Buffy fans hoping for parallels in Joss Whedon’s new show Agents of SHIELD need not worry: the entire show is inspired by a popular season 3 episode.
Entertainment Weekly has released a preview of their in-depth interview with Joss Whedon, in which the pop culture icon talks Avengers 2, Agents of SHIELD, Star Wars, Firefly… and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course.
Barring the odd guest director job (see Veronica Mars and The Office), Agents of SHIELD marks Whedon’s first big television project since Dollhouse was cancelled in 2010.
Still, Buffy will probably always be Whedon’s most iconic creation, and the show continues to influence his work.
In fact, this interview reveals that the premise of SHIELD is derived from the popular season 3 episode “The Zeppo.”
This episode is widely praised by fans and critics for breaking the standard format of Buffy: the often sidelined character Xander (Nicholas Brendon) takes center stage for a change to battle his own private apocalypse.
Ultimately, while the others are busy with an actual apocalypse, Xander quietly saves the world without any of the other characters even realising.
Speaking about the episode, Whedon calls it, “A very deliberate deconstruction of a Buffy episode in order to star the person who mattered the least.”
And Agents of SHIELD, which focuses on the team behind the Avengers and other superheroes – the ones who aren’t special by default – “is basically a TV series of [that episode],” Whedon explains.
“The people who are ignored are the people I’ve been writing as my heroes from day one,” he continues.
“Obviously there’s going to be hijinks and hilarity and sex and gadgets and all the things that made people buy the comics. But that’s what the show really is about to me, and that’s what [main actor] Clark Gregg embodies: the Everyman.”
Now, to what extent do you think that Agent Coulson’s character is inspired by Xander Harris? (And does this mean that Maria Hill is Willow? We could make so many How I Met Your Mother jokes right now…)
Agents of SHIELD premieres Tuesday, September 24 at 8/7c on ABC.
In the U.K., SHIELD will air on Channel 4, premiering some time this fall.
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