No Future For You - Production

Production

Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughan collaborated in breaking down the story, before Vaughan penned the four-part story individually. Vaughan had previously pitched the broad strokes of the story at a dinner with Whedon, Tim Minear and Drew Goddard as a direct-to-DVD Faith movie. There were some presumptions that Vaughan would have difficulty writing the characters' dialogue, given that he wasn't a member of the TV series' writing staff. Despite so, Vaughan proved otherwise. Whedon himself was compelled to tell Vaughan what great lines he had written to Faith specifically. His writing, like the series', featured numerous pop-culture references. The title itself refers to a verse from the song "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols. Other rock song lyrics are mentioned by characters as well: Faith tells Giles she's "the go-to girl for dirty deeds done dirt cheap," whereas Roden paraphrases Pink Floyd's song "Another Brick in the Wall" with the phrase "as a wise man once said, you can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat." Giles, sporting a jumper with a Yellow Submarine design, refers to "the great bearded wizard of Northampton": a nod to legendary comic book writer and magician Alan Moore. Buffy refers to Lady Genevieve and her accomplices as Faith's 'droogs', a term used in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange to define friend or associate. Finally, whilst training, Xander makes reference to Snake Plissken, the eye-patch wearing anti-hero of Escape from New York.

Georges Jeanty returned since penciling the first four issues. He too included pop-culture references in the artwork, such as Giles' jumper. He humorously penciled the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler from British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Jeanty also references to past Buffy episodes, such as Xander's Sunnydale High School's swim team T-shirt; Xander had previously joined the swim team to investigate the deaths of some of its members in season two. In a flashback sequence in "No Future for You, Part II", Jeanty replicated the scene from "Graduation Day". He detailed the panels to the televised episode with such detail including Buffy and Faith's blocking.