Angel

In our latest feature, Tim Minear was kind enough to answer a few questions looking back on Angel. I hate writing these introductory paragraphs, so that’s all you’re getting.

Jackal: In the past you’ve mentioned that you initially refused the job to write for Angel several times. What was the reason for this and what made you eventually change your mind?

Tim Minear: When Angel came along, I’d started to make a bit of a name for myself. Well, that is to say, I was no longer begging for work and there were some other options. Also, I’m notorious for saying no before I say yes. Sometimes I say no even after I say yes. I just wasn’t sure. The thing that made me finally say yes was something Howard Gordon said to me: “You should always try to work with people who you think you can learn something from. You should be with Joss.” Howard wasn’t the first person show said I should be working with Joss Whedon. Others had been saying it to me long before I’d seen Buffy or met Joss. Back when I was doing The X-Files people were saying it to me. They were right.

J: Beginning with the first season you wrote many of the key episodes such as Doyle’s death, the key flashback episodes and the majority of the second season arc. Forgive the wording, but what was the reason for this?

TM: I can’t forgive the wording. Why me, or why at all? Me because... lucky I guess? I was the only guy — the only new guy — that stuck. Because a lot of the heavy lifting at first was done by Buffy writers, the new Angel writers were kind of red-headed step children at first at that shop. By the time the other new kids had fallen away, I was about the only original “exclusive to Angel” guy left, so in a way I was the only “actual” Angel guy in those early days. I guess since Angel was my only focus, I got to burrow my way deeper into its DNA than some others. Also, if you plan to stay in the game, you have to want the ball. I wanted the ball. I took the ball.

J: Looking at the episodes you’ve written, it seems you have an affinity with some characters in particular. Angel, Kate and Darla especially. Was there anything about these characters that appealed and you related to or was it just luck that you wrote many of their pivotal episodes?

TM: A bit of both. I knew we couldn’t compete with what Buffy and Angel had as a couple. Darla was a bit of an enigma, and therefore one could take more liberties with creating something new. I saw that we could do something that in no way stepped on Buffy but was unique to Angel. It would always be hard on the legacy of Buffy to say “Angel met someone new!” But, our show wasn’t called “Buffy” it was called “Angel.” One had to first and foremost service THAT character. We had to find a way to give the writers on Angel room to move without everything being about Buffy — but while still respecting everything that came before. So how do you give your titular character a relationship without saying “Oh, and that deathless one-of-a-kind romance you saw on Buffy is now null, ‘cause we need some good shit for our new show, too”? Well, the way to give him a complicated romance that didn’t discount Buffy was to make it an OLD relationship. Something that pre-dated Buffy. And when your guy is more than two hundred years old, there’re places to go for that. Angel and Darla are every bit as one-of-a-kind as Angel and Buffy — but not the same nor in competition. I always saw them as a combo of George and Martha from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?” and Bonnie and Clyde. Buffy and Angel were so epic because it was so pure but so doomed. Angel and Darla were, for me, epic because it was so corrupt and so doomed. Darla and Angel are in many ways the negative image of Buffy and Angel.

I always liked Kate because, like me in those early days, she was an outsider trying to get a handle on this insular, magical world. Also she was Mulder and Scully rolled into one, and I never felt like I got enough of a chance to work out my X-Files fetish while I was on that show.

J: Did you have further plans for Kate had Elisabeth Rohm not left for Law and Order? One rumor was that the character of Justine was created to replace her.

TM: I don’t recall. I think we’d taken her as far as we needed to. But I’m sure had she been available we would have found reasons to bring her back.

J: What was the original ending for season two intended to be had Julie Benz and Christian Kane been available?

TM: I have to be honest. I know that some people recall Pylea as a reaction to those actors not being available. I remember it differently. I could be wrong. I remember that we were sitting around and thinking about the next few episodes and we were all a little weary of the Darla drama and someone said, “can’t we just do something totally unexpected and go to Oz?” And we did. Now, it may be that they weren’t available and we still planned on telling that beige Angel arc without those characters and that’s when the “Oz” of it was mentioned, but I don’t remember it that way.

J: Before Charisma Carpenter fell pregnant, what were the plans going to be for season four? I understand Cordelia was still going to be evil — would this still have led to a similar Jasmine arc, what would Cordy’s motives have been?

TM: It was still going to be Cordy as big bad, if I recall, but it would have built to a throw down between Angel and Cordelia. But because of Charisma’s pregnancy, we made Cordelia pregnant too and had her “give birth” to an actress who wasn’t laboring (sorry for the pun) under a medical condition. But before we made that choice, there was even talk of shooting the Angel/Cordy battle scenes early in the year... but the idea of getting far enough ahead on breaking stories so we’d know exactly what those scenes needed to be turned out to be a pipe dream.

J: Along these lines, I have to ask if there were ever plans to bring Doyle back in any capacity?

TM: Every once in a while I’d bring it up — but I’d get shot down. Rightfully so. I thought Doyle would have been a great Big Bad for season three. But the problems and demons that the actor wrestled with in the real world, which in the end took his life, ruled that out as an option.

J: Prior to its airing, I read you were pleased with the script for “That Old Gang of Mine” — yet the pleased went away once it was produced. What changed?

TM: No. I always pretty much always loathed that script. But I felt, weak as the script was, that had it been shot differently that it would have made a huge difference. As it happened, it was my weakest script coupled with the most unfocused direction. Just painful all the way around.

J: Angel famously changed tone and was reinvented a lot, especially after season one when Los Angeles became less of a character and the ensemble dynamic changed. Was the WB responsible for this or was it something that the writers felt was necessary?

TM: Joss and David at first thought we’d be doing a stand alone procedural show. When they saw “Eternity” and realized that when the guest cast member (good as she was) fell out and it became about our people, it all changed. In the end, we started writing to our and the show’s strengths — and no one argued.

J: Likewise, was the lightened tone of the show and Angel’s character at the beginning of season three, which coincided with the Cordelia pairing and arrival of baby Connor, a network mandate or was it a creative decision designed to magnify the effects of “Sleep Tight”?

TM: We’d get network notes in those first four years, but the creative direction was always Joss and us. We always looked to him and he pretty much never looked to anyone else.

J: After killing several characters you earned the monicker of the Tim Reaper and you’ve since joked about killing people off on your later shows. Did you actively set out to kill characters in Angel or was it just a thing you did that unbeknownst to you developed into a pattern?

TM: Somehow I’d end up with some of the big, pivotal moments. And in those moments, people die.

J: How did the storybreaking process evolve as the show shifted from its anthology format to the more arc heavy, serialized format?

TM: Frankly, the biggest change was that I was more involved. It was Joss, David and me for a lot of it. Then as we started building our staff and adding people who stuck, it would be the whole room, or permutations of various combinations. Sometimes just me and Joss, sometimes Jeff Bell and I, etc.

J: Incidentally what format did you prefer — MOTW or arcs — and why?

TM: Arcs. When the show started feeling like a novel and you couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter it rang like a gong. However, every once in a while when I’d get to do something like “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been...” it would be my inner gong that got rung. So that’s deeply personal on a different level, being able to indulge in a delicious just-for-me treat.

J: What are your thoughts on the academic study devoted to Angel? How much focus was placed on symbolism, social commentary, gender politics and the many other things discussed in these papers when you were breaking the stories?

TM: For me, virtually none. It’s almost all I can ever do just to make a story track and not be boring. If something makes me go “eww, that might be offensive” I try to compensate. But mostly, I just wanna spin a corker of a tale.

J: Were there ever any stories you wanted to tell and never got the chance to?

TM: Yeah. But then they pretty much got told later by other people once I left, so it’s all good.

J: Chances are you know now, but when the series ended what ideas had you come up with for what happened after the alley?

TM: Well, Jaye was going to be considered a messiah, and then Sharon... see, I was doing Wonderfalls by then and didn’t spend a whole lot of time breaking stories for a show I hadn’t been on in a year.

J: Finally, do you foresee yourself returning to the Angelverse in any of its incarnations in the future?

TM: I’d love to. I just adore Angel.