Movies - TV
Buffy Had To Fire Giles To Hire One Of Its Writers
By SHAE SENNETT
Some of the best TV episodes were created by writers before they joined the show by penning what is known as a spec script, a story draft within the show creator’s framework.
One spec script was David Fury’s story for the Season 3 episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” titled “Helpless,” in which Giles was fired as the titular heroine’s Watcher.
The episode saw Giles drugging Buffy so she would temporarily lose her powers as a test. However, the effects of the drug weren’t what Fury initially pitched for the episode.
In the book “Slayers & Vampires,” Fury explained, “She was going to hallucinate and think that her friends had become vampires and she comes home and her mother’s a vampire.”
While Fury liked the idea of Buffy losing her support group, the show had done something similar in the episode “The Wish,” so series creator Joss Whedon changed the drug’s effect.
Another significant change to Fury’s pitch was Giles being permanently fired as Buffy’s Watcher instead of getting his position back at the end of the episode.
Fury shared, “The thing that Joss really responded to was, ‘Oh my God, Giles gets fired.’ [...] Somehow the idea became a permanent part of the mythology of the show.”
Since Giles interfered with the test to save Buffy, he was fired from his position. However, he remained a key character in the series and continued to work alongside the Slayer.
Although it wasn’t the first “Buffy” episode he penned, Fury’s pitch for “Helpless” paved the way for his stint on the writing staff and producer credits in the final four seasons.