Angel Set For Another Season

Posted on May 21, 2003

After keeping fans on tenterhooks for weeks, The WB finally announced that it will renew the critically acclaimed fantasy drama, starring David Boreanaz as the vampire with a soul, in search of redemption. Angel is a spin-off of the recently ended Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar for a seven year run. Darker in tone than Buffy, Angel nevertheless continued with Joss Whedon's trademark blend of high-octane action, snappy dialogue, pop culture references and heart-rending drama.

The show will retain its Wednesday timeslot, at 9:00 pm Eastern time, and will follow Smallville, which is moving to Wednesdays. James Marsters, who played Spike on BTVS, has been announced as a series regular for the fall, and it's likely that other Buffy cast members will make guest appearances. Charisma Carpenter, who plays Cordelia, will scale back her schedule and will not appear as a regular.

Next season will see Angel head in a new direction, plot-wise. The season finale featured stylishly evil (and now very dead) lawyer Lilah returning from the grave to offer Angel and company the L.A. offices of Wolfram and Hart as a reward for ending world peace when they defeated Jasmine (Jasmine's price for world peace was just too high to pay -- she ate human souls daily to stay in shape). Bemused and yet tempted, Angel, Wes, Fred, Gunn and Lorne head over to their new, plush offices. Suddenly, they have hordes of employees, cool digs, and access to all of Wolfram and Hart's amazing R&D department which has the skinny on all things mystical.

With Spike moving to L.A. (I assume that somehow he survived dying heroically during the Buffy series finale Tuesday night) and the incredibly annoying Conner vaulted to an alternate life, this is going to be a great season. Go, Joss, go!