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WB Cancels Angel
Ray Radlein writes "Despite a 36% increase over last year's comparable ratings, the WB Network announced today that they are cancelling Angel as of the end of this season." Unfortunate since this season was stronger than the last. " The link also makes taunting mentions of movie plans.
Angel will be sorely missed. Hopefully another network can pick it up, for at least a few years. Beyond that, Angel will age too much for his immortality to be believable when comparing the first Buffy episodes with the final Angel season. Or, can anyone say spinoff? The Buffy universe is way too special to end.
the WB Network announced today that they are cancelling Angel as of the end of this season.
"They will be using the timeslot for another unfunny pile of shit from the Wayans brothers."
--saint
Ok, I don't even watch Angel, most on account a' I don't have a TV, but what is up with the networks cancelling TV shows? Are they only looking for "The NExt Big Thing"tm? I wonder if they figure that a possible smash hit will earn them more money in the short term, rather than a steady show that will earn them money at a regular rate...
I seem to recall that UPN said they would pick up Angel if they could. The took Buffy and Rozwell. Hopefully they will take Angel.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
So, while we're on the subject, anyone remember this show called Farscape? /Gets a flaming arrow through the window, see a screaming horde descending on the house
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn." - Joss Whedon (on Angel's cancelation)
From the site: "ANGEL outpaced "The West Wing" on NBC...".
I don't watch much West Wing (as I'm watching Angel) but isn't that a pretty high rated show? Why cancel a successful show that has really good ratings?
You mentioned a cancelled show on Slashdot!
Quiet! You'll wake up the Farscape fans!
Quick, delete the thread!
Despite saying that the show is a "cornerstone" of their network, not to mention the glowing ratings for the show in the last season...I have to wonder if they're doing for artistic reasons or ignorant marketing. I tend to lean towards the latter. Here's a link from a friend of mine who is also a big Angle/Buffy fan that might shed some light on the subject: Breaking News: Angel to End After 5 Seasons. Needless to say, Joss Whedon is not amused.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Now maybe they'll give Spike his own show. He da man!
This is really quite sad. I always thought the show was great. It had the correct blend of humor and action, and I liked the characters more than in Buffy.
Unfortunately, they did a major format change (they went from the underdogs to in charge of a mega-million evil corporation), and most of the original characters are gone.
But it was still one of the better shows on TV.
Hopefully they will have a chance to end the series with some sort of of finality, unlike Farscape.
I say good job on cancelling a show at its peak of popularity instead of allowing it to degenerate over many tired additionals seasons, like The Simpsons has. It takes a lot of guts to make that decision, but Angel will always be remembered fondly because of it. Very few shows fail to jump the shark these days.
qntm.org
My thoughts exactly. Very little appears on the WB that doesn't make me wish I hadn't bought my nice TV.
Not trolling, but I'm awfully disappointed in television as a whole lately. Sometimes I work from home, during the day and at night, and the TV is almost always on in the background. Rarely does it have anything worthwhile. The Simpsons, most of Food Network, ER and Scrubs. That's it. Even 24 is hard to watch now. Occasionally, I'll catch a Family Guy or Futurama re-run on whatever random channels they're on from week to week, but they're usually late at night anyway.
And I don't even watch that much TV; an hour or two a day, I suppose.
They take a decent show with a devoted following off the air and replace it with something to catch an audience that will last for maybe half-a-season; such as a reality show or another lame comedy
Its basically what Fox did with Futurama; even though it had high ratings and a good viewer following, they kept manipulating its timeslot and pre-empting it over and over. Then they finally cancelled it because its 7:00pm Sunday timeslot (that was pre-empted by baseball or football four out of five times) didn't garner enough ratings for it.
At least we can look forward to WB presenting us with "Showgirls: The Series" or "Lawn Care Crisis: The Reality Show"
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Remember TV isnt about putting out quality shows. Its all about money. Its alot like outsourcing. Doesnt matter the quality just the cost and return. And they wonder why HBO and the cable networks are starting to gain in ratings. Lets slap on another crap reality. It was one of the best shows on TV and will be greatly missed.
First Buffy....now Angel. Those were honestly the only 2 shows I have been watching the past 3-4 years. My TV only gets turned on Wednesday night to watch Angel or to pop in a DVD.
Guess this means I can finally cancel my cable cause there is nothing else on TV that seemed as well written and so well held together with past plots than these 2 shows.
Angel will be missed. Please pick it up UPN!
Given the flurry of fan activity over Joss Weldon's last show, Firefly, and the subsequent snubbing by the other networks when they wanted someone to pick up the show... the cynic in me wouldn't be surprised if this show also fades into oblivion.
Oops... didn't get the url right for the Season So Far ratings...
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
I don't know a single soul that watches that show.
That's because we sold them to get the Farscape mini-series.
As the name implies, being the highest rated doesn't always mean that a show is going to stay. Two things can affect a show at that point to make it be cancelled.
Costs. This is what actually happened with Buffy that forced the move to UPN. Although it was a very highly-rated show for WB, the per episode cost had gotten to be in the (IIRC) $2.2 million range. If we assume that, say, Everwood generates $1.2 million on a budget of $300,000, and (in this peculiar example), Buffy generates $2.9 million, then we realize that ratings aren't what it's all about.
Who is watching? This feeds into the above, because certain fan-bases aren't as profitable as others. Way back in the day, CBS cancelled "The Beverly Hillbillies" because (despite high ratings) the only people actually providing the high ratings were older, rural people (Surprise!), and advertisers don't like them as much. Now, I would assume Angel's target and bulk of viewership is a younger, teen and twentysomething crowd, but I might be entirely wrong.
Or it could just be "creative differences". Maybe Joss is a bastard to work with. Maybe some new exec came on board who has a different, not so sci-fi direction for the network. Maybe Boreanaz had made some secretive noise about being sick of playing the same characters for 7 some-odd years. But more likely, I'd peg it to one of the above theories.
UPN needs something, with buffy gone and enterprise sucking big time they need something to draw viewers. Off the top of my head I cant think of another show besides enterprise and syndicated simpsons thats on UPN...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Start the new season with the same cast and about 20 demons. Then, week to week, a demon is voted off the show and killed.
There's only one way to save ourselves: cancel all programs. Everything!
Display nothing but a "Technical Difficulties" announcement on all stations!
-kgj
-kgj
Futurama and Family Guy are both on Cartoon Network now, warm and snuggly in their Adult Swim womb. They play every weekday, starting at 11 pm, then again at 2 am.
I find most everything on TV unwatchable these days, but Adult Swim is my safe harbor of not-crap.
Except Inuyasha, which sucks, and should die.
Funny, i woke up a few minutes ago. NOW BRING BACK FARSCAPE, FIREFLY, FUTURAMA, FAMILY GUY AND OTHER GOOD SHOWS STARTING WITH 'F' GODDAMNIT!!! *proceeds with random threatening rant about studio execs, conspiracy about shows starting with f, my big fat obnoxious fiance, mad mad house, scare tactics american idol crap...*
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Angel was one of few shows worth dow... watching. I totally dig the combination of humor and darkness.
I guess the only good thing about this is that they can go out with a bang. C'mon writers, let's fuck us good in the last few episodes. Have Angel yearn for the Angelus years. Kill off Lorne. Kill off Gunn. Push Westley back into the darkness, and have him take Fred with him.
Boom, sooner or later... boom.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
So, you have nothing to say, but insist on saying it anyways
Remember the Xfiles? If fox had gone on ratings the show would have never made it the first two seasons. Think how much the show made them in the long run. I hope that someone picks up Angel. Whoever does stands to make tons on money on reruns and dvds.
Sad. Angel is one of only three shows I actually go out of my way to watch. It's always had a good mix of drama and humor. I also enjoy the fact that it has an overarching plotline, which rewards loyal viewers.
It's nice that they told Joss early so that he could wrap up the series. But it never feels like TV shows are cancelled at the right time. Either a show gets cancelled just as it seems to be hitting a good stride (Futurama), or it gets dragged out until it becomes a tired self-parody (Friends, and to some extent, The Simpsons).
Maybe after it finally wraps up, fans can look back on a very satisfying conclusion. But I tend to think that it had a couple of solid years left.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
All you yung'uns think that a cancelled tv show is sucha tragedy! Why back in my day we were happy to see shows cancelled, like laverne and shirley, leave it to beaver and happy days - bah, good riddance!
I propose that you all stop wasting your time with all of this moaning about TV watchin' and get busy doing something productive! Like posting to slashdot.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Time to sign the petition.
:)
A show on Spike and Willow would be nice though.
cheers,
pol
European Linux user, living in Antwerp
If you look at a lot of TV shows out there, they are ment for mass consumption - Fraiser, Friends, the Simpsons, sports, etc. Its harder for advertisers to know exactly who their audience is.
With Buffy, Angel, Dark Angel (funny they're all WB?) the audience is much more focused so they can better target advertising. This IS what advertisers want. With this in mind, I'm baffled that they can't get enough money from the advertisers to cover production costs - or at least enough to make a heathly profit from.
I only got into Buffy because of Spike. It was the musical episode, and his lament "Let me Rest in Peace." And I grudgingly followed Angel only after the final episode of Buffy because Spike was guarnteed to be on it, despite turning into a pile of ashes saving the world n all. Slightly OT: Did anyone see last weeks? The only good part was Spike dressed up as a Nazi. Angel sees him with the twisted cross at the bottom of an ocean... "Spike, are you a Nazi?" "No, but I just ate one." Another classic Spike moment in Buffy days when he is actively trying to save the world. He said something to the effect of how it's like having little happy meals running around all the time, why would I want to end that?
I think some form of Pay Per View will prevent this from happening in the future. At present, Broadcast TV shows are payed for by advertiser who pay for "eyeballs" i.e. a lot of people within a certain demographic. This creates a powerful incentives to seek the lowest common denominator. Even cable shows suffer from this effect but to a lesser extent. But, if we could deliver shows to individuals at different prices, quirky shows with small but loyal audiences who were willing to pay a relative premium could survive.
In a year and a half, he's gone from having 3 shows on television (Firefly, Buffy, Angel) to none. On the plus side it'll give him more time to work on the oft-mentioned Firefly Movie, but it's kind of depressing that there will be no Joss on the boob tube.
OT: heck, remember when the choice wasn't whether you could watch Science Fiction on TV, but what kind? Friday nights were nerdvana for a while. Farscape, Dark Angel, Invisible Man, G vs E, etc, etc.
Now? Frickin' remakes of Dark Shadows. Sad.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I have never cared for any of these stupid lego things that keep getting posted.
While Angel being cancelled in itself is not news, the dynamics that cause a successful program on a struggling network to be cancelled are worth thinking about, because they do apply to other things.
Lego stuff is just stupid. I avoid it like you should avoid anything related to cancelled programs.
Once upon a time I was almost addicted to Star Trek, but after liking TOS in historic times, I got quickly bored of TNG (maybe 3 seasons), DS9, Voyager and Enterprise (roughly 1 season each). Babylon5 was only sci-fi recently that seemed mostly worthwhile, thanks to actually having a plot that spanned it's entire runtime.
Fundamentally I see the problem as basically this: The series go for 'eternal' runtime (just take a look at X-Files), they can't really shake the status quo (like actually having a plot or something that actually affects the environment much).
Me? I'm just going for anime these days, even the most successful ones have FIXED duration, and probably thanks to that usually great plots as they don't need to worry about the next season..
(Ok, some do get extra seasons but it's the exception, not the rule)
-- pending
You see, there's this little trick I've found for browsing Slashdot: Don't click on stories you're not interested in.
The pitfall is, you lose out on the opportunity to make fun of people for caring about things you find boring and trivial. But you save hours upon hours of time, which you can put towards important things like blogging, or trying out yet another test release of Fedora Core, or any of those other things that you personally enjoy but 99% of the world finds pointless and trivial.
Give it a try.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I'm an Angel fan, but this was really no suprise. Some thoughts...
1) The writing for Angel recently hasn't been up to par with the Angel/Buffy tradition. The recent story line where they brought back that EVIL lawyer from the first season...meh. If they're not saving the world, then it ain't a Buffy/Angel story line.
For me, a recent low point arrived in the Cordelia return episode (two weeks ago). Angel tells her "It's not like I made a deal with the devil here" and then immediately turns to make lunch-date arragnements with a red-skinned, horned demon sporting a goatee. Give me a break.
2) All the actors in the Angel/Buffy series are talented and it would be great to see them move onto other projects. Actaully, yesterday I was thinking to myself that it would be cool to see James Marsters (Spike) have a role in some drama (not even a blockbuster - even a small, indie film). Now that they're not locked into the rough schedule of filming a TV show, it'll be possible.
Why isn't Nicholas Brendon (Xander) a star yet? Ditto for Amber Benson (Tara). It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!.
3) There are still dozens of hours of entertainment left for people who got to the series late:D I missed the first few years of Angel, so now I'll just watch it in syndication (did the same with Buffy on FX channel).
4) If everyone goes out and buys up all the Angel DVDs, maybe they'll resurrect the series (or a spin off) like they did with Family Guy?
5) Charisma Charpenter is going to be in Playboy later this year. Coming soon: Cordelia the Animated Series on SpikeTV. 'Nuff said.
Oh, those TV execs -- they're wily ones alright, but I see their plan. Take a show they don't trust enough to give another season, take it off the air so people start to miss it, then pump millions of dollars into a big motion picture production! Ya, that's really gonna happen!
Ya, sorry folks, it ain't happenin'.
--Leo
who have never been excited about the show.
If you have ever been to the Warner Brothers Television site it's always had zip about Angel. But plenty of crap about worthless shows like Celebrity Justice. I know they don't make the show, but they could at least have a link?!?
And if you go to "The WB's" chat site, you'll see that the Angel forum has more posts than any other forum - including the "The WB General" forum. Are they just blind to the fact that the show generates more invested fans than any other property they own?
I also know that many people (myself included) only watch that turd-of-a-show Smallville because it's on right before Angel. I hope they're prepared to watch it's viewership decline.
Finally, I think Joss Whedon put it best in his paraphrasing of Robert Frost:
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn."
Actually, that's the way its been since the first season of Buffy. The overall season always has a general plot. But there are always at least a handful of stand-alone episodes that don't fundamentally push that plot forward, or only give it a minute or two to remind you that there are still unresolved issues hanging over everyone's heads.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
It doesn't seem to fit squarely with the site at all. I don't know a single soul that watches that show.
And your point is? I know at least three other geeks that do watch the show.
Mutant Enemy produced three well written cult series that played with their respective genre conventions, and I for one will be sad to see them gone.
Very little appears on the WB that doesn't make me wish I hadn't bought my nice TV.
I always didn't think that enough negatives wouldn't not work. weren't you not flaming, or just unsupporting the decision??
(j/k, I do totally agree with you. I think).
This'll free up another hour of WB time for fine family programming like, "7th Heaven: The Mary Camden Crack Ho Years."
I can hardly wait.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
That show is doing the same thing, I read somewhere. It started out as a teenage drama and now it has mixed demos. It's a good show if u don't pay attention to blatant directional flaws... :o It has some good spinoffs from the comic world...but, you need to have read them to get the inside joke.
Then again, they are saying that TV is losing it's precious 14-24 demographics all over. They are just in less numbers than they were two years ago.
There is one line in the announcement that makes suspicious something else is going on. "David Boreanaz continues to be one of the finest, classiest and friendliest actors we have had the pleasure to work with and we hope that the relationship furthers from here." I wonder if someone that the WB has a "close" relationship with, like say Kevin Williamson, has expressed interest in having Boreanaz in one of his series and the WB decided to "free" him from his contract. So now we're going to get some kind of Dawson's Creek crap with Boreanaz casted as the teacher. All part of the WB vision.
Angel is another one of those shows that, at one time, WAS a great show. In my opinion, Angel "jumped the shark" after loosing Cordelia's character. NOTE I say loosing Cordelia's character, not loosing Charisma Carpenter from the regular cast. I'm also including all of last year when Cordelia was possessed by her demon baby (even though that satan/rock beast was cool). I hadn't realized how much of the weight of the show Cordelia was carrying until she was gone.
But I do want to say that I think Angel has done great things technologically and cinematically. They were one of the first shows to be presented in widescreen, and were one of the first -- and are still one of the only -- shows to be presented in High Def. No matter how far downhill the show has gone, nobody can take these kudos away.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
he's a bit chubby now.
No, she was "a bit chubby" when she was pregnant, but she was on Angel a couple weeks ago and she looks fit and trim now.
You can't take the sky from me...
FOX: Cancle anything that dosen't suck.
UPN: Take anything good and make it suck
WB: Drop anything that makes money.
News outlets: Screw doing research let's just report the marketting hype as fact.
I have a TV here and for entertainment I'm posting on Slashdot...
Now I know why.... Oh well still have Star Wrek, KeenSpot, OSDN and Anime DVDs.. (Not Henti you pervert...)
I don't actually exist.
This sort of stupidity makes me glad I am a Nielson family this week.
Keeping track of what I watch has brought home to me how little I DO watch. Angel is one of the shows I watch.
The great thing is this datum will be entered into Nielson's computers - that Angel has a person making damn good money watching it, and NOT MUCH ELSE on WB.
Since most of television today is either
a) "Reality" shows (HEY KIDS! LET'S STAB EACH OTHER IN THE BACK TO GET AHEAD!)
b) Sit-coms (HEY KIDS! LET'S HIT THE LAUGH TRACK EVERYTIME SOMEBODY SAYS SOMETHING! THAT WILL MAKE IT FUNNY!)
c) CSI (HEY KIDS! LETS MAKE A SHOW ABOUT SCIENCE THAT GETS IT WRONG ON EVERY SHOW)
d) Law and order (HEY KIDS! LET'S PULL SHIT THAT NO REAL JUDGE WOULD TOLERATE!)
After all, you now have NBC (All "Law and Order", all the time), CBS (All "CSI", all the time), WB (All Pokemon, all the time), and UPN (All crap, all the time.) Yeah, I *really* want to run out and buy a HDTV.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Regardless of past sins (like last season), I think that this season of Angel has really turned out well. I was skeptical about the idea of them taking over W&H, but it looks like Joss actually knew what he was doing with this one (unlike Season 7 of Buffy). The 100th episode was awesome, I thought, especially the ending, which was well done. Right now, the characters are all going through a lot, and they're all changing. I think it makes the show interesting. I want to see more of where these new characters go. 8 episodes doesn't seem like a whole lot of time left to explore that. Hell, there's a veritable conflict brewing between Buffy's Slayer Corp and Angel's W&H. I want to see more interaction between those two camps! Damage was a fucking great episode. But no. The WB needs to make room for yet another shitty comedy or Charmed reruns. Buffy's gone (after a rather sub-par showing in its last season), Angel is gone after this season ... the number of non-Simpsons shows on TV that I'm willing to watch is rapidly dwindling in number. Next thing you know, Fox is going to cancel 24 in favor of "Afghani Idol" or something.
Do you know what's a good day to cancel a show? Any day besides Valentine's Day! I mean, what, were they running low on dramatic irony?
....she's married already.
:P
And the guy is Alexis Denisof, one of the cast members from Angel. So I imagine they'll have plenty of time together now
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I see posts here like "She needs to go on Atkins first". And you guys need to get out of your parent's basement where you spend most of your time wanking to net porn.
Face it, fellas, if a woman like Charisma Carpenter walked near you, you wouldn't know what the hell to do anyway.
Guys on SLASHDOT criticizing the physical beauty of hollywood actresses? Isn't that like starving men saying "sorry, but the caviar just isn't as good as it used to be"?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
All of which usually guarantees that most shows never get a chance to develop a following. Which doesn't usually if it's the usual "Hey, let's make a sitcom starring Paris Hilton! Or maybe Betty Ford!" crap. But really creative shows have almost no hope of lasting.
Buffy sort of crept in under the radar. Joss Whedon had more or less abandoned the concept (which was pretty much trashed in the Kristy Swanson movie) because he couldn't make anybody understand that he wasn't aiming for High Camp. But then a new network struggling to find material that people would actually watch bought a dozen episodes. Whedon was so sure that they'd never order any more that he did a show mainly to please himself. Which is actually the only way to make a decent tV show.
I enjoyed the show immensely, but I'm basically glad the Bufferverse has retreated from view. (Yeah, there will be comic books and novelizations, but who pays attention to those? And I can't see anybody putting up the money for a Buffyverse movie.) It was fun at first, but as time went on, the whole Buffy-Angel thing started taking itself way too seriously. Angel was always that way, and Buffy was that way most of the time in the two last seasons. Maybe serious is the wrong word -- it was always about life or death issues. Perhaps I mean solemn. And cluttered. And disorganized. I still haven't figured out what that axe was supposed to be!
I don't have cable or reception and I like it that way. I watch good shows on DVD when they come out ... I don't know what it is with the networks. They have no understanding of what is good.
So, let's draw the lines.
You don't watch the shows when they're on TV. As such, you (or the people like you with the nielsen boxes) do not factor into the networks' decisions as to what makes a TV show good.
Yet you wonder why the networks don't know what you think is good?
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Perhaps some of you have heard the logic that goes along the lines of:
In a buyer/seller arrangement, the buyer can make demands upon the seller. After all, the buyer can always just not buy the product. The seller will usually pander to the buyer as long as the seller gets the price that he wants. Note the term price. When you watch network television, you aren't paying a dime to the network. It's free. That means that you're not the buyer.
Who does pay money? Advertisers. They are the buyer, the network is the seller. You? You're the product.
This cancellation should be a good demonstration of this proposition: the buyer wants teenage eyes watching the TV, so the seller will arrrange for shows that will get as many teenagers as possible to watch it. So there we are: "your" show gets cancelled, you non-teenager, you. In turn they put on something that is likely to capture the (perceived) average teenager.
This isn't a cynical post, it's just a working through of logic, and a possible solution: if you want to watch the shows you want to watch, pay for them.
DVD sales potential has changed some of the thinking of the networks, but still the best way to pay for your shows is directly, through pay channels: HBO, Showtime, etc, etc.
I like being a customer (or a collaborator, see open source). It's why I'm willing to pay for good work. Try being a customer, you'll get what you want more often.
Another problem with the cancelation is that another FINE HDTV show is gone. Reality shows dont broadcast in HDTV and Angel takes total advantage of the aspect ratio and the high quality picture. Right now only CSI, Alias and Smallville can even hold a candle to Angel in HDTV quality.
I'm not gonna let a bunch of suits get me down. We got 12 seasons of Buffyverse - more than 250 episodes by the time they are done. "Angel", and "Buffy", will live forever in our DVD players, and the suits can't take that away. Audio
"i would also love to see Sci-Fi pick up Firefly, that show was headed for greatness. Alas it was on Fox and they cut it to replace it with "Fast and the Furious" the TV show.... Movies of the Buffiverse would rock."
Eh? You are right in spirit but wrong in facts. SciFi passed on FireFly already, as did all the cable stations it was offered to. Fox didn't exactly replace FireFly with "Fastlane" either since that show has also been cancelled. There's food for thought, Tiffani Amber Thiessen on Angel Season 6... I'm just saying! And if you didn't hear, Charisma Carpenter is rumored to be up for WONDER WOMAN. I guess the timing is right since she'll be posing for Playboy later this year.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
A Willow spinoff wouldn't work. Believe me, I love Alyson Hannigan but I don't think she could hold her own as the lead role. (Does anybody else want to scream "Blow your nose!" when she's talking?) Faith couldn't pull it off either... Eliza Dushku is mega-hot but anybody who has watched her new show should agree that her acting is often painful. Xander... please. Couldn't possibly build a show off that character. Tony Head has the best acting skills of them all but let's face it, Giles spent most of the battles knocked out. Now that he's even older, how exactly is he going to kick ass in true Buffy/Angel style? It'd be like watching Star Trek Generations all over again... a bunch of old farts scrabbling around on rocks.
:)
;)
On the topic of Buffy characters, I wouldn't mind seeing Amber Benson and Emma Caulfield pop onto the set of Angel. Heavenly helpers and all. But I suppose they already played that with Cordy. *shrug* And did anybody else feel guilty watching the preview for Eurotrip when Michelle Trachtenberg yanks off her shirt? Although I suppose she's old enough now that I don't have to feel *too* guilty.
But back to the subject, the end of Buffy and Angel is the end of an era. Two of my all-time favorite shows down the tubes. Sad.
But I have to admit, I'd have sacrificed them both anyway to get a few more episodes of Firefly.
-FF
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats explained.
Check it out for yourself. 5,100 homes tyrannically decide what we watch on television here in America. Bland, unsophisticated, dumbed down crap thanks to these fools:
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
This should be obvious, but the show should have been killed a few seasons ago.
I'm a big fan of JW (Woohoo Firefly!) and I followed Angel closely for many seasons. However, this show jumped the shark for me when Angel's son come into the picture. At the end of that season (which had some very strong supporting characters with Holtz and assistant) I found myself hoping ardently that Angel would die, that someone would kill him.
The Angel character was tired, completely eclipsed by the cast around him both in writing and in acting ability. Seeing him week after week eventually became too painful and I had to stop watching.
Best Angel moments:
- Spike's mocking monologue as he watches Angel talk to a would-be client
- Almost everything involving the Wolfram&Hart firm, especially scenes with Lyla, and the "evil hand" scene.
- The Holtz character
- Their cool run-down ex-hotel.
- The Kate policewoman character from the early seasons.
Worst Angel moments:
- In the first few seaons, every 3 or 4 episodes would feature gratuitously underdressed women for no plot-purpose.
- Charisma Carpenter got really annoying to listen to and to look at after a few seasons.
- David Boreanaz writing and acting level got really annoying to listen to and watch after a few seasons.
- Without fail, all of the strong, complex supporting characters and foils were killed off while the more one-dimensional, less interesting characters stuck around.
Angel, Firefly, ______(fill in the blank), rabid fanbase, show is profitable, they're all killed. Why? The shows do not attract the type of viewer (stupid teens) that attract big time advertisers.
Now you want to start a new show, based on a character from a show that failed to attract the desired advertiser demographic. What is wrong with this picture? As an intellectually snobbish geek, I must say I am embarrassed by the stupidity of your proposal.
Lets sit in on a hypothetical studio meeting discussing a Willow spinoff by network executives who are as stupid as you:
(*ACTION*)
CHIEF EXEC: We need new shows that will attract most of the 18-25 year olds in the country, so we have advertisers beating down our doors to give us money!
EXEC #1: I know! Buffy was the most popular show among the 30-45 year old age group when it ended. If we create a spinoff show based on the Willow character, we can attract all those OLD fans. That will chase those advertisers away...
EXEC #2: And Alyson Hannigan will be turning 30 this year. She's already starred in a movie where she gets married. Yeah, all those teenaged boys lust after aged women. And all those teenaged girls will tune so they can get tips on how to appear as matronly as Willow. (Or how to appear as an adult behaving like a ditzy immature girl.) After all, teenaged girls want to desired by teenaged boys more than anything. Everyone knows that only middle-aged men lust after Britney Spears. (Yuk.)
CHIEF EXEC: Great idea! Let's put that show into production. In two years, spend millions of dollars, we can lock up the entire 30-45 audience, and no advertiser will pay for that show!
(*CUT*)
Congratulations. You have just demonstrated you are even more stupid than TV executives.
But fret not. I think there is a potential scenario where there could be a Willow spinoff. Since you've demonstrated how mentally challenged you are, let me spell it out for you:
(*ACTION*)
CHIEF EXEC: We need new shows that will attract most of the 18-25 year olds in the country, so we have advertisers beating down our doors to give us money!
EXEC #1: I know! Buffy was the most popular show among the 30-45 year old age group when it ended. We'll create a spinoff show based on the Willow character!
CHIEF EXEC: Are you a total moron?!?! The only audience it will attract are the rabid AGED fans we don't give a damn about. We'll go bankrupt!
EXEC #1: Not if its properly executed! We can't have those crappy writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Subtle humor, metaphors to adult crisis, sharp dialogue, good plots, long story arcs; they can only attract mediocre old people with the attention span to appreciate that sort of crap.
No, we'll hire all those writers from "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch"! Vacuous comedy, inane, irrelevant plots. That show did rather well in the teenaged & pre-teen audiences. And best of all, they're out of work now, we'll get them for a song...
CHIEF EXEC: You talk a good game, but there's no way Alyson Hannigan will appeal to kids. My God, she's already taking roles as a married woman.
EXEC #2: Chief, don't worry about that. We'll just make Hannigan the head crone of the coven. We'll hire really young actresses to play the buxom, sexually dripping, apprentice witches. We'll keep shifting all the script plots and lines to focus on the young hotties. Its done on all those sucessful shows. Remember "Party of Five" started out focusing on the older sister, what's that crone's name... Nieve Campbell. But then they put on Jennifer Love Hewitt. Ratings skyrocketed. Campbell disappeared, and nobody noticed.
EXEC #3: Why don't we hire Jennifer Love Hewitt instead of Alyson Hannigan?
EXEC #2: Nah, we already have a head crone. We have to hire Alyson as the head crone because teenagers are incredibly stupid viewers. They're don't have the intellectual capacity of imagining Jenni
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