other people becoming used to it. The important point is that with her it matters how she _feels_ rather than what others think, so when comfortable with the group she'd be able to be visible with them but still be invisible whenever anyone new shows up.
Oh, and the original Buffy Invisible Girl? If we could get Clea DuVall on board, she could return as her trainer who is determined to get her back or kill her. Still bitter and she's never been able to turn off her invisibility like Showoff has, could make an interesting recurring foe.
Everyman: Young guy, a bit of a slackerish type, well meaning joker but with no useful skills (at least, useful to demon hunting), but the one thing that makes him special is he's under a curse. He can't die, ever, until something specific happens (don't know what exactly that is, but probably should be suitably difficult to maintain the gimmick). He gets decapitated, and he wakes up the next day somehow perfectly healthy. Same for any other death. So he gets killed a lot, sometimes to get information, sometimes to solve problems, etc. His name will not be Kenny but I'll use it for the rest of this entry. Despite not being able to die though, death hurts like hell so he tries to avoid it as much as possible.
We also need at least one hand to hand fighter or it wouldn't be a Buffyverse show. I'm thinking either one of the Slayers, undiscovered by the big Slayer group (which leads to a potential storyline down the road where they try to recruit her), or someone who's part demon, or maybe even both and just have two fighters on the team.
Or maybe someone who's actually been a W&H killer or something (or maybe one of those gladiator types) for a long while but is sick of it, or willing to switch sides if Gunn can get him out of his contract, so there's a redemption storyline going on (it wouldn't be the Buffyverse without a redemption storyline). We could also put Kenny in this role and give the 'everyman' slot to someone with a different ability, but I think that risks him becoming a Highlander type character - immortal warrior badass. Immortal screwup works better. Anyway, I'm thinking fighter guy will be the one who performs the typical Whedon 'tell it like it is' role, like Cordelia, Jayne, or Anya.
-
Episodes will typically focus on either circumventing W&H's plans and efforts to rebuild after Angel, or actually stealing from them. Sort of Robin Hood, except stealing from the evil and helping out the good while keeping some of the money. Doing some genuinely good, too, like helping out with Anne's shelter and so on, clearing out vampire nests, etc.
There'd be ongoing conflict with Wolfram & Hart's Human Resources Department, who would be the big bad of the series, including many operatives with special abilities of one stripe or another.
I'd hope not to devolve it just into 'Buffy meets superheroes' but there will be some of that, except of course with typical Whedon treatment of superhero conventions like he does with all sorts of other conventions... say, a person who tries desperately to keep a normal job and a 'secret identity' but nobody around them actually cares enough to look into them. Not necessarily that, but that sort of thing. Or the people with the least powers being the most responsible.
Of course Buffyverse guest stars will show up eventually, mostly when people want to make use of the information network Gunn's gradually setting up with infiltration into W&H systems.
And I think that's about all I really want to go into on the topic at this point, mainly cause I can't at present think of anything else to write.
Maybe I'll add to it if something occurs to me later.
