why didn't Buffy season 1 have Oz and Jonathan?

[Buffyfan69]

Well as I'm looking at the show, & those characters weren't introduced until S2E4 ("Inca Mummy Girl") Why didn't season 1 of Buffy have Oz and Jonathan (although he appeared in the "unaired 1996 pilot") in it?

 

[nightshade]

It was a smaller season, had it been a full season with a bigger budget I guess they would have been around, or at least Johnathan would have appeared in the background a few more times

 

[Dora]

As above I think all twelve episodes was shot before it was picked up

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

Re: Oz; Because he wasn't? I mean, if I had to guess, the Producers decided that for season 2, both Willow and Xander should have boyfriends (It makes sense in Latin). For Xander, Cordie was the obvious choice, she was already on the payroll, let's bring her into the group. For Willow, obviously Giles was already taken, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, Oz was brought in, and given the Werewolf and not dying gig when Seth Green turned out to be the breakout star of 1998.

 

[Buffyfan69]

Re: In season 1, Cordelia had so many different boyfriends: Jesse McNally (although he was taken & sired by the Aurelius, killed by Xander shortly thereafter), Owen Thurman (although he was only interested in Buffy, he may have had the chance after she turn him down), Mitch Fargo (he was beaten with a baseball bat by the invisible "Marcie Ross"), Kevin Benedict (her popular boyfriend who was killed by The Master's Order around the night of the prom) and several nameless dates. on the other hand Willow was fixated on Xander (though he only liked her as a friend) because she was shy around boys, once they got another love interest, that soon disappeared. Oh and there was Moloch the Corruptor (using the name of "Malcolm") who turned out to be a demon trapped in a robotic body (thanks to Giles who used a binding spell to keep him off the internet) What else?

 

[Ethan Reigns]

They already had a decent size of ensemble cast. Oz is only relevant due to his relationship with Willow and during the first season, the writers are still trying to establish Willow as socially undesirable, so he could not become her boyfriend unless they were going to take things in a completely different direction. Johnathan is also socially undesirable and unless he is going to be in a lot of episodes (he is in 29 of them but only featured in Superstar), they didn't need him until they established what the Trio was about.

 

[caitaintdead]

I think it was just the case of the world growing as the series does. This is pretty typical of most TV series - more side characters are introduced, more locations added. If a show creator tried to add everything at once it would feel overwhelming. We need time to connect with characters and if a cast is too large this becomes a difficult task. If we had Jonathan and Oz in Season 1 then who would they have taken time away from? Already there were characters that could have used more screen time to establish an audience connection (Jenny and Angel in particular), and I definitely wouldn't have wanted the core four to lose any time.

 

[Buffyfan69]

Re: well season 2 of Buffy began production in July 1997, and they felt the time was right to bring in new characters (Oz, Jonathan, Devon, Kendra the Slayer, Larry, etc...) new villains (Spike & Drusilla, who've replaced the now-obliterated Master, Ethan Rayne etc..) they originally planned for the Anointed One (who took control of the Aurelian vamps after the Master's death) to be the Big-Bad of season 2 but was killed off by Spike, and Angel (David Boreanaz) was more prominently featured now that he was upgraded to "series regular" (until he leaves for his own spin-off show after the following season). he only appeared in 7 episode of Buffy s1 ("Welcome to Hellmouth"/"The Harvest", "Teacher's Pet", "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date", "Angel" (the episode was written primarily for him), "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" and "Prophecy Girl"). and was absent for only one episode ("Inca Mummy Girl", debut episode for Oz, Jonathan and Devon). Jenny Calendar was being featured more and getting screen time (until her character was killed off in "Passion"). as well as Principal Snyder.