News - August 1999 Archive

Advance word on the Buffy spinoff is less than angelic, but that's so often the case with a big, new, splashy show, don't you think?

[My Comments : I don't really think we have anything to worry about. I'll reserve judgment on the show when I see the first ep!]

She ran away from home, had her neck bitten by her vampire boyfriend, blew up her high school and got caught in the middle of a national debate about violence in the media. So what does Sarah Michelle Cellar want Buffy Summers to do for an encore? Have some fun.

"[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."

Picture from Cinescape article.

When Buffy the vampire slayer's bloodsucking boyfriend, Angel, split at the end of last season, it became a more permanent separation than creator Joss Whedon had originally intended. Angel (David Boreanaz), of course, was heading off to his own self-titled spin-off (premiering Oct. 5, following "Buffy"), but Whedon had planned to reunite him and Sarah Michelle Gellar, along with their entire casts, for a two-hour TV movie sometime this season. Unfortunately for the stake-crossed lovers, this has proved unfeasible. "It was a production nightmare the likes of which I can't even describe," Whedon tells EW Online of the impossible logistics of merging two sets of actors and crews for a lengthy shoot on top of their usual grueling schedules. Even arranging cameos on each others' shows is difficult, since both series film simultaneously. "We have a couple of crossovers planned [with the supporting cast]," he says. "It's just hardest with David and Sarah," because they appear in nearly every shot of their own series.

Of course, talk of a reunion begs the question, Why did Whedon split his successful crew up in the first place? Last season "Buffy" ranked 18th with teenage girls and was the WB's top-rated show among males 18 to 34. But Whedon thinks "Buffy" will do just fine without Boreanaz and Charisma Carpenter, whose character, Cordelia, will transfer over to "Angel." "In a way, Angel and Cordelia both existed in their own worlds on the periphery of 'Buffy,'" he says. "He's out there brooding, and she's out there complaining, so it was very easy to move them out."

In the spin-off, Angel starts a mystical detective agency with Cordelia as "his Gal Friday," says Whedon, who will executive-produce the series and do final rewrites on its scripts. (For "Buffy" he'll write four original episodes and also direct them.) Angel's brooding nature and the spookier story lines will make for a darker show, but there will be enough "Buffy"-style humor to keep "Angel" from becoming a deathly (or undeathly) bore. "We're very strict about making a dark, scary, challenging show that isn't relentless and blue," Whedon says. "A lot of those shows are just so grim. 'It's a serial killer! It's another serial killer! And next week... another serial killer!'" Now THAT would really bite.

The show's building great buzz, but the producer of both shows, David Greenwalt, says, "Buzz is buzz. I care more about making a show that will connect with an audience."

The New York Daily News clearly agrees with us about the show's potential, citing Buffy's success, star Boreanaz's undeniable hunky appeal, and the presence of Buffy creator Joss Whedon on the new show.

Daily News' Donna Petrozzello spoke with Greenwalt about the future of the brooding vamp. "I think Angel grows out of Buffy, but still is its own show," Greenwalt says. "While Buffy is a bright and sunny character in a bright and sunny town [called Sunnydale], Angel is a bit more dark and powerful character, but not ultra-brooding. He's a grown guy in a grownup city."

"I think the stories for Angel will be a little older, a little badder," Greenwalt says. "The shows are polar opposites that are drawn together."

Greenwalt, whose credits include ABC's bright, shiny The Wonder Years and the dark and vastly underrated Fox series Profit, says it's (duh) better to work on a show that people are talking about.

"The best part about working on a show where there's buzz is that people get it," Greenwalt says about the pre-sold concept of Angel. "When Buffy is mentioned, you know that everybody from fans to critics to network executives understand the show." Not to mention advertisers.

Greenwalt says he will leave the audience guessing as to when and if Angel will revert to his bad vamp self, as happened when he found a "moment of true happiness" and undid a gypsy spell, thereby losing his soul for the second time.

"Angel has done terrible things in his past, and I think we've all done things we're ashamed of," Greenwalt says. Hey, I don't think any viewers are guilty of Angel's excesses. While in his evil phase, he tortured Buffy's Watcher, Giles, and murdered Giles' love Jenny Calendar, not easy stuff to forgive. "He's seeking redemption, but he might go bad again," says Greenwalt.

Good. Bad. It really doesn't matter which side Angel ends up on, we're still watching. Angel airs this fall right after Buffy, Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the WB.

Theirs was a relationship that was pretty much doomed from the start... she, the vampire-trashing "slayer" of legend, he a centuries-old immortal avenger, doubly cursed to walk the earth without ever being truly happy, lest he suddenly revert back into a slavering, bloodthirsty beast. Buffy and Angel, star-crossed lovers brought together and then torn apart by supernatural forces beyond their control - which is to say, Joss Whedon and the The WB mini-network, originators of the cult hit Buffy The Vampire Slayer, a show so successful it simply screamed "spinoff."

Thus, this fall, we will have Angel, the continuing undead adventures of Buffy boyfriend David Boreanaz, off to Los Angeles to fight his own demons, and the kind of evil you'd never find on Sunnydale's suburban streets.

He will have help, of course. Fighting by his side is fellow Buffy alumnus, Charisma Carpenter, whose snotty Cordelia character has now become an aspiring L.A. actress. And, backing them up, Roseanne survivor Glenn Quinn - acting for the first time with his own Irish accent - as a disreputable representative of the enigmatic, all-knowing "Powers That Be."

Angel is being overseen by the same Buffy production team, series creator Joss Whedon and his co-executive producer, David Greenwalt.

How will they handle the doubled workload?

"A lot of drugs," laughs Greenwalt. "Just kidding. That was just a joke."

"We're pretty much terrified 24/7," adds Whedon. "We just keep working and working ..."

"Dave is working the most on Angel, I'm working the most on Buffy, and we're sort of supporting each other," he says. "We're constantly going back and forth to each other's offices and stuff."

"The staffs of both shows know each other, so there's a lot of cross-currents, and we just sort of, you know, keep it as one big concept instead of two totally separate ones."

"I very much wanted for them to be companion pieces, because they belong in the same family and will hopefully draw a lot of the same audience (they will also, at least in U.S. markets, be broadcast back-to-back). But at the same time, Angel is definitely going to distinguish itself with a darker, more adult kind of tone."

But what of poor Buffy, left loveless in Sunnydale, about to enter college and young adulthood without an Angel to call her own?

"Giles is going to become Buffy's love slave," deadpans Sarah Michelle Gellar, who admits to knowing not much more than the rest of us.

"I want you to know I'm making this all up as I go along," she laughs. "Supposedly, the first script was delivered this morning. I didn't see it."

But she does have some general ideas as to where Buffy may be headed.

"For the first time in her life, she's going to leave her home," she reveals. "She's going to leave her boyfriend. She's going to leave her mentor, Giles, and she's going to learn to experience things on her own."

"Hopefully, that will be something that a lot of young girls and boys can relate to as well. And I think that's what the new season is really going to be about, that next step of growing up.

"But I don't really know. And I guess that's the exciting part of it."

Not that she won't miss Boreanaz. "David and I had a very, very special relationship," she says. "In three years of working together, we never had so much as a disagreement ... I mean,.that's just unbelievable, considering the hours we spent together"

"We worked so well together. We could gauge each other's moods. We could help each other. So for me (this change) is very, very daunting - you have this concern that, you know, part of the reason Buffy worked was (because of) Angel. And you get, like, 'What if I can't do it on my own? What if I need David?'"

"I think that it's going to be a good challenge for me. And I know it's a very exciting time for him."

Boreanaz himself seems more resigned than excited. But perhaps that's just the afterglow of Angel's otherworldly cool - evident, apparently, from the day he first walked through the door to read for the role on Buffy.

"I didn't think much of it at the time," he shrugs, "because I was just happy to be working. I mean, it was something that came at a time in my life where things were just starting to move for me, personally and professionally."

"So I took on the character, and with every time that I did an episode, there was something new to him. So it kind of grew on me, and it's been a great experience so far."

And a much longer one than was originally intended, according to Joss Whedon.

"It was clear, when I first sort of devised the pilot, that Angel was the one character who was bigger than life in the same way that Buffy was - a kind of superhero."

"And I knew that, as the dark, mysterious love interest, he had the potential to be a break-out character. But I also knew he had the potential to go away after three episodes."

"But then we found David Boreanaz, and he doesn't seem to be able to go away at all."

Boreanaz summons a throaty chuckle. "You know, I kind of take the character for what he is. Yes, he has a tortured soul. And he has a guilty conscience. But at the same time he's trying to rebuild and make amends, for his own true sanity, and to make himself become a better person.

"I think we'll see that happen slowly but surely. In the beginning, he is going to go through a lot of suffering. He's going to feel a lot of pain.

"But it will be humourous pain."

And besides, he won't be spending the entire season alone.

"We will be introducing a character, pretty early on, a very strong woman who's going to get seriously into Angel's life," confides Whedon. "And there will also be a new guy in Buffy's life, who will be spending a lot of time wondering 'How am I going to measure up to your last boyfriend? He was so cool.'"

"But I think the only important thing - and this goes for Buffy's new love interest as well as Angel's - is that the shows have the same reaction that (the fans) do, which is yes, we know that this was a great romance, and the most important thing in their lives, and we are going to take that seriously. Because that's what the audience is going to be thinking."

To that end, Gellar says, she'll be visiting the Angel set for at least one crossover reunion show this season, probably somewhere around the sixth episode.

"I think they're also planning a Seth Green cross-over," she says. "But not right away. (First) we really want to give the show a chance to get on its feet. It's not Buffy. It's a different show. And I think sometimes that issue gets confused if you have too many crossovers right away."

But, truth be told, Angel never really was the main man in Buffy's so-called life. That distinction rightfully belongs to writer/creator Whedon.

And now she's being forced to share him.

"I'm going to answer this honestly", Gellar begins, cautiously. "Joss is our show. This is him." And when he first told me he had this idea (for Angel), I cried.

"I was excited at the concept, and that he would have a chance to tell more stories, because that's what he does so brilliantly. But I was also concerned, because I don't think we know how to make the show without him."

"Now, he has assured me that he will not be leaving Buffy, that Buffy is his first love. So while I do think it's wonderful that he'll have the chance to do both shows, if, God forbid, I need him one day, and he's over at Angel ... (he's) dead!"

Spoken like a slayer.

The Hook: Hollywood bloodsuckers...Leaving his true love Buffy behind in Sunnydale, the vampire Angel tries to get a fresh start in Los angeles. Instead, he finds a whole 'nother breed of fiends waiting to bring out his dark side. Along the way he joins forces with an aspiring actress. The show's tagline says it all: "I lived 244 years and thought I'd seen everything. Then I came to L.A."
The Cast:David Boreanaz stars, with Charisma Carpenter playing the starlet.
Backstory: Joss Whedon promises he won't be spread too thin, between his work on both "Buffy" and this new spin-off. If Whedon's attention DOES wander, "Buffy" star Sarah Michelle Gellar recently joked, "he's DEAD.".

From morbidmuch: Talk about Angel! What do you know?
Well, it looks like Doyle might have it bad for Cordy--and just maybe she'll have, well, something for him, too.

From jcbuffyfan: Do you know how exactly Cordelia and Angel meet?
I think they hook up at a party.

"Last night, a very good friend of mine and I were reminiscing and he said, 'You did a great job and I'm real proud of you.'" recalls Boreanaz, taking it easy in a grey T-shirt, chinos and sports slippers. "So I reminded him of that line because he's always giving me a hard time about that. 'Salty goodness' - We just got a good laugh outta that. My friends keep me very grounded."

A solid grounding will come in handy when Angel soars onto TV screens this fall season. The highly anticipated spinoff of WB hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel stars Boreanaz in the title role, a centuries-old vampire who has split with soulmate Buffy and relocated to Los Angeles, where, with vampy Cordelia in tow, he tries to right wrongs much as Buffy does back in Sunnydale. A half-human/half-demon named Doyle (Glenn Quinn) will assist Angel in his quest and provide comic relief.

"The show's in the same ball park but it'll be just a different city," Boreanaz explains. "There'll be a bit more of a touch on the human level as far as why people do what they do, what motivates them to do bad things and get away with it. Angel's purpose is to figure that out, help people, and along the way he'll save some lives and some redemption for his own soul, which he has lost. It'll run the same kind of territory but in a different level, maybe a bit more adult-oriented. The dark side of the human condition is not always the best thing to deal with from an adolescent point of view, but I think it's gonna work out great for us.

"Angel's stuck in this reality and he's living in a city with no reality, basically - Los Angeles," Boreana continues. "[In the last season's Buffy finale], we parted ways in a very Casablanca kind of way, but I think there's another story to be told about the two characters is great. There'll be crossovers that occur - she'll come and visit me and vice versa."

Boreanaz makes a good impression before he even shows up for an interview. He's asked to meet at a Beverly Hills eatery just off Rodeo Drive - but it's no your sleek, hipster restaurant typical to the neighborhood, just a little drive that serves up big, messy Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. (Asked if he has adopted any sort of a physical regime to stay in shape for the longer hours he'll be working, he just laughs and say, "Yeah, eating these.")

Indeed, in person Boreanaz gives off none of Angel's dark tormented vibe; he's laid-back and good-natured and even capable of smiling. "Man, I really fooled 'em all, didn't I?" he says wryly. "Got my own show and everything."

"When I first got the job [on Buffy], I was telling everybody, 'I'm playin' a 244-year-old vampire with a conscience,' and my friends would be, like, 'Cool, man.' It just came out sounding so wild, saying it in a nonchalant fashion. It's funny when you think about it. It's not like, 'Oh, I'm playing a doctor' or 'I'm playing a police officer.'"

Sarah Michelle Gellar likewide lauds her once and future co-star's unpretentiousness. "We had the most amazing working relationship I've ever had," she says of Boreanaz. "I've been very blessed with the guys that I've worked opposite, but David and I had a very, very special relationship. In three years of working together, we never had so much as a disagreement, and that's just unbelievable considering the hours we spent together."

"For me, [his departure] is very, very daunting," she adds. "You have this concern - part of the reason Buffy worked was because of Angel - and what if I can't do it on my own? But it's an exciting time for him, as well."

Buffy creator Joss Whedon first mentioned to Boreanaz the idea of a spinoff two years ago, so the actor wasn't that concerned when Angel was ostensibly killed on the finale two seasons back. Boreanaz says Angel's 240 years of "pain and torture" won't always come across so grim in his new series.

"I think that he'll be the befuddled action guy," he explains. "He's really cool and then he does something that makes him look like the biggest dork. He'll fall down in his own muck basically, trying to save somebody; he'll look real cool doin' it, getting set up to do it and all of a sudden, he'll hit a post and it'll come crashing down on him and the woman he's saving. They'll have to shoot their way out, so he looks like an idiot. The humor will be through his seriousness."

Boreanaz grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., and when he moved to L.A., "I had a lot of odd jobs - I parked cars, I worked at sporting clubs, passed out towels, I did anything to stay alive. I lived downtown. They were hard times. And it's a blessing when you get things in increments, not everything at once."

He admits he's still learning as an actor. "I've found that when I feel like I'm not hitting it, it usually comes out fine. And then when you feel like you're -" at this point, he mimics a self-satisfied actor sighing smugly - "it comes off not so good. It's a weird thing."

Still, Boreanaz insists that he feels no pressure, even though his show had been declared a hit before the pilot was even shot.

"For a year I've been waiting for this," Boreanaz declares. "I had to shoot a whole season knowing that I'm getting my own show. The table has been set. I don't feel any pressure because I'm not out there to satisfy anybody. I'm not out there to prove anything. I'm not out there to live up to anybody's expectations. I can only do my work and let it go. I can't try to determine what the outcome is gonna be. Otherwise I'll end up killing myself."

That sounds appropriately baroque given the character he plays, but then Boreanaz adds. "That's useless energy that should be used in a positive way." Positive energy? The guy doesn't sound much like Angel at all, does he?

David Boreanaz on Angel's First L.A. Encounter with Cordy:
"She's going on and on and on. Way over Angel's head. And Angel's looking at her like, What is she doing? She's freakin'! He's, like, 'Relax, calm down.' She's 10,000 miles ahead of him, and he's just sitting there. But he's happy to see her. You know when you haven't seen someone in a long time. It brings back memories for Angel, and I think it will definitely bring out some good humor in him."

Charisma Carpenter on Playing Cordy with Some Depth:
"I think she's a little fish in a big pond. It's Cordelia having to tap into resources she's not used to. She's gonna need to depend more on her survival skills, which she learned very well living on the hellmouth in Sunnydale. I think she's gonna have to find out the sense of her character within. There'll be some growth there, and that is good. Cordelia has depth, although she usually follows it with something snotty."

For a complete list of premiere dates, click here.