By Chris Snellgrove | Published
While Buffy The Vampire Slayer is one of the greatest shows never made, it is filled with bonkers intrigue points like characters building androids of Star Trek style and even bringing the dead back to life in episodes like “Some Assembly required”. Finally, the writer David Fury asked Joss Whedon how the residents of Heck Sunnydale could make such incredible exploits. In turn, the showrunner told Fury that “Hellmouth should be able to provide us with everything we want to do; The energy that leaves it makes crazy scientists of humans who then go ahead and create something wrong. ”
A required assembly
What made Fury posed this question is that “a required assembly” presented a intrigue point where a character managed to revive his deceased brother. The writer has naturally found bizarre that residents of a Somnian city can withdraw scientific exploits (including the manufacture of robots as sophisticated as the data of the commander of Star Trek: The next generation) that the most veteran medical and scientific professionals of our own world could never accomplish. Whedon explained that everything dates back to Hellmouth’s corrupt influence, which is brilliant because he explains almost all the inconsistencies of this crazy spectacle.
In the world of Buffy The Vampire SlayerThe details on the Hellmouth are relatively sparse … All we really know is that it connects Sunnydale to another dimension, attracts demons and affects the local population with mystical energy. The show has always been vague on how this energy works, but we have seen him give life to the nightmares, become invisible girls and even make residents (according to the words of Willow) “prayer harder” because many religious could feel his malignant influence. These things all seem relatively magical, however, and David Fury was more interested in the way in which (as by “certain required assemblies”) regular residents could suddenly become geniuses scientists, practically overnight.
However, Joss Whedon’s response is discreetly brilliant, because it turns this question to wonder why we accept Hellmouth having certain powers and no others. If this can bring nightmares to life, why shouldn’t he be able to help a bizarre child to bring his dead brother back to life? If this can make an invisible girl just because no one has never noticed, then why could she not help local residents build robots that would even have impressed Captain Picard?
A few Buffy Fans (and especially enemies) could say that Whedon’s explanation is a little too easy … After all, it means that the screenwriters of the show never have to worry about breaking the rules on what can and cannot happen because there are no firm rules. However, we see this as one of the greatest forces in the series: not two episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer are the same because the writers had created carte blanche. At the end of the day, that always Be more exciting than a spectacle which is sagging under the weight of its own dusty rules.
“A required assembly” is a large Buffy Episode, but we have always shared the curiosity of David Fury about how a random secondary student suddenly had the medical knowledge and skills of Dr Frankenstein. Thanks to Joss Whedon, we now know that The Hellmouth is able to transform people into crazy scientists in addition to its other magic properties. For long -standing fans, that makes more than contextualize the unique bad guys … He also explains the rise and the fall of Dr. Walsh, who died in the hands of Adam, his own monstrosity of crazy science.
