By Chris Snellgrove | Published
One of my most enduring middle-aged traits is that I never really liked TikTok. Every time I try to use it I can practically feel it giving me ADHD. Because of this, it took me a good minute to find out that one of the biggest stars in Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been busy taking over social media and now she’s promising something that will delight her biggest fans. Charisma Carpenter, who famously played the role of Cordelia Chase, is now polling her fans on TikTok to see if they would be interested in her directing a Buffy watch the podcast again.
Charisma Carpenter on TikTok
If you share my antipathy for TikTok, you may not realize how busy Charisma Carpenter is. Buffy the fans were entertained. She entertains everything from fans’ crazy questions about David Boreanaz’s smell to fans’ flattering adoration of “the naughty face… of the pot.” However, none of her content caused as much of a stir as her asking if fans would like her to do a podcast to review, and for good reason: if she was willing to spill the tea, few actors in the universe of Joss Whedon’s Vampire Slayer has a more compelling story to share.
One of the reasons for this is that Charisma Carpenter managed to cross the line between two major franchises, as the lead actor in Buffy the Vampire Slayer before moving on to the sullen Angel spin-off after BuffyThe third season of has ended. To say the least, Angel was completely different in terms of setting, casting, and overall tone, and I’d like to know more about how Carpenter adapted her party girl character to a noirish new world of “detective” mysteries.
For example, AngelEarly episodes often seem to treat Cordelia as a twenty-something rather than an 18-year-old high school graduate, and we’d like to know how much of that was intentional and how much of that was accidental. As for the show itself, Angel evolved so quickly and so drastically that each season was radically different from the last, and it would be rewarding to learn how Charisma Carpenter handled that situation after her departure. Buffy (a show that remained largely the same until, ironically enough, his departure).
For those of us who love hearing about messy behind-the-scenes drama, the most compelling reason to listen to Charisma Carpenter is Buffy Rewatching the podcast (assuming it ever takes off) is to see if she talks more about franchise creator Joss Whedon. Whedon once enjoyed a reputation as Hollywood’s most prominent feminist, and one of the reasons that changed was because Carpenter took to X (formerly Twitter) and described the man as having a “past of casual cruelty”.
She alleged that he called her “fat” after she became pregnant, that he asked her if she would keep the child, that he blamed her for sabotaging her pregnancy and that he then sent her away after giving birth. The actress naturally looked forward to being a mother, but says that joy “was sucked away” and she knew exactly who to blame: “Joss was the vampire.”
Long story not very short, I’m here for Charisma Carpenter to revisit it Buffy glory days on TikTok, and I’m particularly disappointed that she’s hosting a review podcast. She clearly still has great passion for her character and this entire fictional universe, as evidenced by her hilarious videos online as well as her role in the surprisingly excellent audio drama. Slayers: A Buffyverse Story. And if she wants to spill a gallon of tea about all the behind-the-scenes drama that went on on the most ambitious urban fantasy shows in network history, that’s just one more Cordelia-shaped cherry of its total domination on social networks.
