Espenson is probably kidding about that one, but it's also a fair assessment. While she writes for what many would consider a horror series -- and was even hired to write Texas Chainsaw Massacre 5 before leaving that project -- her background is in comedy.

Growing up in Ames, Iowa, Espenson took in a steady stream of the witty comedy television of the time: Barney Miller, Welcome Back Kotter, The Love Boat, M*A*S*H, and repeats of Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes.

"I spent a lot of time making up stories in my head for all these shows," Espenson explains. "I read an interview with a writer on M*A*S*H when I was 13 or so in which she mentioned mistakes that writers made in the sample scripts they submitted to the show. My reaction was to sit down and try to write an episode of M*A*S*H. I never sent it in, but, in my memory at least, it wasn't half bad."

Writing stuck with our intrepid hero, but she didn't really get her break until college.

"I was a grad student at UC Berkeley, studying linguistics," she says. "And I found out that you could submit a script to Star Trek: The Next Generation without an agent."

It's every Trekkie's dream. Luckily for Espenson, she had the talent to back it.

"So I wrote three Star Trek specs and sent them in, and they called me and invited me to come in and pitch stories to them. They didn't buy the script, but they wanted to hear other ideas. So I started flying down from Berkeley every couple of months and pitching stories, and that's how I got started."

Between Berkeley and Buffy, Espenson worked in the sitcoms: the short-lived Henry Winkler comedy, Monty; Disney's Roseanne for the Jurassic, Dinosaurs; and the often controversial Ellen.

"I was a sitcom writer for a number of years," she relates. "And I was on Ellen for its last season. And when it became clear that Ellen wasn't going to be coming back, my agent asked me, 'If you could be on any show, what show would you pick?' And I said Buffy. And within a couple of weeks I had a meet at Buffy, an interview for a job."

That interview actually resulted in Espenson's first Buffy episode, "Band Candy", in which magically influenced candy causes the adult population of Sunnydale to start behaving like teenagers.

"'Band Candy' was an idea I actually pitched at my job interview," Espenson says. "'Cause I love those 'someone's out of character' stories. And it seemed to me like a really central experience of one's teenage years, is that realization that your parents were young once, too, and what a horrible prospect that is, how frightening it is to see one's parents out of control."

"Band Candy" is also Espenson's favorite episode that she has written, despite all of the good work she's done since.

"I personally love 'Band Candy,'" she enthuses. "I know other people love 'Earshot' more, 'cause it's sort of a deeper episode, but 'Band Candy' was the first Buffy I wrote, and it was an idea that I pitched, and I felt very involved with it from beginning to end. I think it'll always be my favorite."