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| TV,
Justin Harries,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F5
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TV spin-offs. A word to strike fear into the most ardent armchair slouch. In the fortunately dim and distant past we ‘enjoyed’ such televisual feasts such as The Colbys, The bionic woman, and yes, hell of hells, Jonnie loves Chachi. Looking back at such shows we can see a pattern emerging, that the original shows were also crap. However, Angel has been spawned from an altogether classier set of genes, Foochas first pick of the week, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Angel (or, in fear of being lynched by the Buffy bridge, Angelus) is one anaemic hunk of sourpuss, played by heartthrob of the mo., David Boreanaz. The reason that our hero has a frown that cannot be turned upside down is thus – he used to be a grade A psycho bloodsucker, now straddled with the uncomfortable burden of humanity. Unable to have a ‘meaningful relationship’ (AKA shag) with his one true love, Buffy (sex equals a return to psycho gaga land), he has decided to roam the street of L.A. at night, putting his own kind back into the graves they belong. All this we learn during the most outrageous piece of exposition that I have had to bear witness to. Deliverer of this information is one Doyle, a psychic, nail faced demon who has seemingly adopted a ridiculous Irish accent. Confused? You will be.
You could also come to the conclusion that, like the aforementioned spin-offs, the show is crap. However, this is a season premiere and, by their right, season premieres tend to be rather indigestible. Although rather stodgy, Angel has a lot of things gunning for it, a likeably dour hero, whacked out violence/comedy, and one of the best vamp death by sunlight disintergrations in the genre’s long and distinguished history. Of course the shows biggest gun of all is the production team, after all these were the people who transformed the dire original Buffy movie into the sharpest teen show on the block. If these guys play the right hand we could have a darker variant of its parent, albeit in a detective/monster of the week format. Let’s just hope that this shows success doesn’t leave every t.v. exec yearning for a spin-off. I could certainly do without ‘Early Edition – the Sunday Supplement’.
Sky One Fri 21.00 GMT
The WB Tues 21.00 ET/PT
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