Pulling Up Stakes

Last month, ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' drove a stake through the WB's heart, ditching the teen oriented network for a juicier deal at rival network UPN. The network switch may have been a shocker, but ''Buffy'' creator Joss Whedon says that won't be the only big change awaiting fans of the show as its approaches its 100th episode (airing Tues., May 22). Whedon talked with EW.com about writing and directing ''Buffy'''s bloody season finale, network politics, and a new spinoff.

C'mon, give us some hints about what we can expect on ''Buffy.''
We're wrapping up Glory's story and resolving Buffy's feelings about being a slayer and whether or not she's really Dawn's sister -- and all the questions about family and sacrifice. The stakes are huge. It's epic, it's enormous, and still very, very personal. Death is an issue. There's going to be a brutal fight, and not everyone is going to get out alive. Someone may be leaving the show, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

You won't be writing or directing the season finale of ''Angel,'' but can you tell us what's up there?

That's also going to be huge and epic, which we've really got to stop doing because we can't afford it. The characters are going to go into another dimension and get a different view of how they've been living over the last season, and there'll be princesses and monsters and all sorts of insanity. It's a lighter, more fun arc than with ''Buffy.'' And we'll have somebody showing up who will become a regular next season.

Everyone's still talking about the death of Buffy's mother earlier this season. Why did you decide to go in such a somber direction?
We knew we wanted to do this for a couple of years, and we did warn the actress, so she knew it was coming. With last season being about breaking away and finding new identities, this year was about being sucked back into the family. I've always wanted to put Buffy in a situation where death in its purest form comes to her, and she can't even consider fighting it. And it's a rite of passage. It's something that's happened to me, and we thought it was time Buffy went through it.

Why didn't Buffy's father come back for the funeral? He seems pretty heartless.
We see him as being increasingly far away and awful mainly because I wanted to keep things simple. Buffy's father figure is Giles (Anthony Stuart Head). That's not to say the father might not appear again, but it complicates things enormously.

Now that ''Buffy'' is officially leaving the WB, does that mean ''Buffy'' / ''Angel'' crossovers are out of the question?
I would hope not, but you never know. It's hard enough to do them when the shows are on the same network. ''Angel'' needed to find its sea legs, and I think it has. What the characters are going through this coming season doesn't really involve the ''Buffy'' characters, so it is its own show.

Sarah Michelle Gellar caused quite a stir when she said she would quit if ''Buffy'' left the WB. Have you two worked things out?
The fact is, she knew perfectly well that if we moved, she was going to move with us, and she's very professional. I sort of shook my head when I saw that story, but I knew it was something that would just blow over. But I have to admit, our Fox producers were like, ''Aaaah! What's going on?'' And I thought, what IS going on, that's a little odd.

UPN is shelling out $2.3 million per ''Buffy'' episode, $500,000 more than what the WB paid for the show this season. Does that mean you'll be going nuts with the special effects?
We're not actually going to get more than we did in the past. The budget will change only in terms of the increases that naturally come in the sixth year. The way it works is, the network pays half the cost for the show, but if the show is a hit, they're generally expected to pick up the entire cost of the show from the studio, which is Fox. The WB wasn't willing to do that at all; Fox would have had to cover the rest of the expenses. So it's not like we're going to suddenly make a more expensive show. And quite frankly, I don't think we should. The more money you have to spend, the lazier you get.

Fans who don't get the UPN have been pretty upset about ''Buffy'''s network switch. What do you say to them?
I feel terrible that there are some people who won't get the show. But they can always get their friends to tape it. Our success has never really rested on Nielsen ratings. With both the WB and UPN, there's only so much market saturation you can get. The advantage is these networks care for you and nurture you, unlike the Big Three, where if I don't do well for two episodes they might cancel me. I'd rather reach fewer people if it means having the opportunity to reach them for a few more years.

Do you feel more appreciated by UPN than you did at the WB?
It's always been great at the WB. But at the highest levels, they made a corporate decision that I found unfathomable. They decided not only to not step up financially, but to sort of dis the show in the press, and to me that was unforgivable. It really hurt. But the people I dealt with, the promotional people and the creative execs, they were great. I have no beef with them. But yeah, it's nice to see a network come up and say, ''We think you're an extraordinary asset and we're going to prove that by writing this large check.''

What do you think the fate of ''Buffy'' will be when the show's contract expires in two years?
To me, ''Buffy'' is limitless. It's a question of, are we ever going to get too goddamn tired to make any more of them? Because I don't want to see it get weak. But we're as excited about next year as we have been about any year. And now with Michelle Trachtenberg on the show [as Buffy's little sister Dawn], you go, my God, we're back in adolescence, this show really could go on forever!

What about another ''Buffy'' spinoff?
I actually have something in mind, but I can't discuss it yet. All I can say is it's very different but it comes from this universe. We're going to have an animated ''Buffy,'' but you're going to have to wait a year for that. The deal with Fox Kids is taking so long, and we can't draw anything until the voices have been recorded, and we're still waiting on making deals with the actors. I think our best bet is for either spring or a year from fall.

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