Angel

"[Last year was] a torturous time for Buffy, a very dark season," Gellar says. "Buffy had been depressed for a very long time. She was constantly questioning everything. She didn't know whom to trust. I'm a little tired of having her cry all the time. I'm looking forward to her growing up and having some happiness. Where's the fun Buffy?"

Well, the actress may enjoy playing a more upbeat slayer very soon. Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon has said that Buffy will loosen up a bit more in the show's fourth season -- she and her buddies Xander and Willow have escaped the hell that was Sunnydale High School and are heading to college.

The change in venue and the more mature storylines that follow should help quench any residual anti-violence backlash of the kind that helped postpone last year's season finale, "Graduation Day, Part II," after the Columbine High massacre. Plus, when she's not kicking undead butt or cramming for midterms, the Chosen One might have some extra time to go out on dates now that her hunky vampire beau, Angel (David Boreanaz) has split town,

"It's was very heartbreaking for her when Angel [left at the end of last season], but it was the right thing. They really can't be together - I mean, he's a vampire. He could turn on Buffy at any minute," Cellar says with a small shrug.

But even though it might take some time for Buffy to get over her ex, fans are likely to rebound more quickly. All they'll have to do is stick around after Buffy's end credits roll and watch Boreanaz in Angel, a spin-off that will air on the WB at 9 p.m. (Eastern time) Tuesday nights.

Angel follows the vampire to, aptly enough, the City of Angels, where he becomes part of a seedy L.A. detective agency that tries to help needy souls conquer personal (and literal) demons. He's helped by a boozy, cynical undead mentor, Doyle (Glenn Quinn), and by the snooty Cordelia Chase (Buffy regular Charisma Carpenter). It seems that Cordy ran out of luck and money after heading to Los Angeles in search of movie stardom; she takes a job at the agency to help pay her bills.

Although it's unlikely Buffy and Angel will get to cross paths anymore, Whedon said a few characters could occasionally shuttle back-and-forth between Sunnydale and L.A. He says that while the two shows are related, Angel will definitely have a darker, more adult tone that has the potential of broadening Buffy's primarily teen audience.

"I see Angel as the second half of Buffy" Whedon told CINESCAPE in an interview earlier this year. "But it won't be a high school humiliation or alienation kind of a thing. We deal a lot with addiction as a metaphor, because that's Angel. He's sort of a reformed drunk [so to speak], fighting his way back to something resembling humanity and helping others do the same.

"We can go anywhere and be more like an anthology with stand-alone stories and less of a soap opera," he added.

But though Angel promises to be more somber than its predecessor, it won't lose any of the sharp wit that's made Buffy such a critical smash.

"It will be a little darker, but it won't be one of those relentlessly blue-colored, angst-ridden, 'I-track-a-serial-killer-every-week' shows," Whedon said. "[Angel] will have some good, quirky humor."