Taramisu Does Vegas Part 3
(A Chat With Jane Espenson)
Decidedly, the pinnacle of my adventure in Las Vegas was Jane Espenson. And I’m not talking about her Q&A. During the Friday night cocktail party, Melissa calls from behind me, “Hey, Tara, show Jane your Gordo jacket.” My mind thought, “ooh, another Gordo fan. Neat.” I turned around to see who Melissa was introducing, to see a strangely familiar face. I did a double take, then screamed as I recognized Jane Espenson.
While Ms. Espenson told me I did not monopolize her time, I have to disagree. I would have spent so much more time chatting her up, but felt terribly rude doing so, what with over 200 people in the same room who wanted some time with her as well.
Let me start by saying, I’m a little gay for Jane. She’s cute, funny, intelligent and very, very humble. (And doesn’t sleep with groupies, but that’s neither here nor there, ahem.)
As I have a terrible time with remembering order of events, I will just haphazardly list certain things that stuck out in my mind:
o She was talking about Spike and how the Judge could sense some humanity in him. I then asked her if the soul was an object to be possessed, or more like a glass that could be half full. She said she really liked the later as an explanation and to pick that one.
o I mentioned that James Marsters has often said that he felt he played the character of Spike too sympathetically and came off as something other than what the authors wanted. Jane just smiled and said he played Spike exactly the way they wanted.
o She’s not sure if the animated Buffy series is a go, but she wrote several scripts for it. The one she mentioned was shrunken Buffy. Also, since she’s contracted for Tru Calling, she’s not sure if they would allow her to work on the Buffy series, but thinks she’ll beg them.
o And while on that topic, I brought up Mr. Gordo, mentioning how perfect it would be to include him in that animated Buffyverse. She smiled and agreed, saying that mini!Buffy could meet him on the floor in Dawn’s room. (Squee!!)
o On Tru Calling, Jane is trying to change the tone of the show and insert a bit more humor. She’s getting some backlash and they keep cutting her jokes.
o She says Tru Calling is nothing like working for Joss. Joss is a genius. I mentioned that we call Joss God and she smiled and nodded her head.
o Someone at the table asked her if she would have done anything differently on Buffy if she had been in charge. The diplomat Jane is, she stated that there were things (the rape scene for one), and she would have been wrong to do them differently.
o She hated the rape story line, but felt it turned out to be the only way to get Spike to realize that he needed to make some serous changes in his life. Plus, it was an amazing feat to redeem Spike even after that.
o On fanfiction: she loves that we write it. It’s great to see writers take off from something she wrote. Also, all she does is write fanfiction, she just gets paid for it. They aren’t her characters. They’re Joss’s. And she loves that the characters now have a life after the show is over. They spent so much time developing these characters, it’s nice to see them go out and live.
o On writers reading fanfiction: she reads some, Joss reads some, the “guys” don’t. Rebecca is too “cool” to read it.
o Jane has written fanfiction herself: Star Trek TOS and Starsky and Hutch. She’s a naughty little slasher. ;0)
o She admits that there is some homoerotic subtext (and now text) in the show. She wrote a scene at the beginning of Angel where Doyle’s hand was wounded and Angel bandaged it. Joss read it, pointed to it and said, “Gay!” Her response: “Duh!” He made her trash it.
o And as far as those little ships of ours, Jane leaves little bits in there to keep them alive in our hearts. Anya/Giles for one. There was never any intention of putting them together, but the subtext is there.
o Jane would have liked to see Xander and Buffy get together in the end, but Joss felt that Spike and Buffy was the story to tell.
o On Spike at the end of season 6: Spike went to Africa to get a soul. That was his purpose. The writers felt that the fans would be one step ahead of them in guessing that he was about to get a soul, so they tried to throw us off a bit. She admits they must have failed in some way because many fans insist to this day that the cave demon tricked him and Spike really wanted his chip out.
Moron!Tara brought the wrong Gordo T-shirt, so I didn’t get anything signed. Plus, all my pictures of her sucked. So, I’ll just have to rely on Dettiot to get me that picture of Jane and me.
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Voyage to Vegas (TDV Part 1)
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The Convention (TDV Part 2)
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A Chat With Jane Espenson (TDV Part 3)
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The Star Trek Experience (TDV Part 4)
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Wildlife in Vegas! Who'd a guessed? (TDV Part 5)