Angel

In the dim and distant past, as the 20th century crested into the 21st, and R-Pattz was nothing more than the twinkle in a foundation ad-man’s eye, there was another soulful vampire causing the ladies to toss their crucifixes to the wind in wild abandon. Spun off from its sister show Buffy in 1999, Angel saw David Boreanaz’s titular undead champion of the helpless transported, aptly enough, to LA, the city of angels.

As one might expect from a series whose main protagonist can’t go out in the sunlight without bursting into flames, Angel was, from the start, a darker, edgier proposition to its sibling. Buffy’s relatively cosy family unit was replaced by a fractious, uncertain alliance of conflicted heroes, dealing with increasingly grey moral shades while trying to find their way in a more adult world than the primary-coloured Sunnydale. As such, though Buffy may be of greater renown, Angel is an arguably more rewarding experience as a whole; it is, however, harder to choose individual episodes from a series which specialised in extended arcs, running from season to season. Not one to be daunted, though, I here present my personal rundown of finest moments from the tormented vampire with a soul and a penchant for Barry Manilow.

5. Smile Time – Season 5

As I was saying, Angel is altogether a more adult proposition than Buffy, edgier and more mature. So, this is the episode where Angel is transformed into a Muppet by evil demon marionettes. Quite a natural fit, considering that Joss Whedon’s father worked with Muppets creator Jim Henson, Team Angel milk the scenario of its hero’s puppetisation for all its worth, from Angel’s anguish (“I’m made of felt. My nose comes off. ”) to Spike’s glee (“Wee little puppet man! ”) and best of all, a frantic Lorne, cradling Angel’s tattered body and screaming “Medic! Doctor! Is there a Gepetto in the house?!”

The mirth of the cast is barely contained, unsurprising when greeted by a stern Hensonian David Boreanaz puppet wielding a broadsword and channelling John Wayne to declare “It’s time to kick your ass all the way back to hell!” Finally, any show where one of the most evil villains is a giant blue Flump with a trumpet for a nose named Ratio Hornblower has to be doing something right.

4. I Will Remember You – Season 1

The best cross-over show of the series’ early years, when Angel was still striving to escape the shadow of its originator, I Will Remember You sees the show establish itself through the risky strategy of giving viewers what they had been waiting for all these years and then yanking the rug from under them at the last minute.

This episode sees the return of both one Buffy Summers, and also Angel’s humanity, as a melding of his blood with that of a Mohra demon returns him to his former self. Infused with nostalgia and yearning, this show reminds the audience that the spin-off series has to take another path and expertly presents us with the realisation that the Buffy-Angel relationship is one that can never work, due to the thirst for penitence and absolution which will drive his own future mission. Great work from the often under-rated Boreanaz and Gellar. See this as the ultimate kiss-off (literally) to the mythology of the old series, and a serious statement of intent from the makers of the new one.

3. Waiting in the Wings - Season 3

Text-book Whedon, as you would expect from an episode written and directed by the man himself (always the sign of a season highlight).

It may not be a wildly innovative concept - haunted theatre, evil enchanter – and even one of the set pieces is a Xerox of the Buffy episode ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’, but it’s typical of Whedon that he takes this unpromising set-up and crafts an episode that delivers on every level, packed full of great character notes (Gunn succumbing to the beauty of ballet against all odds, Cordelia’s magnificently subtle attempt at bribery: “Say, do you like bribes?”), pop culture references (“You want to wander around backstage like Spinal Tap for the next ever?”) and heart-wrenching evocations of unrequited love (Wesley for Fred, Angel for Cordelia). All this, and the first ever role for future Whedonite and genre sweetheart, Summer Glau.

2. Not Fade Away – Season 5

The final curtain, and a fitting conclusion for a series which revelled in moral complexities and hard choices. By the end of this episode, the bodycount is high, friends are lost, Los Angeles has gone to Hell and the battle has just begun.

Before that, though, we have the pleasure of seeing Lorne sing Tony Bennett, Angel enjoying some quality bromancing with murderous lawyer Lindsey (“Vampire with big brass testes” is much better than “Vampire with a soul”, shame they didn’t think of it until the last episode) and, best of all, Spike winning over a dive bar of reprobates by finally finishing the poem he started way back in Buffy’s “Fool for Love”. The episode, and so the entire show, races towards its climax with a series of epic dust-ups and guest spots, the pick being Angel and reunited son Connor facing off against Terminator in executive wear Marcus Hamilton. By the end, our heroes are bloodied but unbowed, preparing to engage in the fight to end all fights (it even has a dragon, for pity’s sake). Why the hell was this show cancelled?

1. A Hole in the World – Season 5

The mystery is, how exactly writer-director Whedon can go from lightly tickling our ribs at Gunn’s Gilbert and Sullivan/rap medley and Angel and Spike’s momentous debate (“If cavemen and astronauts got into a fight, who would win?”) to mercilessly ripping out our hearts all in the space of under 45 minutes.

Without doubt the bleakest episode that Whedon has ever had a hand in (beating even Buffy’s traumatic “The Body”), it also provokes as much thought as it does tears. Typically complex in its central dilemma, it gives the empty heroism of many of its contemporary genre shows a swift reality check, rejecting any blithe answer to the question: how far would you go to save someone you love? And as subsequent episodes make clear, it is not just Fred’s life that is at stake here, but her very soul – high stakes indeed for a fantasy show, in which “death is not the end” is too often an easy get-out. Exquisite handling and a performance of heart-breaking sensitivity from Amy Acker make A Hole in the World stand up with the best that television entertainment has had to offer.