Vamping It Up

Image credit: Whedon and Trachtenberg Photograph by Seth Joel

TUNE UP Whedon directs Hinton Battle (the demon Sweet) and Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn)

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The show's star shares his beleaguered joy. ''I'm not a singer, and I hated every moment of it,'' says Sarah Michelle Gellar. ''It took something like 19 hours of singing and 17 hours of dancing in between shooting four other episodes.'' Gellar's initial impulse was to use a voice double, but she nixed that after hearing her songs. ''I basically started to cry and said, 'You mean someone else is going to do my big emotional turning point for the season?'''

And boy, are there turning points. As Whedon points out, ''songs in musicals allow characters to sing what they can't say. And in the case of our characters, the things they really shouldn't say.'' The catalyst for all the soul-baring is a demon named Sweet, ''who thrives on chaos -- and good musical numbers,'' says Whedon. ''He puts a spell on Sunnydale because he knows song and dance will eventually destroy the town -- that much heart opening is too much for people.''

The resulting 35 minutes of music (11 full songs, plus fragments and an overture) and 13 minutes of dialogue -- adding up to a longer-than-normal episode -- is classic ''Buffy,'' a seamless blend of hilarity, high drama, and self-mockery. (Whedon found it too painful to cut his musical baby down to regular episode length and UPN offered to perform the surgery, but net execs liked it so much that they're letting it run almost eight minutes over for its initial airing.) ''Buffy's first number, 'Going Through the Motions,' is a straight-up Disney production number -- wicked Disney,'' says Whedon. But mostly ''there are a lot of ballads, because the characters are going through emotions -- and because I, you know, kind of go to a sad place when I write.'' Exceptions include a harder-rocking tune for platinum-haired bloodsucker Spike and an ''old school'' number for eternally squabbling couple Xander and Anya -- a '30s-style song that, as Anya enviously points out, is ''retro pastiche that's never going to be a breakaway pop hit,'' unlike ''Under Your Spell,'' the (rather racy) love song Tara croons to fellow witch Willow.

''Most of my stuff has a '70s influence -- Neil Young, the Dead, Paul Williams' incredibly underrated 'Phantom of the Paradise' soundtrack,'' says Whedon, who will release a soundtrack through his Mutant Enemy production company. ''Somebody said the songs sounded like Sondheim and early Elton John. Hey, I can live with that.''