A great villain is everything. And everyone seems to have an opinion on who the greatest villain is. But the truth is, every great writer makes sure they have a villain that's designed to be the most suitable and effective for that precise story. But it's not just cinema that has fantastically nasty villains. Television is also filled with memorable antagonists, and this includes Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Of course, Buffy is the show that made Sarah Michelle Gellar a major celebrity. But it was also a show that featured some of the most memorable villains around. And this includes The Nerd Villians. Thanks to a detailed account by Vulture, we now know how and why Joss Whedon and the writers of Buffy created these three memorable characters.
The Need For A 'Lighter' Villian
Like nearly every television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer featured a new villain for Buffy to deal with every season. Most of the time, government officials or vampires were the villains. Sometimes even gods were. But for the sixth season of the show, creating a villain was particularly challenging. This is because Buffy had actually died in the finale of the fifth season. She was in the process of being brought back from the dead so the show required a slightly lighter nemesis for her to battle.
Ultimately, the writers came up with the idea of bringing in three social pariahs from Buffy's old high school. They were previously-seen characters Jonathan Levinson and Warren Mears. Then there was Andrew Wells, the younger brother of the techy triumvirate.
The three characters were known as 'The Nerds' and their story explored the extreme consequences of bullying.
"I remember Joss pitching the two Big Bads of the season. One was going to be Dark Willow, and the other was going to be these three nerds," writer, director, and producer Doug Petrie told Vulture. "We realized these guys could be a gateway into Willow’s darker self. They were going to mess around and get in way over their heads. Nerd empowerment gone horribly wrong."
Also, Jonathan and Warren, who were previously established, were deemed 'successful characters' and were worth keeping around.
"I was at the grocery store and the checkout man said to me, 'You were on Buffy.' [I said,] 'Yes.' [And he said,] 'And you’re coming back!' [I said,] 'That’s right!' [He goes,] 'And you’re going to be in a trio with Jonathan and someone else' I didn’t know that," Adam Busch, who played Warren Mears admitted. "That’s when I realized the reach of the fans and how they consistently knew more than I did."
Finding The Three Nerds ...AKA 'JAW'... AKA 'The Threesome'... AKA... Whatever The Writers Eventually Agreed On...
The writers knew that Jonathan and Warren were perfect for the villains, but then they were looking at Tucker (played by Brad Kane) from the third season episode "Prom" as the third. But he was unavailable. Instead,
"So we started talking about what if Tucker had a brother?" Jane Espenson, a writer on the show, told Vulture. "I said, 'His name should start with an A' Because if you have Jonathan and Warren, then they can name themselves JAW as an acronym! Joss was like, 'Great! Let’s name him Andrew.' We never ended up using JAW, but that’s why his name starts with an A."
While Jane said that was the reason for the choice, Doug Petrie said she was "full of s***"...
"Nobody supported that idea, I can tell you that right now! That’s hilarious," Doug said. "I did pitch — now I’m going to do my version of it — that we could call them the Threesome or the Threeway. And I literally didn’t think of it that way. And they were like, 'Um, that’s going to be a problem.' And then I double-downed on it, and I said, 'They should say, 'It’s an awesome name,' and not understand why everyone’s laughing at them when they say, 'We’re the Threeway!' That got no traction whatsoever. Who knew that that many people would say no to a threesome? But live and learn."
In the original script, Tucker/Andrew was supposed to be the leader of The Trio of Nerds. But that's not the way that actor Tom Lenk approached the character.
"Tom played the part totally differently than we had intended it, which was more Tucker-ish, really into the adventure," Jane said. "They were firing off their jet packs and flying off, and his line was [in bold tone], 'All systems go, blast off!' And Tom did it [sounding a bit frazzled], 'All systems go … blast off?' Like he was sorta into it, but scared about what this jet pack was going to do. So we wrote the character with more of Tom’s take — taking away the bravado and making it false bravado."
This made the character far more interesting and true to his nerdy self.
As for Jonathan, the writers had a lot more fun figuring him out in the room.
"In my mind, Jonathan went from, Yeah, Buffy saves you but you’re still powerless, you still love the things you love, you meet other people who love the things you love, who have an agenda," Jane said of the character. "You can embrace all the fun stuff about being a supervillain without understanding that there is pain and loss for the good guys at the same time. And Warren is a genuinely bad guy. He is a misogynist."
On Buffy The Vampire Slayer, whenever a character was misogynistic or racist or homophobic, karma would almost always come back and bite them in the butt. And that's precisely what happened with Warren and the other members of the nerds.