“Buffy The Vampire Slayer” season 4 is one of the show’s more contested runs, but episode 10, “Hush,” is a fan-favorite.
When silent, grinning demons called the Gentlemen come to Sunnydale and rob the characters of their voices, the series makes a rare turn into outright horror.Series creator (and controversial figure) Joss Whedon, who personally wrote and directed “Hush,” recounted in the episode’s DVD commentary that he wanted to test himself as a visual storyteller.
He felt the visuals in “Buffy” had become too functional; the dialogue was guiding the storytelling to simple shot/reverse shot techniques.
The obvious way to break up this monotony was to make an episode with little dialogue.”Hush” forces the characters to find new ways of communicating and the story to deliver information without language.
Looking at his career wholistically, Whedon never really outgrew using his dialogue as a crutch, but even he acknowledges: “It…
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