Post by hodaharb on Mar 10, 2008 19:33:13 GMT -5
[glow=silver,2,300]Angel [/glow]
[glow=silver,2,300]Angel[/glow] is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The atmosphere of the show was darker, and at times it performed better in the U.S. Nielsen Ratings than its parent series.
[glow=silver,2,300]Music[/glow]
The opening theme was composed by Darling Violetta, an alternative rock group that performed two songs during the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The next year, Angel invited bands to submit demos for the theme music to the show. They asked bands to use "dark superhero ideas" and "Cello-rock". Darling Violetta watched pivotal Angel-related episodes of Buffy like "Passion" and "Becoming, Part One" and "Two" for inspiration. Eventually Joss Whedon accepted Darling Violetta's interpretation of an Angel theme as that most suitable to the show. The theme has a slower tempo than the Buffy theme. It has heavier use of acoustic instruments such as cello. This is perhaps more appropriate for a show about a vampire from 18th century Ireland on a long journey of redemption. In 2005, the band composed an extended version of the Angel theme called "The Sanctuary Extended Remix", which featured on the soundtrack of the series Angel: Live Fast, Die Never.
The demon karaoke bar, Caritas, is frequently used to spotlight pop hits. There has also been a soundtrack album, Angel: Live Fast, Die Never. The soundtrack mostly consists of scores created for the show by Robert J. Kral along with a remixed theme, and four other songs from the show. Douglas Romayne scored 33 episodes of "Angel" in seasons 4 and 5 along with series lead composer, Rob Kral.
[glow=silver,2,300]Cancellation[/glow]
On February 14, 2004, the WB Network announced that Angel would not be brought back for a sixth season. The one-paragraph statement indicated the news, which had been reported by an Internet site the previous day, had been leaked well before the network intended to make its announcement. Joss Whedon posted a message on a popular fan site, The Bronze: Beta, in which he expressed his dismay and surprise, saying he was "heartbroken" and compared it to a "healthy guy falling dead from a heart attack." Fan reaction was to organize letter-writing campaigns, online petitions, blood and food drives, advertisements in trade magazines and via mobile billboards, and attempts to lobby other networks. UPN was a particular target, as it had already picked up Buffy. Outrage for the cancellation focused on Jordan Levin, the WB's Head of Entertainment. It is firmly believed that Angel was canceled to make room for a primetime remake of Dark Shadows, which has its own vampire, Barnabas Collins. However the pilot was rejected by the WB Television Network.
Angel's final episode, "Not Fade Away," aired on the WB on May 19, 2004. The ambiguous final moments left some fans hoping for the continuation of Angel and the Buffyverse in the future, hopes that came to fruition in November of 2007, with the publication of the first issue of Angel: After the Fall. The comic book series is Joss Whedon's official continuation of the Angel television series. The comic series follows in the footsteps of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, whose first issue was published in March 2007.
The series was created by Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999. Like Buffy, it was produced by Whedon's production company, Mutant Enemy.
The show details the ongoing trials of the vampire, Angel, who has his human soul restored to him by gypsies as a punishment after more than a century of murder and torture of innocents, leaving him tormented by guilt and remorse. During the first four seasons of the show, he works as a private detective in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles, California, where he and a variety of associates work to "help the helpless" and to restore the faith and save the souls of those who have lost their way. Typically, this involves doing battle with evil demons or demonically-allied humans, primarily related to the law firm, Wolfram & Hart. He also has to battle his own demonic ghosts.
[glow=silver,2,300]Characters[/glow]
Main Characters
The series focuses around Angel (David Boreanaz), a vampire over two hundred years old. Angel was known as Angelus during his rampages across Europe. He was cursed with a soul, which gave him a conscience and guilt for centuries of murder and torture. He left Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the end of the third season to move to Los Angeles in search of redemption.
He soon finds himself assisted by Allen Francis Doyle (Glenn Quinn), an Irish half-human, half-demon. Although he comes across as a ne'er-do-well hustler, he has a heroic side. He serves to pass along the cryptic visions from The Powers That Be to Angel. They are joined by Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), also an old cast member of Buffy. Formerly a popular high school cheerleader, Cordelia starts her tenure on the show as a vapid and shallow personality, but grows over the course of the series into a hero.
With the death of Doyle in the early episodes of the show's first season, another character from the Buffy series makes the jump to its spin-off. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) joins the team under the brave guise of "rogue demon hunter", acting as comic relief, and is initially not well-accepted. Over the course of the series Wesley grows into a leader and anti-hero.
In the show's second season they are joined by Charles Gunn (J. August Richards), a young demon hunter who must initially adjust to working with and for a vampire. At the end of the second season they travel to the world Pylea, where they save Winifred "Fred" Burkle (Amy Acker), a young Texan physicist whose social skills have become stunted due to her captivity. She later grows to become one of the more outspoken members of the team.
The third season saw the introduction of Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), the "miracle" human child of two vampires, Angel and Darla. Thrown into a Hell dimension as a baby, he is raised by Angel's enemy Daniel Holtz, and only a few months after he left comes back as a teenager. Connor reluctantly comes to accept his lineage. Although introduced during the show's second season, Lorne (Andy Hallett) joins the team during its fourth season. An outgoing and pacifistic demon, Lorne's role is predominantly to support the team.
The show's fifth and final season introduces several new cast members, chief amongst them Spike (James Marsters), an old vampire companion of Angel's who also starred in Buffy. In that series, Spike reluctantly fights beside Angel as their rivalry continues, now tinged with Spike existing as another vampire with a soul. One of the legendary Old Ones, Illyria (Amy Acker) starts off as an adversary of the team after taking over the body of Fred but comes to join the team as she must learn to cope with the changed world and the new emotions she feels as a result of her taking over Fred.
Finally, there is Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab), also a Buffy alumna, and former friend of Cordelia who was turned into a vampire. Resembling the old personality of Cordelia, Harmony is grudgingly accepted by Angel as his secretary when he takes over the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart. Harmony is also the only character (other than Angel) to appear in the first episode of Buffy and the last episode of Angel.
Recurring Characters
Many characters on Angel made recurring appearances. The two longest running recurring characters besides Lorne, who was later added to the main cast, are Lilah Morgan (season 1 through 4) and Lindsey McDonald (season 1, 2, and 5) appearing in 35 and 21 episodes respectively. Lindsey is also the only character besides Angel to appear in both the first and last episode of the series. Throughout the series, there were also guest appearances from Buffy characters, which include main cast members Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg. The character of Faith Lehane played an important part in stories from the first and fourth season. One such other character from Buffy made the jump from that series to become a recurring character on Angel; Anne Steele.
[glow=silver,2,300]Plot Synopsis[/glow]
First Season
At the start of the series, Angel has just moved to Los Angeles in an effort to earn redemption for the evil deeds he committed as an un-souled vampire. He is soon visited by Doyle, a messenger sent to him on behalf of The Powers That Be. Doyle receives visions that can guide Angel on his mission. Angel also bumps into Cordelia Chase, who is trying to break into stardom. The three group together to form Angel Investigations, a detective agency that hopes to "help the helpless." When Doyle dies, he passes on his 'visions' to Cordelia. Shortly thereafter, the ex-Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, joins the group. Meanwhile, the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart pay increasing attention to Angel. They tempt him toward darkness when they resurrect Darla, Angel's ex-lover and sire — killed by Angel in the first season of Buffy in the episode "Angel."
Second Season
Charles Gunn, a street-tough leader of a gang of vampire hunters, is initially determined to kill Angel, but slowly comes to accept him and join his cause. Wolfram & Hart's star lawyer Lindsey McDonald primes Darla as its weapon to bring down Angel. However, Darla is brought back as a human, not a vampire. But as a human, she suffers from a terminal case of syphilis — which she had contracted in her original life before being sired. Lindsey brings in Drusilla, a vampire originally sired by Angelus, to restore Darla to the cause of evil. Enraged by this, Angel begins to grow darker. He cuts himself off from his staff and attempts to go after the pair himself. In despair, Angel sleeps with Darla (cf. "Reprise"), but the next morning, he has an epiphany; seeing the error of his ways, he banishes Darla and reunites with his group. Lorne, the flamboyant demon owner of Caritas, reluctantly takes Angel and his crew to his home dimension, Pylea, to rescue Cordelia. They return with Winifred "Fred" Burkle, a former physics student who has been trapped in the dimension for five long years.
Third Season
To get over news of the death of his ex-girlfriend, Buffy, Angel spends three months in a Sri Lankan monastery, where he encounters some demon monks and goes home frustrated. He returns to Los Angeles, as does Darla — now bearing his child. The group is puzzled by what might be the first vampire birth. Darla sacrifices her life to save the life of her child, Connor. The gang is eager to care for the infant, but Wesley soon learns of a frightening prophecy that suggests that Angel will murder his son. Feeling disconnected from the group, Wesley does not share this information, and quietly kidnaps Connor. This backfires as he is attacked and the child is seized by an old enemy, Daniel Holtz, whose family Angelus and Darla slaughtered two hundred years ago. Holtz escapes through a rip in the fabric of space to the dimension of quor'toth, and raises the boy as his own. Angel feels that his son is lost forever, and tries to murder Wesley. Though he survives, Wesley is banished from the group. Weeks later, Connor returns, but because time moves faster in Quor'toth, and he is now a teenage boy, having been raised by Holtz. Realizing that Angel needs to be the one to take Connor in, Holtz gives Angel a letter letting Connor know that he will be leaving and to trust Angel. Holtz gets Justine to kill him but ends up making it look like a vampire attack so Connor will assume the worst. Connor imprisons his birth father in a casket and drops it to the bottom of the ocean.
Forth Season
Despite his exile from his old friends, Wesley locates and frees Angel. A hellish Beast emerges and blocks out the sun over L.A. He then proceeds to kill the staff at Wolfram & Heart. Although the city survives, the sunlight seems to be blotted out permanently. In a desperate attempt to confront the Beast, the team removes Angel's soul, releasing Angelus, but manage to restore it thanks to help from Willow. Their efforts, however, do not prevent the coming of Jasmine, who was indirectly responsible for the work of the Beast. Jasmine, it turns out, was one of the Powers That Be and plans to solve all the world's problems by giving humanity total happiness through spiritual enslavement to her. She arrives in our world through manipulation of Cordeila and Connor, using them as a conduit into our world. Fred is accidentally inoculated against Jasmine's spell by contact with her blood and frees the rest of the gang though they remain hopelessly outnumbered by thousands already entranced by Jasmine. Angel travels through a magic portal into a world previously visited by Jasmine to find a way of breaking her power over L.A.'s populace. By revealing her true name, they are able to break Jasmine's spell over everyone. Jasmine confronts Angel but is then killed by Connor, revealing to have never been under Jasmine's influence and just went along for the sake of having a semblance of family and happiness. In the season finale, they are met by Lilah Morgan, the resurrected Head of Wolfram & Hart's Special Project Division, who congratulates them on preventing world peace, and says that as a token of their appreciation, Wolfram & Hart would like to give them the Los Angeles branch. To help save Cordelia and Connor, who has gone mad with confusion over losing everything, Angel reluctantly agrees.
Fifth Season
Angel and his team in the final moments of the series finale; "Not Fade Away".The gang begins to settle into their new lives at Wolfram & Hart. Gunn undergoes a special cognitive procedure that transforms him into a brilliant lawyer. The group receives an amulet that resurrects a past companion of Angelus, the souled vampire Spike. Angel is briefly reunited with his son Connor, now in a new identity thanks to the agreement between Angel and Wolfram & Hart at the end of season 4. He later reveals that he remembers his previous life as Angel's son. Fred finally declares her affections to Wesley, but shortly after is possessed by an ancient and powerful demon called Illyria. Wesley is devastated by the loss of Fred, but agrees to help Illyria adjust to her new form and the unfamiliar world she's in. Angel infiltrates the Circle of the Black Thorn, a secret society responsible for engineering the Apocalypse, and plans to take them all out in a simultaneous, hard-hitting strike. Because this is probably a suicide mission, he tells each of his friends to spend the day as if it were their last. That night, the team launches its attack on the Circle, dividing up their targets. When Wesley is fatally stabbed, Illyria, concerned for his safety, arrives at his side after killing her targets but is powerless to help him, and grieves for Wesley. Lorne leaves and disappears into the night, his innocence destroyed, after fulfilling Angel's last order to kill Lindsey, the former Wolfram & Hart lawyer who had turned his back on the firm. Angel confronts Wolfram & Hart's new liaison Marcus Hamilton, and defeats him with some minor help from Connor.
Once the Circle has been dismantled, Angel and the surviving members of his gang rendezvous in the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel. Illyria arrives with news of Wesley's death and feeling the need to fight as a result of it. Gunn emerges, staggering from a serious stomach wound. The survivors wait as the Senior Partners' army of warriors, giants, and a dragon approaches. The series ends with Angel and his crew preparing for battle, with Angel expressing interest about fighting the dragon and saying, "Let's go to work."
[glow=silver,2,300]Characters[/glow]
[glow=silver,2,300]Awards & Nominations[/glow]
Angel has gathered a number of awards and nominations. It won Best Television from International Horror Guild in 2001. It has received many important awards and nominations from the Saturn Awards which are presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films: it won Best Network TV Series and Best TV Actor in 2004. Specific episodes, "Waiting in the Wings", "Smile Time," and "Not Fade Away," have won Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2003 and 2005.
[glow=silver,2,300]Angel[/glow] is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The atmosphere of the show was darker, and at times it performed better in the U.S. Nielsen Ratings than its parent series.
[glow=silver,2,300]Music[/glow]
The opening theme was composed by Darling Violetta, an alternative rock group that performed two songs during the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The next year, Angel invited bands to submit demos for the theme music to the show. They asked bands to use "dark superhero ideas" and "Cello-rock". Darling Violetta watched pivotal Angel-related episodes of Buffy like "Passion" and "Becoming, Part One" and "Two" for inspiration. Eventually Joss Whedon accepted Darling Violetta's interpretation of an Angel theme as that most suitable to the show. The theme has a slower tempo than the Buffy theme. It has heavier use of acoustic instruments such as cello. This is perhaps more appropriate for a show about a vampire from 18th century Ireland on a long journey of redemption. In 2005, the band composed an extended version of the Angel theme called "The Sanctuary Extended Remix", which featured on the soundtrack of the series Angel: Live Fast, Die Never.
The demon karaoke bar, Caritas, is frequently used to spotlight pop hits. There has also been a soundtrack album, Angel: Live Fast, Die Never. The soundtrack mostly consists of scores created for the show by Robert J. Kral along with a remixed theme, and four other songs from the show. Douglas Romayne scored 33 episodes of "Angel" in seasons 4 and 5 along with series lead composer, Rob Kral.
[glow=silver,2,300]Cancellation[/glow]
On February 14, 2004, the WB Network announced that Angel would not be brought back for a sixth season. The one-paragraph statement indicated the news, which had been reported by an Internet site the previous day, had been leaked well before the network intended to make its announcement. Joss Whedon posted a message on a popular fan site, The Bronze: Beta, in which he expressed his dismay and surprise, saying he was "heartbroken" and compared it to a "healthy guy falling dead from a heart attack." Fan reaction was to organize letter-writing campaigns, online petitions, blood and food drives, advertisements in trade magazines and via mobile billboards, and attempts to lobby other networks. UPN was a particular target, as it had already picked up Buffy. Outrage for the cancellation focused on Jordan Levin, the WB's Head of Entertainment. It is firmly believed that Angel was canceled to make room for a primetime remake of Dark Shadows, which has its own vampire, Barnabas Collins. However the pilot was rejected by the WB Television Network.
Angel's final episode, "Not Fade Away," aired on the WB on May 19, 2004. The ambiguous final moments left some fans hoping for the continuation of Angel and the Buffyverse in the future, hopes that came to fruition in November of 2007, with the publication of the first issue of Angel: After the Fall. The comic book series is Joss Whedon's official continuation of the Angel television series. The comic series follows in the footsteps of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, whose first issue was published in March 2007.
The series was created by Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999. Like Buffy, it was produced by Whedon's production company, Mutant Enemy.
The show details the ongoing trials of the vampire, Angel, who has his human soul restored to him by gypsies as a punishment after more than a century of murder and torture of innocents, leaving him tormented by guilt and remorse. During the first four seasons of the show, he works as a private detective in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles, California, where he and a variety of associates work to "help the helpless" and to restore the faith and save the souls of those who have lost their way. Typically, this involves doing battle with evil demons or demonically-allied humans, primarily related to the law firm, Wolfram & Hart. He also has to battle his own demonic ghosts.
[glow=silver,2,300]Characters[/glow]
Main Characters
The series focuses around Angel (David Boreanaz), a vampire over two hundred years old. Angel was known as Angelus during his rampages across Europe. He was cursed with a soul, which gave him a conscience and guilt for centuries of murder and torture. He left Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the end of the third season to move to Los Angeles in search of redemption.
He soon finds himself assisted by Allen Francis Doyle (Glenn Quinn), an Irish half-human, half-demon. Although he comes across as a ne'er-do-well hustler, he has a heroic side. He serves to pass along the cryptic visions from The Powers That Be to Angel. They are joined by Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), also an old cast member of Buffy. Formerly a popular high school cheerleader, Cordelia starts her tenure on the show as a vapid and shallow personality, but grows over the course of the series into a hero.
With the death of Doyle in the early episodes of the show's first season, another character from the Buffy series makes the jump to its spin-off. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) joins the team under the brave guise of "rogue demon hunter", acting as comic relief, and is initially not well-accepted. Over the course of the series Wesley grows into a leader and anti-hero.
In the show's second season they are joined by Charles Gunn (J. August Richards), a young demon hunter who must initially adjust to working with and for a vampire. At the end of the second season they travel to the world Pylea, where they save Winifred "Fred" Burkle (Amy Acker), a young Texan physicist whose social skills have become stunted due to her captivity. She later grows to become one of the more outspoken members of the team.
The third season saw the introduction of Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), the "miracle" human child of two vampires, Angel and Darla. Thrown into a Hell dimension as a baby, he is raised by Angel's enemy Daniel Holtz, and only a few months after he left comes back as a teenager. Connor reluctantly comes to accept his lineage. Although introduced during the show's second season, Lorne (Andy Hallett) joins the team during its fourth season. An outgoing and pacifistic demon, Lorne's role is predominantly to support the team.
The show's fifth and final season introduces several new cast members, chief amongst them Spike (James Marsters), an old vampire companion of Angel's who also starred in Buffy. In that series, Spike reluctantly fights beside Angel as their rivalry continues, now tinged with Spike existing as another vampire with a soul. One of the legendary Old Ones, Illyria (Amy Acker) starts off as an adversary of the team after taking over the body of Fred but comes to join the team as she must learn to cope with the changed world and the new emotions she feels as a result of her taking over Fred.
Finally, there is Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab), also a Buffy alumna, and former friend of Cordelia who was turned into a vampire. Resembling the old personality of Cordelia, Harmony is grudgingly accepted by Angel as his secretary when he takes over the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart. Harmony is also the only character (other than Angel) to appear in the first episode of Buffy and the last episode of Angel.
Recurring Characters
Many characters on Angel made recurring appearances. The two longest running recurring characters besides Lorne, who was later added to the main cast, are Lilah Morgan (season 1 through 4) and Lindsey McDonald (season 1, 2, and 5) appearing in 35 and 21 episodes respectively. Lindsey is also the only character besides Angel to appear in both the first and last episode of the series. Throughout the series, there were also guest appearances from Buffy characters, which include main cast members Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg. The character of Faith Lehane played an important part in stories from the first and fourth season. One such other character from Buffy made the jump from that series to become a recurring character on Angel; Anne Steele.
[glow=silver,2,300]Plot Synopsis[/glow]
First Season
At the start of the series, Angel has just moved to Los Angeles in an effort to earn redemption for the evil deeds he committed as an un-souled vampire. He is soon visited by Doyle, a messenger sent to him on behalf of The Powers That Be. Doyle receives visions that can guide Angel on his mission. Angel also bumps into Cordelia Chase, who is trying to break into stardom. The three group together to form Angel Investigations, a detective agency that hopes to "help the helpless." When Doyle dies, he passes on his 'visions' to Cordelia. Shortly thereafter, the ex-Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, joins the group. Meanwhile, the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart pay increasing attention to Angel. They tempt him toward darkness when they resurrect Darla, Angel's ex-lover and sire — killed by Angel in the first season of Buffy in the episode "Angel."
Second Season
Charles Gunn, a street-tough leader of a gang of vampire hunters, is initially determined to kill Angel, but slowly comes to accept him and join his cause. Wolfram & Hart's star lawyer Lindsey McDonald primes Darla as its weapon to bring down Angel. However, Darla is brought back as a human, not a vampire. But as a human, she suffers from a terminal case of syphilis — which she had contracted in her original life before being sired. Lindsey brings in Drusilla, a vampire originally sired by Angelus, to restore Darla to the cause of evil. Enraged by this, Angel begins to grow darker. He cuts himself off from his staff and attempts to go after the pair himself. In despair, Angel sleeps with Darla (cf. "Reprise"), but the next morning, he has an epiphany; seeing the error of his ways, he banishes Darla and reunites with his group. Lorne, the flamboyant demon owner of Caritas, reluctantly takes Angel and his crew to his home dimension, Pylea, to rescue Cordelia. They return with Winifred "Fred" Burkle, a former physics student who has been trapped in the dimension for five long years.
Third Season
To get over news of the death of his ex-girlfriend, Buffy, Angel spends three months in a Sri Lankan monastery, where he encounters some demon monks and goes home frustrated. He returns to Los Angeles, as does Darla — now bearing his child. The group is puzzled by what might be the first vampire birth. Darla sacrifices her life to save the life of her child, Connor. The gang is eager to care for the infant, but Wesley soon learns of a frightening prophecy that suggests that Angel will murder his son. Feeling disconnected from the group, Wesley does not share this information, and quietly kidnaps Connor. This backfires as he is attacked and the child is seized by an old enemy, Daniel Holtz, whose family Angelus and Darla slaughtered two hundred years ago. Holtz escapes through a rip in the fabric of space to the dimension of quor'toth, and raises the boy as his own. Angel feels that his son is lost forever, and tries to murder Wesley. Though he survives, Wesley is banished from the group. Weeks later, Connor returns, but because time moves faster in Quor'toth, and he is now a teenage boy, having been raised by Holtz. Realizing that Angel needs to be the one to take Connor in, Holtz gives Angel a letter letting Connor know that he will be leaving and to trust Angel. Holtz gets Justine to kill him but ends up making it look like a vampire attack so Connor will assume the worst. Connor imprisons his birth father in a casket and drops it to the bottom of the ocean.
Forth Season
Despite his exile from his old friends, Wesley locates and frees Angel. A hellish Beast emerges and blocks out the sun over L.A. He then proceeds to kill the staff at Wolfram & Heart. Although the city survives, the sunlight seems to be blotted out permanently. In a desperate attempt to confront the Beast, the team removes Angel's soul, releasing Angelus, but manage to restore it thanks to help from Willow. Their efforts, however, do not prevent the coming of Jasmine, who was indirectly responsible for the work of the Beast. Jasmine, it turns out, was one of the Powers That Be and plans to solve all the world's problems by giving humanity total happiness through spiritual enslavement to her. She arrives in our world through manipulation of Cordeila and Connor, using them as a conduit into our world. Fred is accidentally inoculated against Jasmine's spell by contact with her blood and frees the rest of the gang though they remain hopelessly outnumbered by thousands already entranced by Jasmine. Angel travels through a magic portal into a world previously visited by Jasmine to find a way of breaking her power over L.A.'s populace. By revealing her true name, they are able to break Jasmine's spell over everyone. Jasmine confronts Angel but is then killed by Connor, revealing to have never been under Jasmine's influence and just went along for the sake of having a semblance of family and happiness. In the season finale, they are met by Lilah Morgan, the resurrected Head of Wolfram & Hart's Special Project Division, who congratulates them on preventing world peace, and says that as a token of their appreciation, Wolfram & Hart would like to give them the Los Angeles branch. To help save Cordelia and Connor, who has gone mad with confusion over losing everything, Angel reluctantly agrees.
Fifth Season
Angel and his team in the final moments of the series finale; "Not Fade Away".The gang begins to settle into their new lives at Wolfram & Hart. Gunn undergoes a special cognitive procedure that transforms him into a brilliant lawyer. The group receives an amulet that resurrects a past companion of Angelus, the souled vampire Spike. Angel is briefly reunited with his son Connor, now in a new identity thanks to the agreement between Angel and Wolfram & Hart at the end of season 4. He later reveals that he remembers his previous life as Angel's son. Fred finally declares her affections to Wesley, but shortly after is possessed by an ancient and powerful demon called Illyria. Wesley is devastated by the loss of Fred, but agrees to help Illyria adjust to her new form and the unfamiliar world she's in. Angel infiltrates the Circle of the Black Thorn, a secret society responsible for engineering the Apocalypse, and plans to take them all out in a simultaneous, hard-hitting strike. Because this is probably a suicide mission, he tells each of his friends to spend the day as if it were their last. That night, the team launches its attack on the Circle, dividing up their targets. When Wesley is fatally stabbed, Illyria, concerned for his safety, arrives at his side after killing her targets but is powerless to help him, and grieves for Wesley. Lorne leaves and disappears into the night, his innocence destroyed, after fulfilling Angel's last order to kill Lindsey, the former Wolfram & Hart lawyer who had turned his back on the firm. Angel confronts Wolfram & Hart's new liaison Marcus Hamilton, and defeats him with some minor help from Connor.
Once the Circle has been dismantled, Angel and the surviving members of his gang rendezvous in the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel. Illyria arrives with news of Wesley's death and feeling the need to fight as a result of it. Gunn emerges, staggering from a serious stomach wound. The survivors wait as the Senior Partners' army of warriors, giants, and a dragon approaches. The series ends with Angel and his crew preparing for battle, with Angel expressing interest about fighting the dragon and saying, "Let's go to work."
[glow=silver,2,300]Characters[/glow]
- David Boreanaz ................. Angel
- Charisma Carpenter .......... Cordelia Chase
- Alexis Denisof .................... Wesley Wyndham-Pryce
- J. August Richards ............. Charles Gunn
- Andy Hallett ....................... Lorne
- Amy Acker .......................... Fred
[glow=silver,2,300]Awards & Nominations[/glow]
Angel has gathered a number of awards and nominations. It won Best Television from International Horror Guild in 2001. It has received many important awards and nominations from the Saturn Awards which are presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films: it won Best Network TV Series and Best TV Actor in 2004. Specific episodes, "Waiting in the Wings", "Smile Time," and "Not Fade Away," have won Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2003 and 2005.