Angel

Angel: Season Five (Fox Home Entertainment): The fifth - and, sadly, final - season of WB’s supernatural drama Angel was filled with changes. For the first four seasons of the series, heroic vampire-with-a-soul Angel and his team had done battle against the diabolical law agency Wolfram and Hart. But as the fifth season opened, Angel had made a literal deal with the devil, taking over Wolfram and Hart’s L.A. office and trying to use their vast resources to fight evil.

Highlights of the fifth season include the addition of James Marsters to the cast, reprising his Buffy the Vampire Slayer role as bad-boy vampire Spike; the return of a few old villains; the dramatic death - and rebirth, sort of - of one of Angel’s crew; and a quirky episode in which the dark, brooding Angel was transformed into a children’s show puppet.

Amid all the creative accomplishments, however, Angel fell victim to mediocre ratings and network politics and was canceled. As a result, there’s a sense of melancholy to the interviews and commentaries included in this six-disc DVD set. Series co-creator Joss Whedon and the cast and crew knew they were in a solid creative groove and weren’t ready to say goodbye to the characters.