Joss finally gets to do Season 6 of Angel...sort of

[thatcrazycajun]

On the heels of Dark Horse Comics' recent launch of the late, lamented TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "eighth season" as an ongoing comic book overseen by none other than Buffy's creator himself, Joss Whedon, comes news that IDW Publishing will launch a similar four-color continuation of the Buffy spinoff series Angel, also helmed by Whedon. (Yes, each show's comic-book rights are held by a different company; shades of The WB/UPN split...) TVGuide.com reports the story here.

According to the report, we will finally get to see what happened after Angel's series finale—not immediately after, but within a couple months at least. Fans will recall that when we last left our heroes, everybody's favorite ensouled vampires (Angel and Spike, played by David Boreanaz and James Marsters), along with mortally wounded sidekick Charles Gunn (J. August Richards) and Illyria, the primordial god-demon possessing the dead body of Winifred "Fred" Burkle (Amy Acker), faced a horde of not-even-God-knows what kinds of creatures summoned up from the depths of Hell by the mysterious "senior partners" of the evil-drenched law firm Wolfram & Hart in a rain-soaked Los Angeles alley. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), former Watcher of Slayers and now occult-lore expert for Team Angel (and Fred's erstwhile lover), had just been killed, and Illyria, feeling surprisingly grief-stricken at his death, wanted "to do more violence." And showbiz demon Krevlornswath AKA Lorne (Andy Hallett) had turned his back on them and walked away after carrying out Angel's last orders to him. Angel said, "Let's go to work," and the screen faded to black.

Curiously, IDW's website has the title of the book but no actual information beyond that. TFAW.org, however, obliges us much better with a page devoted to the new book here. TV Guide's site also informs us that Marsters is slated to appear as a time-traveling killer in the upcoming second season of the BBC Doctor Who spinoff series Torchwood (see story here).

Comments

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Given how utterly wretched bad the last season of Angel was, I'm having real difficulty getting excited about this.

Lorne did the right thing.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

You're the first person I've heard complain about Season 5. What was so "utterly wretched bad" about it exactly? I thought it opened new areas for interesting conflict and gave the team resources it had never had before. I also thought the finale was especially well written, with some of the best lines in the whole series.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Several reasons. First, Wolfram and Hart as just another big mega-corp of evil is not nearly as interesting as the "banality of evil" law firm of the first and second seasons. Having worked in a large corporate law firm, I can say that the portrayal of W&H was frightening realistic in that if a large lawfirm had those clients and capacities, it would act that way.

By fifth season, it has degenerated into a standard super-duper-bad.

Second, I loath the message of "if you ever try to use the system against itself, you will be corrupted." Wonder why folks are so cynical and jaded these days? The 5th Season of Angel is all about powerlessness. You will never make any difference, except on the occassion of a one-on-one fight.

Third, too many unexplained random lose ends. What happened to the army of robots that pretended to by Wesly's father?

I could go on, but it's a fair sampling. After the high of fourth season, where they did some real serious dark drama, the fifth season was a dreadful let down.