It's a bright February morning in Santa Monica - home of the Buffy offices and soundstages - and Doug is explaining to BBC how he fits into the Buffy production hierarchy.

�I think the titles don't mean a lot and I never keep them straight,� he concedes. �I think now, in season five, I'm a co-producer."

�Many of the producers that you see at the top of the show aren't writers - they help with the actual line producing, budgets, scouting for locations and making sure that actors are available.

Some of the producers that you see - like me and Jane (Espenson) and David (Fury) - are writers who have the producer title so there is some variation in what it can mean to be a producer on a television series.�

Having dabbled in the world of TV - as a writer for VH-1 and for the show Clarissa Explains it All - Doug subsequently made the break into film scripting and was initially uncertain about a return to the small screen.

�I wasn't really wild about the idea of doing television but I loved this show. Joss (Whedon) read some spec scripts (for The X Files and The Simpsons), asked me to join the show for season three and I jumped on it.�

Those spec scripts - obviously impressed Buffy's creator and Doug was soon entrusted with three Buffy episodes. Revelations, Enemies and Bad Girls were all hugely popular, prompting swift promotion to Executive Story Editor as Buffy headed for college and Co-producer status the following year.

�In many ways my job has remained the same. The money gets better, the title gets better and I have my name at the top of show�, as they say, which is very nice. It's great for my parents - my mom loves to see my name at the beginning of each episode and that's a nice thing of course.