By Chris Snellgrove
| Printed
The runaway success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer led to the event of an Angel spinoff that targeted on the titular vampire with a soul performed so memorably by David Boreanaz. That present admittedly fell wanting the unique present’s general high quality, however Angel is rightly remembered as being top-of-the-line spinoffs in tv historical past. What many Buffy followers don’t understand, although, is that we practically bought one thing probably even higher than Angel: a Religion spinoff specializing in Eliza Dushku’s fashionable vampire Slayer.
The Buffy Religion Spinoff
This concept was the brainchild of Tim Minear, an Angel author who later went on to turn out to be the Emmy-nominated government producer of American Horror Story. After Buffy the Vampire Slayer led to 2003, Minear needed to observe up on that present with a separate Religion spinoff that might observe up on this Slayer’s adventures after she got here again in season 7 to assist Buffy save the world. Initially, Minear envisioned his present as a “Religion meets Kung Fu.”
That is, after all, a reference to the superb ‘70s TV present starring David Carradine during which the primary character wanders the Previous West, righting wrongs wherever he encounters them. Whereas Buffy had largely targeted on the mounted location of Sunnydale, Minear needed the Fath spinoff to have its title character “most likely on a bike, crossing the earth, looking for her place on this planet.” He conceded that that present “would get an arc in some unspecified time in the future,” however he felt “the thought of her rooted someplace appeared incorrect to me” and that “the thought of her consistently on the transfer appeared proper to me.”
Whereas she initially appeared in Buffy, preserving Religion on the transfer on this spinoff would truly repay one of many greatest storylines in Angel. As Minear factors out, Religion broke out of jail in that present with a purpose to assist cease Angelus (the amoral and sadistic monster Angel turns into when he loses his soul). She later went to Sunnydale to assist Buffy cease the First Evil, however “there would have been some folks after her” following her jailbreak, which could clarify Religion consistently shifting from place to position in her personal spinoff.
Why It Didn’t Occur
After Buffy, followers had been hungry for extra, and a Religion spinoff would probably have been a hit as a result of Eliza Dushku’s recognition, so why did this present by no means get made? The first purpose is that Dushku felt Sarah Michelle Gellar left some “actually massive boots to fill,” and that “typically it’s important to go together with your intestine, and my intestine was telling me that I perhaps wanted to strive one thing else that was simply totally different.” Briefly, she needed to do some non-Buffyverse work, which is why she ended up because the lead character within the supernatural drama Tru Calling.
As hardcore Buffy followers know, this Religion spinoff is only one of many canceled initiatives in Whedon’s universe. There have been additionally concepts for a Giles spinoff, a Spike film, an animated spinoff, and even a Slayer College present that includes a few of the newly minted Slayers from Buffy’s seventh season. Whereas all of those may have been enjoyable (particularly the Giles present), none had the sheer potential of a derivative that includes Religion. That’s as a result of, as this rogue Slayer as soon as joked, followers are at all times able to “thank God” for “sizzling chicks with superpowers.”
