I always wonder why we always end up comparing things, but it boils down to abstract similarities and trying to place and describe the series. However, with whedon... i think the thrust of the matter is all his stuff is the same
I've said in the past that buffy and angel aren't really the same show, but the writing is the same kind of writing, just in a different font.
I mean, did you say Angel turned into Buffy when connor was born & joined the gang?
Kinda actually, it definitely turned really gay and shitty. It was a lot more like buffy then than before, and a really tacky reworking of that dawn shit...
Yeah its fair to say angel turned into more of a buffy clone at that point... more than it ever had been before.
imo, she's much more like the dawn character on buffy than the buffy character.
Another bit that sucked in buffy, nearly as bad as that whole connor lame duck above. You've just mentioned the shittest parts of both shows... well that and the whole army shit in buffy. That was so gay.
A lot mroe adult
LOL... please! slightly different subjects/issues, fine, its a different setting. Different writing and audience type, hell no. And a lot more? that was what made me smile (smile = LOL in net translation
)
If you want to take the official channels, if you go on age restriction alone, Angel = 18, Firefly+Buffy = PG/12/15. Angel isn't a lot more adult than buffy, its a lot more violent, but not a lot more adult. So that doesn't play for me, but besides the fact because all three of them are immature, and it stems down to what you said... its all written by one guy, and all his shit has been the same way through his entire career. The only thing I've seen that seems substantially different to the rest is the buffy movie, and that bites so hard its beyond irony its about vampires. I don't think spaceships are anymore mature than monsters either, both aren't really adult unless you have a writer who's writing for that audience behind it all.
He dragged Alien through it, thats f*cking shitty buffy style dialog in a place where it should never have been. Notice ripley was the uber chick there surrounded by 2d 'dead inside' space pirate characters. Sounds awfully familiar when you summarise it skeptically like that...
The brunt of the matter is for me, not a single series of Joss Whedon is a mile away from the other, firefly and angel might have a tad more in common, but angel isn't very far from buffy at all. The dialogue is the same, the style and young teen audience + is the same, the difference is slight tweak to tone basic character templates (he worked harder on Firefly here, admitedly they've fanned out a lot more, it was a lot more durable and open kinda... without the captain its not really worth squat though from what i saw) and setting, and dick all else. Firefly's lifted a lot from all the other spaceship pilot in space shows, but you can't really get past the writing imo. Buffy was more quirkly, angel was more violent and less quirky at first, and firefly was both of them, in the wild west, in space... perhaps even less quirky.
So ultimately, i don't rate him as a good writer, or at least atm he's only ever been a one trick pony for me.
All elementry as to whether Firefly would have changed into another clone, since it only had 7 episodes, but i can't believe any of them are miles away. We'll have to wait out and see how much like Buffy the film is and reflect back. You might have liked it miles better of course.
I dunno, think what you like, but forgive me if i scoff at the 'adult' comment jynks. Young adult aka. young teenager+ perhaps
You can pick out a (what?) 7 episode run or however many there were of firefly from buffy and across buffy's lifespan you'd be able to get more 'adult' ones. Like that fucked up rape shit in series 7 or whatever it was. Or some of the censored/banned angel episodes where he cuts the shit out of all those monsters or whatever they were. I don't have much trust that firefly would have not had light fluffy uber chic episodes in with a complete series. Infact, in the few episodes it had, there were some very dry western episodes it could have done without which was another reason i didn't take to it at all. I only saw the buffys because it was something a bit new at the time, and then angel split early on so i watched that. When firefly came around it unfortunately had no draw, same old shit
Aside: My little sister (11) loves Buffy and Angel... she also plays with dolls and all the stuff little mad'aams do... so much for maturity
The only reason she has never heard of Firefly is because besides sucking up the place, it got cancelled after a couple of episodes, and little toy spaceships are for 11 year old boys
Long post to say what everyone knows deep down most likely, I enjoy long posts especially if i insult someones momma or opinions... dinky, yo momma
ps. I know whedon certainly didn't write every episode of all 3 series, but it seems pretty clear that the problem I have might be with the foundations here.