Network Execs Were Wary About Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Most Daring Episode

It’s easy to imagine the network’s uneasiness with the concept, especially considering how fast-paced and overstimulating most mainstream media has gotten. Today, network execs are literally pushing showrunners to create “second-screen” TV shows, designed so viewers can still follow the plot even as they’re looking at their phones/laptops. Under that mindset, a dialogue-free episode is an obvious no-go. 

But despite that growing mindset from network execs, their concerns over “Hush” were unfounded. Not only was the episode a critical success, but in the past twenty-four years, plenty of other shows have done the same gimmick with undeniably great results. From “BoJack Horseman” to “Mr. Robot” to “Only Murders in the Building” to the “X-Files” reprisal, it’s turned out that audiences really love an episode that gives them no choice but to sit up and pay attention. It’s a format that forces viewers to read into the characters’ facial expressions and body language, to make their own inferences in a way that dialogue can often unburden them from doing. It discourages passive viewing, and in response, audiences tend to rise to the challenge. 

For Whedon, one of the reasons he thinks the episode captured viewers so well is that dialogue, as helpful as it is, is also surprisingly restrictive. “Language can interfere with communication because language limits,” Whedon explained in the DVD audio commentary. “As soon as you say something, you’ve eliminated every other possibility of what you might be talking about.” Removing dialogue meant forcing the characters to interact in ways that were more direct than they typically would, which made for some of the most honest, compelling character interactions the show had ever given us. Maybe TV shows should play with this gimmick more often.