It's quite fascinating to see this play out so publicly between the two camps, with SMG trying to put all the blame on Hulu and that executive, and then the studio coming back with that hit piece on Chloé Zhao.

I assume, as usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Zhao's an odd fit for the show (based on her movies), there were differences of opinion over what it should be, it wasn't great, but that they also weren't given the best shot at making it work, it's just quite rare to see it all happen so openly.

I'm not surprised to hear that Zhao made something that didn't work, her sensibilities are not exactly mainstream, but on the flipside it's sad to see SMG in such heavy damage control over its failure. It's all gotten so messy at this point, almost makes you wish they'd never even tried.

I would really like to see a good foreign studio (S.Africa, Korea, Norway…)pick it up and knock it out of the park. Then hand it off to another. Buffy showing up for a cameo in a Tokyo bar to help? Cool right? Let it wander its way back to the States. Slayers are supposed to be International, right?

I think Hulu and Zhao had different visions. Zhao (and Gellar) wanted to make Buffy: The Next Generation, whereas Hulu wanted Buffy Season 8. Conflicted ideas, which meant it was never gonna work.

I never watched Buffy so I don't have a lot of opinions generally, but it seems to me like there was a lot of behind the scenes mess here and maybe the cancellation was a good thing.