SLAYERS & VAMPIRES: THE ORAL HISTORY OF BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER & ANGEL by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman

In 1997, Buffy the Vampire Slayer started airing. Over the course of seven seasons, it became a pop culture phenomenon and one of the most critically-acclaimed network TV shows of all time. It spawned a hit spin-off show, Angel, which ran for five seasons and did almost as well. The shows introduced a mixture of comedy, horror and character drama that became a template for many series and movies that followed them, but creator Joss Whedon would become an increasingly polarising and controversial figure.

The story of the development of Buffy and Angel has been told before, but Mark Altman and Edward Gross take a slightly difference tack with this 2017 volume by leaning heavily on oral accounts provided by the writing staff and some of the actors. This is a similar format to their earlier two Star Trek books and subsequent volume on Battlestar Galactica (and they have since produced similar volumes on James Bond, Star Wars and John Wick).

Reading in 2024, the book has a slightly different feel due to the well-publicised allegations from 2021 that Whedon created a toxic working atmosphere on Buffy and Angel before he departed both shows (the final two seasons of Buffy were helmed by Marti Noxon and Angel was overseen by a succession of different showrunners, including David Greenwalt, Tim Minear and Jeffrey Bell). These allegations followed earlier complaints that Whedon had bullied castmembers on the 2017 film Justice League, which he'd overseen reshoots on. This book, which just predates those allegations, is surprisingly candid on the fact that working conditions, particularly on Buffy, were often difficult and sometimes unprofessional.

Compared to the authors' other book on Battlestar, this tome is a little more disappointing. This is partially because it tries to cram much more in: twelve seasons of Buffy and Angel, not to mention some bleed-over into discussions about Firefly (the production and abrupt cancellation of which had consequences for Whedon's other shows), as opposed to six seasons of Battlestar (the four for the newer version of the show, the original and Galactica 1980). This means there is less time for discussion of individual episodes, with only the most prominent episodes getting a lot of coverage. Unfortunately there's a lot of repetition here for anyone who's familiar with coverage of the show from web articles and magazine articles back in the day.

There's also an issue in that actors seem much less willing to take part in the project: there's a much greater reliance here on stock interviews rather than new interviews undertaken just for this book. Only Charisma Carpenter and James Marsters get a lot of new discussion time, Nicholas Brendon gets almost none and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz are primarily quoted from pre-existing interviews. This absence sees some Buffy critics called in to discuss the show's meaning and accomplishments, and no offence to their expertise, but there's dozens of books out there which have the space to do that a lot better.

The book does do better with the writers' contributions, with the likes of Tim Minear and Dave Greenwalt having a lot to say about television writing and production. Whedon himself gets quoted a fair bit but did not give new interviews for the book, unlike Ron Moore for the Battlestar tome, which makes for a less compelling read. There is some interesting stuff about the mythologising of Whedon, though, and even his most ardent friends and supporters in the book acknowledge he could be mercurial and difficult to work with.

The most fascinating material comes from interviews with Carpenter, who acknowledges her own faults on-set (getting a new haircut or tattoo mid-filming of an episode) and struggling with self-confidence issues, whilst struggling with her treatment by Whedon, who could be kind and generous to her one moment (like giving her a lead role on Angel in the first place) and harsh and judgemental the next.

There is much in the book that is interesting: Minear's journey in adapting to the writing of the show and driving it forwards, and his take-no-prisoners attitude which fascinated Whedon as much as it could annoy other people, is particularly noteworthy. The book also has a genuine emotional moment as it recounts Glenn Quinn's difficulties working on the show and the attempts by co-stars David Boreanaz and Christian Kane to help him out which ultimately did not pan out, with Quinn dying of an accidental drug overdose in 2002.

Compared to the Battlestar tome, Slayers & Vampires: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized, Oral History of Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel (***½) falls a little flat as it has nowhere near as many cast and crew contributing new material to it, forcing it to fall back on well-known anecdotes and interviews, as well as critical analyses that doesn't feel entirely appropriate to the book. There's also too many seasons and episodes to cover even in the generous 520 pages of material here (the Battlestar book gets 200 pages more, and it feels like the two franchises maybe should have inverted that). But there is enough new material, especially on the writing and production process of both shows, to make it worthwhile to established fans.

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So Say We All: The Oral History of Battlestar Galactica by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross

In 1978, ABC aired a TV show designed to cash in on the success of Star Wars. Produced by reliable industry stalwart Glen A. Larson, Battlestar Galactica launched to huge ratings, but risible reviews and declining popularity saw it cancelled after twenty-four episodes. An attempted sequel series, Galactica 1980, was cancelled after ten episodes two years later, and far worse reviews. Finally, in 2003, Star Trek producer Ron Moore launched a reboot of the show that became one of the most acclaimed TV shows of the decade, winning Hugo and Peabody Awards and culminating in the show having the first TV cast to host a panel at the United Nations.

It's an interesting story with more than a few surprise twists, and Mark Altman and Edward Gross set out to tell that story through extensive interviews with the producers, writers and cast of all the different iterations of the franchise, from the pilot of the original Battlestar in 1978 through the release of the "experimental" TV movie Blood & Chrome in 2013. Altman and Gross had written several previous books in a similar vein, namely two for Star Trek and one on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and since this one have gone to write similar tomes for James Bond, Star Wars and John Wick.

The format simply has the interviewees talking about their experiences without any questions being interposed, with brief linking passages as the only editorial intrusion into the text. The interviews are a mixture of those carried out specially for this book and excerpts from magazines at the time, useful to get the input of creatives who are sadly no longer with us, such as Lorne Greene (who played Adama in the original show). Glen Laron's input is sadly mostly missing, as he passed away in 2014, over three years before this book was written, and his contributions are largely lifted from interviews from the time. His son David, who as a child was an extra on the original show, provides some much-needed context on his father's approach to making the series.

The book spends 230 pages analysing the original show and Galactica 1980, and these contain some of the most deranged and entertaining parts of the book. ABC wasting vast sums of money because it couldn't decide on whether it was making a TV movie, a mini-series or an ongoing TV series is fairly ridiculous, but the circumstances and limitations of making Galactica 1980 are even more insane. Memorable stories abound, like Lorne Greene, fed up with yet another awful script, taking a large quantity of alcohol into the writers' room to get everyone "relaxed" so he can find out what's really going on. It's also interesting to see the frustrations of Richard Hatch, who played Apollo in the original show and Tom Zarek in the reboot. Hatch felt the original show had a lot of potential but wasted it through bad writing and terrible budget limitations, leading to his own aborted attempts to relaunch the show in the 1990s.

The bulk of the rest of the book is spent on the reboot show, understandable as it was much more successful and lasted far longer. With the entire cast still with us, and with Ron Moore providing a large amount of new interviews for the project, there's also a lot more resources available to cover the show. If you're a hardcore fan of BSG 2.0, you'll probably be familiar with most of the stories here (Eddie Olmos threatening to walk off the show if an alien appears, the producers' attempts to make everything think they'd really killed off Starbuck blowing up in their faces). A more interesting strand is the perspective of Mark Stern, a senior executive at SyFy, who argues for the reasons behind some of the "network interference" the network undertook during the show's lifespan. The book also fully confirms that they could have gone for a fifth season, but Moore and fellow showrunner David Eick were frustrated by SyFy's late renewals so decided to end the show in its fourth season. The show also expands a little more on the semi-contentious finale, and how Eick and Stern argued for an explanation to be provided over Starbuck's death and enigmatic return, whilst Moore did not consider it necessary.

A further, brief section skims over the making of both Caprica and Blood & Chrome before signing off with an evaluation of the entire franchise.

The book is overall a fascinating read, and the account of making the original show is of great value as there's a few stories there that I hadn't heard before. The stuff on the newer BSG didn't have as many surprises, but there is some useful information in there and some of the stories by the actors (especially Olmos, Katee Sackhoff and James Callis) are hilarious. The relative paucity of material on Caprica is a shame, as the show's 19-episode run was riven by network interference and disagreements, leading to a change of showrunner. We get some information on that, but it is very brief and none of the cast of Caprica are interviewed themselves, which feels like a missed opportunity. I'm assuming this is down to the book's length, as at 720 pages they were probably pushing the limits of what the publisher could accommodate anyway.

The best bit of the book is the account of the making of Galactica 1980, where some solid writers (including "proper SF" authors Chris Bunch and Allan Cole, of Sten fame) are given insurmountable requirements by the studio, such as having almost no budget for the visual effects the show was famous for, and the need to include a bunch of kids in the plot, as well as limited or no violence due to the earlier timeslot, and not being able to afford a large cast or most of the cast of the original show. For the most reviled part of the franchise, the story of its making is surprisingly compelling.

So Say We All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Battlestar Galactica (****) is a well-written, well-edited account of the making of three TV shows in the same franchise, with some great interviews and analysis by the creators on what they were trying to accomplish. There are some gaps that could have perhaps been a little bit better filled in, but this is chunky tone that retains interest over its whole length, and may well inspire a fresh rewatch of the show.

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