CoA presents an adventure into the minds and behind the words of the Buffy/Angel writers as we explore past, present, and future. David Fury: Writer, Producer, Actor, Director; Fury has worn all hats for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and now executive producer for Angel's 5th season. Steven S. DeKnight: Writer, Director, Producer for Angel, and writer for Buffy's 5th and 6th seasons, Steven began his career as a story editor in 2001-02. Sarah Fain: Teaming up with co-writer Elizabeth Craft, the duo has written for Angelsince Season 4 with the episode "Supersymmetry". Jeffrey Bell: Writer, Producer, Director for Angel was promoted to co-executive producer and new head writer at the start of Season 4. Drew Goddard: Writer for Buffy in its 7th and final season, Drew wrote such outstanding episodes as: "Conversations with Dead People" and "Lies My Parents Told Me", and Ben Edlund: Writer, Producer, Director, best known as the creator of the comic book "The Tick", Ben joined Angel in 2002-03.The panel was also moderated by Buffy/Angel novelist, Nancy Holder. Joss offered intros, "And now I have to shut up because we have another panel coming on. You make it possible for me to spend time with my son! David Fury to the principals office please. Remember people, this is your moment to shine, but I will be in the room." As the writers took the stage there was no lack of humor to set the tone as Jeff Bell leaned into the mic and asked, "Are you now or have you even been a vampire Senator?"

The Buffy/Angel Writers' panel, Full Throttle

"We're following Joss who is like the best damn comic I've ever had to spend any time with," Jeff began, "and so we're all just thinking, 'They're still staying, why? Joss left.' We are really excited to be back on Season 5; we're going in a different direction this year. The hotel is gone and we are now at the center of Wolfram & Hart. Our guys are running a big evil corporation and trying to make sense of why they are there. Vincent Kartheiser (Connor) will not be returning as a regular this year. Connor was brought in to a thankless role and play the foil and did a great job and had a real emotional payoff at the end. Charisma [Carpenter] will not be returning as a regular this year either. People have babies, people have lives, characters have arcs and we thought she had a real wonderful one. She will be hopefully returning, we have thoughts on how to bring her out of a coma and continue to interact. But we have, what's the new guys name?" Drew cut in and offered, "Ah, my name's Drew," which spurred a few laughs. "We have James, James Marsters is coming on," Jeff continued, "and I know people have a lot of concern about how we're bringing him back. I had lunch with James yesterday and he was telling me about seven years on Buffy, whatever the character did he never felt mistreated; he loved what the character went through. I know a lot of Buffy fans think there was a lot of 'Kick the Spike' but he never felt that way. He felt like his character always had very interesting things to do and we plan to continue that. We also feel he died a noble, heroic death on Buffy and to bring him back as if nothing happened would not be fair to him or the character and so we feel whatever he comes back as, is something that we have to earn. So I ask you to bear with us as we figure out what exactly what that looks like. David Fury wants to talk about collaboration, because if anybody put the C in collaboration, it's David."

David took the floor by stating, "Collaboration; the art off passing off work to someone else." The audience applauded and laughed as David gave them an example. "I'm in the midst of episode two right now of our next season. Mr. Edlund here, I was having so much fun, I had to bring someone else into it. And I think Ben here is going to help me do it. Basically, when we're in the room we are going off a general idea that Joss has. He'll have maybe one small story point or some emotion that he wants to bring out in the episode and then it's up to us in a room trying to brainstorm a bit and trying to figure things out. I have the great fortune of working for Buffy for six seasons and Angel unofficially for all of it and these are the best bunch of writers you can ever imagine to be in a room with. And it's one of the reasons I'm here on Angel is I refuse to leave Mutant Enemy." Jeff kept on the topic at hand by adding, "Another example of collaboration is Liz and Sarah can write together as a team - one does verbs; one does nouns and together they put out really wonderful scripts. We actually don't know who the talented one is. We believe one is talented and the other one is just getting half the money."

Dave to Drew: "No, don't make me do the voice."

Jeff Bell: "Is David Fury's nurse in here please?"

A not-so-common question, but one that offers some insight to our writers is which series has been the most fun to write for, Buffy or Angel. Drew began jokinly, "I hated those Buffy people. Angel people are way better." To which David replied, "I liked the Buffy people except for Drew Goddard." David continued to explain the difference working with the two staffs. "The Buffy people were wonderful, for me personally because I've had the opportunity to go thru a lot of different régimes of writers. The most fun has been, for me, with Angel which is not to say that Buffy wasn't fun except that we finished up there with about eight writers. On Angel they were struggling with 4-5 at a time and it makes quite a difference when you're both trying to churn out 22 episodes. It was just a little bit more fun the smaller the group. It's like an intimate party, you know you're going to have a little bit more fun there and have a little bit more input and play a lot more office golf."

An audience member asked if there would be any Buffy guest stars on Angel this season, and how that affects the writing if someone's schedule isn't available. Steven admitted, "I think we're supposed to have everybody on but five of them are ghosts." Jeff took the more serious answer, "A big part of it is finding out the need for why the character would show up and we have thoughts about that for many of the characters and then it's just a matter of making time and money, and scheduling work but we have hopes for all of them dropping by." David made the most people happy when if explained a possible scenario, "Sometimes we'll come up with some interesting emotional ideas and we'll want to save it for some of those characters. It would be nice to get Sarah Michelle to play out particularly with Spike and Angel together. So we're saving a lot of stuff right now and going to keep our fingers crossed and hope that we can get her to do it otherwise we'll find some other way to express those emotions without her."

David can sometimes get out of hand when placed before a live audience, strange things begin to happen, especially to his hearing. When asked the status of Stephanie Romanov and the possible return of Lilah, next season David replied, "Eliza Dushku? Oh Lilah. Okay, calm down, having trouble with the acoustics." Steven explained, "He's old." Oddly David continued with his confusion with, "As Joss indicated, she is on another show right now. We would love, love, love to have Eliza back . . ." As the audience shouted back to him: Stephanie! David laughed, "Lilah, sorry. I'm old and feeble. Stephanie, yes I know who Lilah is!" At this point Jeff took the mic and made an announcement: "Is David Fury's nurse in here please?" And finishing the question Jeff explained, "Ah, maybe. We love Stephanie, always does great stuff and currently her character is burning for eternal damnation in hell. And Joss actually addresses certain issues about that in the first episode this season."

"Boy, that might be Faith. I only had the opportunity to write her twice, but damn! Her voice just comes out of me." ~ Fury

Another member of the audience asked the entire panel which was their favorite character to write for and we got our first glimpse of Ben as he admitted, "They all have cool things about them. I like writing for Fred, she's nervous, I'm a nervous person, I think I can understand where's she's coming from to some degree. And my breasts are growing." David anteed in with, "Out of both worlds? Boy, that might be Faith." And the place opened up with applause. "I only had the opportunity to write her twice," he confessed, "but damn! Her voice just comes out of me. The other one I had a good time with was Harmony. Those two women just, I don't know, just touch some part of me that loves writing for those two." Drew also is a Faith fan but with with David stealing his thunder opted with, "I lucked out, Rebecca [Rand Kirshner] let me help out with the Mayor when he showed up." Another round of applause. "I loved the Mayor more than anything, working with Harry is just an absolute joy I have to say." The shy and quiet Sarah offered "Fred." As her choice while Steven stated, "Without a doubt Tara," to which the applause meter hit a solid 8. Of course Jeff would not be left out, "The green guy, writing Lorne is so much fun. We're not as dark as Buffy 6 but our show can be pretty dark and he is always a breath of fresh air and humor even in the most horrible circumstances."

The epitome of collaboration, Liz Craft and Sarah Fain

It was observed by one fan that last year seemed to have all the opportunities for possible crossovers with the two apocalypses happening in each story arc, yet it never happen. David simply explained it by saying, "Two different Networks. I was able to tie-in in my Faith episode 'Salvage', with the attempt on her life in the prison. They had a dagger that was used by those guys . . ." The audience helped him out once again: The Bringers! "The Bringers, right." Laughed David as he reverted to, "So you want to know more about Eliza right? It's very hard to coordinate your climaxes together especially when one ---" Now the audience erupted in fits of laughter as Jeff once again announced, "Can security please come to the front of the room?" David tried to take control, "Okay, if everyone can get their minds out of the gutter for a minute. When the episodes aired three weeks apart, Buffy's finale, Angel's finale, it just doesn't pay for us to try and coordinate the two of them and make them one big finale. If Buffy and Angel had stayed on the same Network, I'm sure we would have seen that." The crossover came in a live-action version as Danny Strong [Buffy's Jonathan] surprised the panel by coming up to the mic and asking a question, "I have a question for Drew Goddrad." After the huge applause died down Drew addressed his fan, "Go ahead, and stand up young man." To which Danny replied, "Very funny Drew. I just wanted to know who it feels to be a murderer?" Another round of applause and shouts as Drew counted, "You know, it's not that bad." But Danny wasn't put out as the banter continued, "Is it anti-Semitism?" he asked. "I think it's like anything, at first it kind of tries your conscience . . ." Danny offered, "And then it starts to feel good." ". . . and then you realize," Drew finished, " 'Where's Danny? Is he around? Is he in the john? Ah, who cares.' What ever happened to that Jonathan character?"

Steven DeKnight & Jeff Bell debate astronauts and cavemen

"I like writing for Fred, she's nervous, I'm a nervous person." ~ Ben

It was then asked how the writers went, creatively, into the season finale that could have been a series finale. Jeff offered some insight to a very good question. "It was difficult because Charisma had just had her baby and we did everything we wanted but what we wanted was a really nice emotional payoff. We set up Wolfram & Hart for next year in terms of what next year would be and in addition we have the real emotional component of something that means a lot to our central character Angel, which is the happiness of his son, the one thing that he was never able to give him. And we thought if we just paid that off emotionally for the character we hoped it would be for the audience as well." With a variety of story ideas over the years it was wondered if there were any episodes they really wanted to write but had to defer to another writer and if anyone was jealous of each other for what they had written. Jeff confessed, "I'm very jealous of David Fury" David steeped in to give his honest and this time fact full answer, "I always said, 'Fool For Love', Buffy episode written by Doug Petrie, that is the episode I think most I would have liked to have written. It was an episode that I had an opportunity to write and passed up for reason I can't remember. And Doug just did an incredible job with it and it's on of my favorite episodes. So yeah, I hate and am jealous of Doug Petrie, if that's what you're getting at." Steven confessed, "I'm still upset I didn't write 'Tabula Rasa', Rebecca's best episode ever." And the applause erupted in agreement.

A fan asked how the writers keep the dialogue fresh and original, as it is such a focal point of bother series. Jeff began with the humorous answer, "That's actually very easy to answer, if you don't Joss makes fun of you. Sarah what was your experience?" Sarah explained, "It was our first episode of Angel last year, 'Supersymmetry' and we had a very unfortunate line, it was, 'Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,' said by Wesley. And in context it really wasn't that awful I'd just like to say." Liz opted to point fingers, "Sarah wrote that one by the way." Sarah laughed, "But it probably comes up once a week. That will train you very quickly."

(l-r:) Sarah, Liz, Steve, Nancy; (standing:) Jeff, Drew, Ben, David

Speaking of Wesley, one fan wanted to know if Alyson Hannigan would be a permanent on Angel? David responded with, "I think Alexis Denisov is getting her as a permanent. The rest of us just have to wait. We'd love to have Alyson on as soon as she's available, and as soon as we figure out the right story for Willow to come on. She's definitely game to do it and we'd love to have her but she does have a wedding to plan." In regards to other members of the cast and how their roles will be changing this season David teased the audience with: "Do we want to talk about Mr. Gunn? He'll be changing, next question! There are changes in store for our characters now that they are working for the most evil corporation on the planet. And working from within to do good, and are given basically the keys to enormous toys and facilities and all sorts of resources they didn't have before. It's going to make them different than the people who were living in a hotel working clandestinely to fight the forces of evil. We'd rather not be specific so as you can find a little more surprise and enjoyment in it, or hate us for doing it. I don't want you to hate me now, hate me later."

One of the last questions led to Steven expanding on the episode 'Seeing Red' and the death of Tara which was of much debate last year among fans. "Joss had an idea of how Willow was going to go bad and he had this idea early on," he stated. "It was at the beginning of the season and he knew exactly what the line was and how it happened. And when he explained it to us we were all just blown away and there were some reservations about, can we do this and not upset everybody? And I think I proved I can upset everybody. I always said that if she had been dating Oz at that point, Oz would have bought it, there's absolutely no question about it. It was nothing against the character, we loved writing for those two characters but it was the direction that Joss wanted to take it and I thought it was the right one."