Date: November 1999
Price: £2.75
Page Count: 52
Editor: Darryl Curtis
Stake Out
Before streaming, and indeed in 1999 before even the launch of DVD, TV ratings were like liquid gold. For tv producers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer had become a moderate success, about to close out it’s third season with an action-packed season finale. The critics loved the show, and the loyal fans, now flocking to the show in their droves, were delighted. Buffy was never a massive solid hit in the ratings and certainly amongst the Hollywood elite, the show wasn’t worth an Emmy or a Screen Actor’s Award.
But in the television landscape, the fans are the Key. And when the formal awards ceremonies ended every year, the TV Guide Awards and the Teen Choice Awards proved that Buffy was proving a hit with its audience.
This issue’s news starts with a table of awards. Sarah Michelle Gellar has been nominated and won in four seperate categories at the TV Guide awards.
It also looks at a new trilogy of books coming soon, entitled The Gatekeeper Trilogy. Authors Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden were already authors of the official guidebook to the series, the aptly titled The Watcher’s Guide, which would be the first of several collaborations between the two, both on fiction and non-fiction set in the Buffyverse.
“The joy of it is that we’re two horror writers who are Buffy fans, and we get to go hogwild. It’s terrific,” said Golden, praising the ability to go further than the television series, unrestrained by budget.
Series creator Joss Whedon once again has a brief interview. When asked about his involvement with Angel, Whedon said: “I will have some work to do on Angel because they are companion pieces, but I will still be running Buffy with almost my every other waking minute.”
Fiction Within Fiction
The magazine started something new in this issue and, while inventive, the feature was never a huge part of the print run. A feature written by ‘Henry Hackett’ is presented, an interview with Spike and Drusilla. Not the actors who play them, but the characters themselves, in a fantastical ‘what if?’ way. The whole piece is meant to be tongue in cheek, with a report from the editor noting that the reporter was never seen again.
Dusting for Vamps by Cynthia Boris
Regular reporter Cynthia Boris goes behind the scenes with Digital Magic to see how the special effects on the series come to life. The company, known for working on Star Trek: Voyager, The X-Files and Lois and Clark, talked exclusively to the magazine, particularly about the vampire dusting effect. Digital Magic’s Loni Peristere was proud of the design.
You might have assumed that the ‘dusting’ effect is recycled show to show, but each sequence is individual, created especially for that episode. “It’s what’s in that turn-to dust that makes it special.” Your eyes may not see it, but those vampires don’t just disintegrate in one puff of dirt. They come apart bit by bit in a sequence that resembles a body’s natural deterioration.
Heaven Sent by Mike Stokes
An interview with actress Robia LaMorte about her character Jenny Calendar and her exit from the series.
“I didn’t get the impact of that scene until I saw it,” says Robia LaMorte, ordering a bottled water and seeming quite alive as she discusses her final scene as the dearly departed computer teacher. “I knew [the producers] wanted to do something dramatic and get rid of someone, and there was no one really that they could get rid of but me,” she laughs. “It was sad, but it felt like it was time.”
LaMorte has never been one to wear out her welcome. True to her character’s gypsy heritage, much of the actress’ childhood was spent moving from state to state, and her role on Buffy, which was originally planned for only one episode, soon expanded into 14. Playing Calendar, however, did give LaMorte the opportunity to live out a childhood fantasy.
“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. That was my dream job,” she says. “Because I travelled around so much and I’m an only child, I really had to entertain myself, so I loved to play school. I had a zillion stuffed animals and a grade book with all their names in columns and gold stars. I’d put them all in a big circle, then I’d get carbon paper and write out tests by hand and go around putting all the tests in front of them. Then I’d go around and do all their tests for them, collect them, grade them, and of course, my favourite stuffed animals got the best grades – I was partial. The whole process would take a day.”
Just in talking to her briefly, the importance of religion in LaMorte’s life becomes apparent. Raised Catholic and interested in new age philosophies for a time, LaMorte never quite found satisfaction in either. “I just was confused,” she remembers. “I was in my car and said, ‘God you know I love you, but I don’t get the whole Jesus deal. I don’t understand it, I don’t know if I believe in it – it just doesn’t make sense to me,. If this is really the truth, if this is really what you want me to believe, you’re going to have to show me signs. You’re going to have to make it so clear to me that I can’t possibly doubt it. You’re going to have to put it in my face, because that’s how I need it to be.’”
LaMorte got the response she was looking for a few seconds later.
“All of a sudden, vroosh! This motorcycle gang comes around the car. I wasn’t scared, but a whole biker gang enveloped the car – and they were bikers – with jackets and hair, they looked kind of tough and mean,” she says. “I thought, ‘How ironic. Here I am praying and all these bikers surround me.’ Then I look a little closer at the ones in front of me, and there are crosses on the backs of their jackets, and on the jackets it says ‘We Ride for Jesus.’ Christian bikers encircled my car! I was like ‘Okay, I asked for a sign, you showed me a sign.’ I mean, that’s pretty cool.”
Her devotion to Christianity has not come without career conflicts, however. She made an effort to become much more selective about choosing roles that she feels don’t contradict her beliefs, and the supernatural elements of Buffy have really left her torn.
“I have nothing against Buffy,” she says. “The show is really well-written. It’s so intelligent, and it’s not a cliché like most television… but there are a lot of dark things in it. I mean, it’s a show about a lot of witchcraft and a lot of dark stuff. The timing for me coming off the show was good. The theme of the show is that good conquers evil and good overcomes – I can get behind that, and I’m glad I portrayed a light character.”
Returning for a dream sequence in this season’s Christmas episode, LaMorte was especially concerned to see a demon speaking through Miss Calendar. “I agreed to do it before I read the script, and it was really, really hard to do,” she says. “Every part of my spirit was saying “No!’ I learned a lot from that. To me, evil isn’t fictitious.”
Drawing an even greater distance between actor and character, LaMorte reveals that she’s just recently bought her first computer and hasn’t figured out how to use it. “It’s been in a box for two weeks,” she says with a laugh. “I’m kind of nervous. I’m in the generation that just missed the whole computer thing in school. Now I know all the kids are doing it. I went and took a class to learn to type, though. I like it, but I’m slow.”
Comic
Reprinting The Final Cut from Buffy the Vampire Slayer #8.
Poster
A rare publicity shot of Spike, Drusilla and Buffy, taken on the set of Lie to Me.
The Watcher's Guide 