Angel (1999 TV Series)



Angel is an American television series, a spin-off from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt. It aired on The WB from October 5, 1999, to May 19, 2004, consisting of five seasons and 110 episodes. Like Buffy, it was produced by Whedon's production company, Mutant Enemy.

The show details the ongoing trials of Angel, a vampire whose human soul was restored to him by a Romani curse as a punishment for the murder of one of their own. After more than a century of murder and the torture of innocents, Angel's restored soul torments him with guilt and remorse. Angel moves to Los Angeles, California, after it is clear that his doomed relationship with Buffy, the vampire slayer, cannot continue. During the majority of the show, he works as a private detective in L.A, where he and a variety of associates work to "help the helpless", restoring the faith and saving the souls of those who have lost their way. While he must also battle his own demonic nature, he typically battles with evil demons or humans allied to them, primarily related to Wolfram & Hart, a law firm supported by occult practices which is an extension of otherworldly demonic forces.

Plot
The series focuses around Angel (David Boreanaz), an Irish vampire who is over 200 years old. Angel was known as Angelus during his rampages across Europe, but 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 Season 3 to move to Los Angeles in search of redemption.

He soon finds himself assisted by Allen Francis Doyle (Glenn Quinn), another Irish character who is a half-human, half-demon who, although he comes across as a ne'er-do-well hustler, has a heroic side. Doyle serves to pass along the cryptic visions from The Powers That Be to Angel. They're soon joined by Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), also a previous cast member of Buffy. Formerly a popular high school cheerleader, Cordelia starts her tenure on the show as a more vain and self-centered personality, but grows over the course of the series into a hero. Cordelia acquires Doyle's visions via a shared kiss prior to Doyle's death. 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 initially not well accepted. Over time, Wesley shows bravery and strength as well as some cold-blooded killing cruelty, like his colleague Rupert Giles, and grows into a leader.

In Season two of the show, the trio 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 Season two, they travel to the demon world Pylea, where they save Winifred "Fred" Burkle (Amy Acker), a young Texan physicist whose social skills have become stunted after five years' captivity; she later grows to become more outspoken. Season three saw the introduction of Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), the "miracle" human child of two vampires, Angel and Darla. Abducted into a Hell dimension as a baby, he is raised by Angel's enemy Daniel Holtz, and only a few weeks after he left comes back as a teenager and reluctantly comes to accept his lineage. Although introduced during Season two, Lorne (Andy Hallett) joins the team during Season three. An outgoing, pacifistic demon, Lorne's role is predominantly to support the team.

Season five, the show's final season, introduces several new cast members, chief amongst them is Spike (James Marsters), an old vampire ally/foe of Angel's who also starred in Buffy. In this series, Spike reluctantly fights beside Angel as their rivalry continues—now tinged with Spike existing as another vampire with a soul, and by the romantic feelings that both of them have for Buffy Summers. One of the legendary Old Ones, Illyria (Amy Acker) starts off as an adversary of the team after taking over Fred's body, 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 taking over a human. Finally, there's Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab), another 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.

Many characters on Angel made recurring appearances. The two longest-running recurring characters are Lilah Morgan (Seasons 1–4) and Lindsey McDonald (Seasons 1, 2 and 5), appearing in 36 and 21 episodes, respectively; Lindsey is the only character besides Angel to appear in both the first and last episode of the series. Angel's sire Darla (Julie Benz), first seen in Buffy, plays an expanded role on Angel and appears in 20 episodes over the course of the series. Elisabeth Röhm appears in 15 episodes (Seasons 1–2) as LAPD Detective Kate Lockley, a woman with an often-strained relationship with Angel.

Throughout the series, there were also guest appearances from Buffy characters, including main cast members Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg and Daniel "Oz" Osbourne. The rogue slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) played an important part in episodes of Seasons 1, 2, and 4; Anne Steele and Andrew Wells also originated on Buffy and appeared in two or more Angel episodes. Whedon also used two actors from his cancelled television series Firefly, Gina Torres and Adam Baldwin, to play Jasmine and Marcus Hamilton, respectively.

1x12- Expecting
After sleeping with a photographer she had seen a few times, Cordelia wakes up to find herself extremely pregnant; she and several other women are carrying the spawn of a Haxil Beast that uses men as sexual surrogates. Angel and Wesley must find a way to break the demon's psychic control over its human incubators before they deliver—an ordeal likely to be lethal to the hosts.