Pulling Up Stakes

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.