David Greenwalt brings humour and an interest in wounded people to supernatural television. We rate those instincts, especially in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though the performances sometimes have to make up for uneven plotting.
Fi1m perspective
Sarah Michelle Gellar lets irritation show through the humour in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), and the series is better for it. We were moved by her performance because she never has to make the heroine sweeter to earn our concern. Greenwalt helped shape the early series as writer, director and co-executive producer, bringing an interest in character pain beneath the supernatural business. His mixture of humour and darker feeling works here, although the uneven plotting means the performances sometimes have to keep us watching.
His path to that work began with romantic comedy scripts in the early 1980s, often written with Jim Kouf. He moved into television producing and directing in the late 1980s and 1990s. His writing credit on The X-Files (1993) puts him in another series whose characters make prolonged uncertainty bearable. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson give us good reason to settle in, even when the secrecy becomes trying. These are collaborative achievements, and a writing credit is not grounds for attributing the whole programme’s strengths or faults to Greenwalt.
He took more responsibility with Angel (1999), co-creating the Buffy spin-off with Joss Whedon and serving as primary showrunner for its first three seasons. Developing an ensemble over continuing stories suited his interest in what hurts these characters, as well as what threatens them. Grimm (2011), co-created with Kouf, continued his work in long-running supernatural drama. Vampires, demons and fairy-tale creatures recur across his television work, but so does the need to give their stories an emotional consequence.
His Buffy episodes Reptile Boy and Homecoming make the case for him as a director who can balance action, character and tone within an established series. We rate that practical skill; we do not need every episode to announce who made it. The caveat is that affection for these characters cannot make every piece of supernatural plotting convincing. Start with Buffy, for Gellar, and allow it some untidiness.
Biography
David Greenwalt is an American screenwriter, director and producer. Born on 16 October 1949 in Los Angeles, California, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama, English and education from the University of Redlands after earlier studies at Los Angeles City College and California State University, Northridge.
He began his career writing and directing feature films in the 1980s, often in collaboration with Jim Kouf, before moving into television. Greenwalt wrote and directed episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), serving as co-executive producer and later executive producer on the series; he also wrote an episode of The X-Files (1993). He co-created the spin-off Angel (1999) with Joss Whedon and co-created the series Grimm (2011), on which he served as executive producer and writer. Other credits include work on The Wonder Years (1988), The Commish (1993) and Profit (1996).
