I have been talking since 2004 to anyone who would listen about my plan to have fans pre-pay for a direct-to-DVD Buffy/Angel/Firefly miniseries. Based on how the Farscape mini-series got produced and what was told to me by many WB executives during the Saving Angel campaign, I figured out each series to have four chapters/episodes each in a three-disk set (okay, this was before Blue Ray technology which might hold all the series on just one disk). I then calculated how much WB paid for an Angel episode, tweaked the figures annd, well, you get the idea. Might work if anyone was willing to try something different. 

While I haven’t let go of that dream (Serenity II, anyone? The Spike movie?  Xander Chronicles?), Joss has jumped in with an out-of-the-box way to make and fund an original show.  A very different, exciting and scary way. Making it on the cheap, selling it direct to the consumer, skipping the studios and advertisers while making a profit in the New Media (and the studios said it couldn’t be done, ha!) and Direct-to-DVD for those of the cast and crew who were willing to be paid on the back end.  In this interview, Joss explains how he did it and why it is a good thing, in my opinion, for the viewer.