Angel

Our Los Angeles correspondent is in San Diego this weekend for the comic con and sent in a brief preliminary report from panels with Joss Whedon and the Angel writers today. Here’s a brief rundown of some of the details Joss and the writers shared (updated with more details):

 Joss said shooting for Episode 1 of Angel begins on Thursday
 Episode 2 was written by David Fury and Ben Edlund.
 Joss was asked about the Ghost Spike rumors and avoided answering. He just said James Marsters would be in the show.
 Jeff Bell was asked if this was definately the last season of Angel, and he said they plan on doing the best 22 episodes they can and hopefully the WB will want 22 more.
 Joss said no Angel musical episode.
 Bell and the rest of the Angel writers ran down the general cast change details we all know. Jeff Bell did say they hope Charisma will come back for a few episodes and that they have plans for how she will come out of her coma. He also said we may be seeing a lot of Harmony.
 Lilah might return.
 David Fury said Kennedy will not be in Angel (he was joking around after some in the audience cheered when Jeff Bell said Connor was no longer a regular).
 Fury mentioned they would like to get Sarah to do a guest appearance so they can payoff the whole Angel/Buffy/Spike situation.
 There was nothing definate said about guest appearances by Buffy cast members.
 Firefly movie spoilers: Joss said he should know by the end of the year about if a Firefly movie will happen. He was asked for one word about the movie’s plot and it was: Reevers.
 Nathan Fillion and Danny Strong stopped by the panels. Danny asked Drew how it felt to be a murderer.
 Bell said that the reason WB isn’t showing Angel reruns is because Angel typically does poorly in rerun ratings since it’s so serialized. Someone can’t just watch one episode and understand what’s going on.