I think Espenson to TC is more an effort from Fox and Gail Berman to get the Buffy fans to like TC. Whether or not that turns the non-genre fans against the show, I'm not sure.
Some of the most vocal TC bashing has been by Buffy fanatics on the Bronze Beta, Buffista and Whedonesque. And this isn't just TWoP whiners. It's incredibly bright people who just can't get past the flaws of the show. TC has no coverage by TV Gal on Zap2it or AICN or by US scifi magazines. It's hard to have a cult/genre show that's disliked by the fans of cult/genre shows.
TC definately needs to be funnier. They cast Zach to have the comedian sidekick, yet Davis' role is mostly serious. The same with Harrison. When there's a serious Tru plot A, they need something more humorous for subplots b or c.
With the writers of Buffy, at lot of time different writers were writing each episode, most of the time uncredited. The whole writing staff broke each episode, each writer could tweak things. It was a team effort.
The biggest thing that the TC writing staff needs to do is get something like that going. But they're so rushed and the production staff is divided between different countries and there seems to be some ego problems involved.
I'm hoping for the best and preparing for the worst with Season 2 of TC. I'm not getting my hopes up. I jumped up and down when I heard Doug was going to TC and that didn't seem to help. I adore Jane, she's a great person, very talented and bright. I'm not sure she can write murder-mystery type shows (Doublemeat, anyone?) but perhaps she can bring more of a Buffy feel.
It is kind of funny that at midseason, Doug Petrie left/quit/was fired (depending on who you talk to). Then David Solomon and David Grossman (who both directed many, many Buffy episodes) never directed any other TC episodes after Closure, Murder In the Morgue and Longest Day. All of the episodes they directed had such a Buffy feel to them.
But after midseason, it was like they made this break from Buffy with bringing in writer/producers Doris Egan (Dark Angel) and Scott Shepherd (Haunted).
It's kind of odd that it's back to Buffy-esque again with Espenson as co-exec prod. Once there's sides online maybe we can tell if Espenson has had an impact. |