Re: the new Whedon.
C+, for now, with some caveats. It’s not the gender stuff I’m on about; if you’re squicked, and you probably are, it’s in the mission statement, and remember he’s made yet another devil’s pact with the Maxim of network television, and if you can’t ultimately bring down the master’s house with the master’s tools you can at least wreak some interesting havoc before they come take them away. —I’m more keen to see what might be done with class: “normal” people on TV have always been (with some notable exceptions) what would be comfortably wealthy in the real world; the folks here have all the same material trappings of TV-normal, but they’re actually acting like the rich. So I want to see some mammalian certainties.
Other than that: everybody’s saying Topher’s the Xander of this one. Well, if by Xander you mean the young guy with the cynical wisecracks, I suppose, but that was never really what Xander was. Xander was the gut, as the Spouse likes to put it; the moral ground, the I-guy somewhat taken aback by all the paranormal goings-on, who calls bullshit despite the beam in his own eye, and is right more often than not; the mammal, as it were, which means Boyd Langton is the show’s Xander, thankyouverymuch.
No, Topher—the mad scientist, who lovingly details the backstories of the characters he creates every week for his Actives to play—Topher is the show’s Whedon.
But keeping that in mind will excuse only so much turgid dialogue. Up your game, people!
