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Writers Ranked by Taste

This page ranks writers based on the average quality of their episodes according to Loyalists and Jumpers. Writers who wrote or co-wrote fewer than four episodes each are combined into the "Other Writers" category. Teams who write with each other exclusively are treated as if they are a single writer. All data below take into account when an episode aired and whether it was one part of a two-part episode. More detail is on the Writers Ranked page.

The Joss bonus represents how many more points an episode that this person wrote would get if Joss Whedon wrote it instead. High numbers suggest that Joss Whedon could have done a much better job with the episodes that the writer wrote. Lower numbers suggest that the writer is almost as good as Joss Whedon. Negative numbers mean that fans prefer episodes written by the writer to episodes written by Joss Whedon. This interpretation assumes that the writer of the episode is the main cause of the episode's quality.

Rank Loyalists Jumpers
1 Drew Goddard -5.69 Joss Whedon 0.00
2 Joss Whedon 0.00 Drew Goddard 1.46
3 Steven S. DeKnight 25.90 Jane Espenson 22.43
4 Douglas Petrie 27.89 Douglas Petrie 22.97
5 Marti Noxon 28.43 David Greenwalt 27.46
6 Jane Espenson 30.83 Other Writers 27.71
7 Other Writers 30.99 Marti Noxon 28.38
8 David Greenwalt 31.73 David Fury 32.41
9 Rebecca Rand Kirshner 35.31 Steven S. DeKnight 32.93
10 David Fury 35.98 Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali 35.23
11 Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali 42.09 Rebecca Rand Kirshner 36.10
12 Drew Z. Greenberg 44.06 Drew Z. Greenberg 45.58

In general, Loyalists and Jumpers are similar in the writers that they like or dislike. Both like episodes written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. Both tend to dislike episodes written by Drew Z. Greenberg and Dean Batali & Rob Des Hotel.

The data above show that Loyalists prefer Drew Goddard episodes (especially "Lies My Parents Told Me" and "Dirty Girls") and Steven S. DeKnight episodes (especially "Seeing Red" and "Dead Things") more than Jumpers do, and Jumpers prefer Jane Espenson episodes (especially "Band Candy" and "Gingerbread") and Dean Batali & Rob Des Hotel episodes (especially "The Dark Age") more than Loyalists do, although Loyalists prefere Espenson's "End of Days" and "Storyteller" more than Jumpers do.

Overall, the writer of a particular episode explains 12.8% of episode quality for Loyalists and 10.9% for Jumpers.

This page was last modified on January 23, 2013