WHEDON: Honestly, I don't know. I think of stuff all the time. "Oh, that would be perfect for this person." James [Marsters, Spike], obviously, is going over to Angel. I can't imagine not working with Aly, more than anybody else.

IGNFF: Oh, but what about Andrew?

WHEDON: Oh, don't get me wrong. Tom Lenk rules. I will hound him to the grave. This man is a genius.

IGNFF: Talk about the perfect sidekick for Giles on Ripper. Talk about an odd couple...

WHEDON: He is just a treasure... he really is a treasure. Believe me when I say he pops up in almost everything. Certainly in all my Aly projects. It's like, "There's Tom!" That's fine with her.

IGNFF: Definitely one of the biggest finds of the past two years.

WHEDON: Yeah, he blew us all away, and he's a sweetheart.

IGNFF: Much to Danny's [Danny Strong, Jonathan] dismay.

WHEDON: Danny, you know – you die, you work more then. That's our rule. No, Danny was with us since the presentation. Danny has been with us that long.

IGNFF: Is the presentation ever going to make it to DVD?

WHEDON: Not while there is strength in these bones.

IGNFF: Well, I mean, it's one of the most heavily bootlegged things on the Internet...

WHEDON: Yeah. It sucks on ass.

IGNFF: Yeah, it does, but it's sort of that archival, historical perspective...

WHEDON: Yeah, I've got your historical perspective ...

IGNFF: It would take it off the bootleg market...

WHEDON: Ah, I don't – what are you going to do?

IGNFF: Put it on the DVD.

WHEDON: Not me.

IGNFF: Have you seen the latest, wonderful Internet find of the purported leak of Spike's return on Angel next year?

WHEDON: No. How's it going to happen? Because I need some ideas.

IGNFF: Well let's see. According to this, Spike shows up in the White Room at the beginning of next season, wearing the amulet, naked, turns over, "Oh bloody hell," as Angel and crew stand over him. Cut to credits, come back, Angel and he get in a fight, Angel tries to rip the amulet off. Spike has trouble breathing, they put the amulet back on, find he's connected, and then Wes makes a determination that due to contact with Buffy at the time of death, Spike is human – but is now the first male vampire slayer.

WHEDON: Two words: Fan fic. Utter rubbish.

IGNFF: Isn't Ain't it Cool News great?

WHEDON: Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. I wish we lived in a world without spoilers – but we never will. But that is in fact not true. The great thing is – you read ten ridiculous theories about what is going to happen, and one is absolutely, totally right by accident. Then you just go, "Ha ha! Those ridiculous theories!" and start rewriting.

IGNFF: But it's not this one...

WHEDON: Not this one. It doesn't matter what they write. We'll write what we write.

IGNFF: And we'll know in a couple months.

WHEDON: Yeah.

IGNFF: What are your thoughts on the Internet's role in television production?

WHEDON: The Internet, you know... The bitch goddess that I love and worship and hate. You know, we found out we have a fan base on the Internet. They came together as a family on the Internet, a huge goddamn deal. It's so important to everything the show has been and everything the show has done – I can't say enough about it. It drives me up the frigging wall that I can't keep secrets, that I can't keep things off the Internet. The crewmembers of my own shows are feeding things to the Internet so that people will know what happens before it happens.

IGNFF: Where's the respect for the chain of command?

WHEDON: Apparently, the chain is only as strong as – well, that weak link that's me. It's not respect for the chain of command, it's respect for storytelling. People just don't have it. But you know what? Not everybody reads spoilers, not everybody lives that way. Those are the people that really love the show. I cannot conceive of a person who wants to know what happens. People who turn to the last page of a book – what universe did they come from? I don't understand it. That drives me crazy, but I think the Internet is beyond important in terms of fans communing, becoming a community and growing. People writing each other and writing fiction, and writing, well, porn. All of these things that do what I always wanted Buffy to do, which was exist outside of the TV show. Enter people's own personal ethos. The Internet has been a big part in how that has happened.

IGNFF: What is the current future of Firefly?

WHEDON: The current future of Firefly is that I'm writing a movie script that I have some hope of actually getting made.

IGNFF: Which will be a retelling... ?

WHEDON: No, it will be a completely new story that will be completely true to the series for those people who have seen it or see it on DVD, but will completely reintroduce it to those people who never did. Which makes it a very funny tightrope to walk. I'm basically serving two masters – I want to tell a mythic and exciting and timeless tale about nine people that people have never met, and yet not betray or repeat anything I do on the series. It's going to be tough.

IGNFF: Of course, you could just keep approaching Firefly actors to do more villains.

WHEDON: Yes, I know. It's great. It's great, actually. I plan to... I think I'm going to need another one.

IGNFF: They work well.

WHEDON: Yeah, they do just fine.

IGNFF: In fact, it would have been nice if Caleb had shown up earlier.

WHEDON: Yeah, I think so, too.

IGNFF: Was that naturally where that was going to be?

WHEDON: No, that was us going, "You know what? We need someone to latch onto." Having a villain who can take the form of anybody – and not being able to afford to hire the guest cast – made that really fascinating, but it meant that we didn't really have anything to push against. We needed somebody, we needed a sidekick. Somebody physical that we can see from episode to episode, and it took us a while to realize, which is why he came in.

IGNFF: What is the current production status on the Firefly DVDs?

WHEDON: They should be coming out in the fall. Late fall.

IGNFF: The full-on special edition?

WHEDON: Oh my god. They couldn't be specialer. We've got three unaired episodes, commentary by every cast member, big interviews with everybody, gag reel – all kinds of stuff. It's just bells and whistles, and they'll be in the right order. And widescreen. So it really couldn't be better DVD package... a wicked one, at that. They really went to town on it. I was like, "I don't know if they'll release them on DVD, because it was cancelled," and they're not only releasing it, they're doing everything. I did the commentary on the two-hour pilot with Nathan. He and Alan did one together... Alan Tudyk. It's really exciting.

IGNFF: What has been the difficulty in getting cast members for the Buffy and Angel commentaries?

WHEDON: I don't know. I don't know. You know, it wasn't really broached early on. I think we're getting more sophisticated about how this is done as DVDs have established themselves. DVDs of TV shows have established themselves just in the last couple years ... the only time I ever did one with a cast member was when Marti and Seth and I did one together. That was of course insane, because it was Seth.

IGNFF: Who was on his best behavior.

WHEDON: None of our best behavior is really that good.

IGNFF: Did it surprise you the reaction that the lack of widescreen for Buffy season four on DVD got here in the U.S.?

WHEDON: People were upset, right? I haven't seen the season four package ... it contains a disclaimer from me as to why it's not in widescreen, that I wrote. It's on it, it comes with it. It's not a widescreen show. We shot it in a TV ratio, and I am very, very specific with the way I frame things. To arbitrarily throw – and I love widescreen, but Buffy was never a widescreen show. It was an intimate, TV-shaped show. To arbitrarily throw wider borders on it, to make it more cinematic when I very specifically framed it. Think of "The Body" – the episode "The Body"...

IGNFF: Right, which I've seen in widescreen and full frame...

WHEDON: How could you have seen it in widescreen?

IGNFF: The U.K. sets are in widescreen.

WHEDON: Good. See, that is not the way I framed it. That's not the way it was meant to be seen, and therefore that's not the way I shot it. I'm preserving what I shot. The DVD is there to preserve what we made, for eternity. What we made, very specifically, was a certain shape. So I'm sure there'll be widescreen copies and there'll be arguments about what's better, but I'm not interested in – and I mean, I love widescreen. I'm a widescreen fanatic, when something's wide. When it's not, then I want to see it the way it was meant to be seen.

IGNFF: Were you not consulted for the U.K. sets?

WHEDON: No, I was not. Buffy was never widescreen. Angel is, Firefly was – and was not aired that way. That'll be nice, that it can be shown the way it was meant to be seen. For me, Buffy is a different animal.

IGNFF: What are you working on right now, as far as the future? You mentioned in the past you were working on a self-project completely unrelated to this universe you've created.

WHEDON: Well, I am actually working on the screenplay of Firefly, in my hopes that I can actually get it made. I am actually working on season five of Angel. Right now those are my two priorities.

IGNFF: Working on a single show will be a change after this long.

WHEDON: What a relief.