Most people acknowledge the fact that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a good show. Even if you personally hated it, you can’t ignore the frenzied online following that it spawned. It was big. The creators found a formula that made it a great success.
Keeping that in mind, please watch the original unaired Buffy pilot and tell me it didn’t suck. Be honest. It was horrible, despite the fact that all the core elements of the show were there. The core cast sans Alyson Hannigan was the same. The tone, plot and dialogs were similar to what we know from the show?
Same cast, same formula, same campy theme. And yet it sucked! What was the difference?
For one it was a horrible casting choice for the role of Willow. Instead of “cute but little geeky” they went for “holly crap, it’s a beached whale!”. What were they thinking?
Instead of catchy Nerherder intro music, they opted for boring voice over with pictures of gravestones and old books.
For some unfathomable reason they decided to make the main fight scene incredibly long, despite the fact their stunt work, and choreography was poor to say the least.
And of course, the writing was weak, compared to what we used to see on the show. Some of the dialogs were off, to long, or to short and unbalanced.
But someone out there watched this piece of crap, and saw the potential for a good show. They took the core formula, and turned it into gold. The re-casted some of the roles, got better special effects team, worked out the physical stunt work, and tightened up the writing. They went from a complete dud to a cult show with rabid fan following.
The lesson here seems to be that pilot episodes do not always accurately reflect the quality of the actual show.
found via extralife
[tags]buffy the vampire slayer, buffy, allyson hannigan, unaired pilot episode[/tags]
