For three seasons on Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, he was the vampire with a soul: the demon with the face of an angel who fell in love with the Slayer. One of the world’s worst vampires, he spend over 200 years bringing darkness, death, destruction and depravity. Now, cursed with a conscience, he left the small town of Sunnydale – and Buffy – behind for the City of Angels to not only save lost souls, but also his own.
Debuted on October 5, 1999, Angel followed the titular vampire heartthrob (David Boreanaz) and his mission of redemption: taking a bite out of crime as as a private investigator/dark avenger/knight-for-hire. For the first nine episodes, Angel worked alongside fellow Sunnydale resident Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) and Doyle (Glenn Quinn), a half-human, half-demon who received visions from The Powers That Be: visions of people in need of a Champion like Angel. When Doyle died a hero fighting the good fight, he passed his visions onto Cordy. By episode ten, Wesley Wyndam-Price (Alexis Denisof), ex-Watcher turned rogue demon hunter, joined Angel Investigations, a detective agency dedicated to helping the helpless and hopeless.
Soon, Team Angel included streetwise Charles Gunn (J. August Richards), empath demon Lorne (Andy Hallett), brainy Texan Winifred “Fred” Burkle (Amy Acker) and the devil-may-care Spike (James Marsters), who soon became another ensouled vampire as well as a foil to Angel.
Angel is Batman: tall, dark, handsome, and brooding with a trench coat as his cape. He has his Angelmobile, and plenty of weapons and gadgets to choose from. When he’s not helping people fight their own demons in the Gotham that is L.A., Angel continues to battle his own. A moment of true happiness will cause him to revert back to his evil alter-ego Angelus.
Even if it takes an eternity, he will continue to make amends.
For its first two seasons on the WB Network, Buffy served as the lead-in for Angel on Tuesday nights. When Buffy was picked up by UPN for its final two seasons in 2001, Angel remained on the WB: first on Mondays after 7th Heaven, then on Sundays after Charmed, where it became a supernatural soap opera by then – especially with the addition of Angel’s angst-filled teenage son Connor (Vincent Kartheiser) and so forth. By the middle of its fourth season and all the way through its final season, Angel aired on Wednesdays.
Sadly, the WB put a stake in the hearts of devoted fans by canceling Angel in 2004, despite critical praise and good ratings. Still, Angel will not fade away thanks to reruns in syndication and the world of comic books with After The Fall: picking up where the series left off, where Angel wanted to personally slay the dragon in the never-ending war against the forces of evil.
All 110 episodes of Angel can be found on Hulu.
Let’s go to work