Back to the Yellow Brick Road?

Two recent occurrences reminded me of time's ripple effect (in which one tiny alteration to the past can drastically change the future) and the tantalising possibility of a resurrected Buffy the Vampire Slayer making an end run around the ripple by following a metaphorical Yellow Brick Road to a glorious and surprising finale..

First, that glorious drunkard, The Critical Drinker, explained how 2025 was turning out to be the year that broke Hollywood. According to The Hollywood Reporter, box office revenues for this October were the lowest in twenty-seven years.

Then Dave Cullen dissed the return of nostalgia reboots. Old shows who had their day long ago being brought back in a desperate and probably doomed attempt to draw in the madding crowds. Shows like Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs...

And Buffy.

Normally, I'd agree with Dave, revel in the Drinker's sarcastic commentary about the latest disaster caused by Hollywood's current catastrophic cycle of creative cannibalism, go watch Frasier and think no more of it. How could this have anything to do with me?

However, while I have as much interest as Dave in the return of Scrubs and Malcolm in the Middle (namely none), I do believe there might be a valid way for Buffy to make a comeback. It's just that it's not making the right kind of comeback. As mentioned in my previous blog, I'd never send Buffy back to high school. However, unlike the other two series whose stories have fully been told, Buffy does (in my view) have a lost/unfinished story arc which could successfully continue the series. A side entrance, a back door, a secret passageway... Call it what you like.

And while Buffy isn't the only historic hit to come out of Hollywood, it is a culturally and commercially important IP which frankly hasn't been messed up yet.

This is what still intrigues me: the sense that the wrong road was followed years ago, that the lost story arc's outcome should have happened but didn't. And as long as it continues to be ignored, sidelined and smothered, I wonder if the ripple effect of the road not taken will keep on increasing, breaking Hollywood, lowering box office revenues and maybe even worse.

Does this sound crazy? Yes. Am I hopelessly biased? Probably. Should I drink the Kool-Aid? Sure, why not?

But what if it's true?

So, while I've talked about Buffy's lost story arc for years and indeed been ignored, sidelined and smothered (thanks, Juliet!), while writing the previous blog I realised I hadn't broken down what did happen during Buffy's original run in order to make the show able to find that future, find the sunlit city on the hill...

So, let us recap and theorise:

Spike was originally meant to die during season two. He was never meant to become the incredible breakout character he turned out to be. And according to a hasty check on AI, "while Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have still been a well-regarded show without Spike, it is widely believed by fans and critics that it would not have achieved the same level of iconic success or cultural impact without his character's significant contribution."

Buffy might have fallen into a lacklustre monster-of-the-week formula and fizzled out after graduation from Sunnydale High. Angel would probably never have been commissioned.

But unlike Scrubs and Malcolm in the Middle, Buffy got one of the greatest breakout characters in TV history (eat your heart out, Mr Spock!) which set its extraordinary popularity in stone for all time.

Spike's popularity also changed Buffy's future. Instead of fizzling out after three years or so, Buffy lasted for seven seasons, disrupting planned story arcs and throwing up new ones upon which to base further stories.

You know, it's a bit like the last minute reshoot on the set of Star Trek II which gave the writers a way to resurrect Spock.

As that Vulcan would say, "there are always possibilities."

The trouble is that nobody's noticed them. The possibilities Spike's survival set up haven't been realised, Buffy and Hollywood have suffered a fairly unbroken run of bad luck over the last few years and Sarah Michelle Gellar's sequel may continue that run rather than get Buffy back on track. I've tried to explain my theory of how to calm the catastrophic sequence of ripples but I'm not a screenwriter on set, part of the Hollywood machine. I'm a lone outsider no one's listening to.

Apart from that, I'm slightly handicapped by the fact that I obviously don't want to tell anyone what the lost story arc I found is. The only sticking point for me is that I would like the Dru Quartet somehow to be legitimately published. Prematurely divulging the arc's dramatic twist in Archive of Our Own or something would torpedo a major marketing opportunity. However, I genuinely wish the fans could read Dear Miss Landau and the Dru Quartet as they were meant to be read. To me (and I do not say this arrogantly but with a maudlin sense of wonder), it's as if I alone in all the world have the restored print of Lawrence of Arabia and everyone else has to make do with the desecrated 1971 TV version...

A few background facts:

The embryonic beginnings of the lost story arc can be found in the original Buffy if you know where to look. However, the fully developed arc picks up the story from the exact moment Buffy ends and goes on until 2019. The third story in the Quartet, Drusilla Revenant, was wrapped around and merged with Juliet Landau's 2009 IDW two-parter about Dru. Elsewhere, all the novellas are aligned with canon wherever possible.

For example:

For his part, Spike saw that old look in Dru’s eyes and knew he wouldn’t be getting off the hook without giving out the truth.

 He shrugged and gave her that frank gaze and half-smile which usually served to melt her unbeating heart.

It’s a case of zompires and wingmen, love. Most of the current crop came out wrong after the seed was cut, and...”

She raised her chin a little, and those blue eyes of hers hardened quite a bit.

Beautiful blue eyes they still were, too. 

“...And you were my best partner, and not just in bed. Lone Ranger and Tonto. Starsky and Hutch. Sonny and Cher. I had you, babe, and we were the best.”

He saw the blue eyes soften just a trifle, and he knew he’d fooled her. Mostly.

She slapped him suddenly, sharp as a whipcrack.

Spike just smiled at her.

“Your right’s not quite what it was, love.”

(Spike & Dru : the Graveyard of Empires)

So that's about it. I've explained it as well as I can, but there's one more thing I want to say.

I'm a bit disappointed in you.

You debate endlessly on social media and go to comic-cons in search of celebrity, magic and wonder. Of fantasy worlds beyond your ken.

But when something wonderful, magical and real happens right under your noses, you ignore it. You've left Dru stuck sadly in a holding dimension like Barbie on a bad day. All she ever wanted was for her story to be told. I've tried to explain it to you but hardly anybody's ever even asked me a question.

Makes me feel like the Guardian of Forever, alone as a rock.

All I know is that I found something. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't.

But where's your sense of wonder? Don't you want to know what you might find at the end of the Yellow Brick Road?