Angel

Charisma Carpenter and Tested Relationships

I had a pleasant surprise today. A representative from Fox Home Entertainment called me and said he had Joss Whedon on the other line. I had requested an interview to discuss the new Angel Season Two DVD release, but nobody ever told me the request went through.

So, here I was making up questions off the top of my head, hoping I covered everything. I’ve decided to present the DVD interview separately, because while we all love DVDs, I think we all want to hear about the new season of Angel first. And I don’t want to discredit the DVD by putting it at the end of this interview, so here I will bring you this, and then ask you to come back for the DVD interview.

Okay, how is current season of Angel going? The current season of Angel is going actually very well. I’m just locking the first episode which I wrote and directed right now. And we’re shooting episode three, about to start shooting episode four and we’re having a lot of fun.

Did you see Charisma Carpenter’s comments to The Boston Herald that she wasn’t prepared to leave? No, I didn’t.

Do you know what she was talking about? Not really.

How did the decision to leave her out of the core cast come about? It came about pretty much the same way the decision to stop the Buffy run came about. In seven years, we’d sort of run through our course of character and didn’t want to start just doing hollow riffs on what we’d done.

Did you discuss this with her? It was discussed with her when the decision had been made. It wasn’t discussed while the decision was being made because you don’t tell somebody you might do it. But it was discussed after the decision.

How is the Angel crew handling Wolfram and Hart? Well, you know, they’re having some trouble I’m happy to say, because if they weren’t, the show would be really dull.

What is Gunn doing with the panther? What Gunn is doing with the panther will be revealed in the first episode but not in this interview.

Will Wesley have a new love interest? Will Wesley have a new love interest? Well, he’s still got the hots for Fred. That’s never gone away. But the course of true love, you know, is pretty much offroading when it comes to my shows. Love interest, yes. Happiness? Bwahahahaha.

Where is Fred’s relationship with Gunn? Fred’s relationship with Gunn for the moment is pretty much over. There may be something going on with Knox, the character played by Jonathan Woodward that we introduced at the beginning of last season. And there is Wesley pining for her and who will win that particular day, if anyone, we’re not saying.

Will Connor reappear? I believe that we will. That is our hope because we think it would be interesting to see. I also hope the same thing for Cordelia. I don’t want to just leave her in a coma. Again, that’s all about schedules.

Has anyone from Buffy come over yet? Not yet. We’ve talked to Sarah and that’s something we’re going to hold off on until later in the season. We have a big Angel cast, and it’s bigger now that we have Spike involved. We have a lot of people to service before we start falling back on the guest star syndrome.

Have you revealed how Spike’s coming back? I haven’t, but the first two episodes will.

Is it drastic? Well, it’s not undrastic. He is dead and disintegrated and buried under a ton of rubble in a crater, so it’s not a simple thing.

How does Angel feel about Spike coming back? Well, that’s what makes the show interesting. Those two are both vampires with souls, yet they couldn’t be more different and they tend to bring out the worst in each other.