Angel as a milestone in television horror: Wayne State's TV Milestone Series

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Following the phenomenal success of the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series' producers decided to create a spin-off series for one of the show's main characters, Angel, the vampire with a soul. While this was a risk for both the original and the new series, the decision successfully created a radically new show, specifically aimed at the adult audiences who were increasingly being drawn to Buffy. In 2004, the Warner Brothers network decided not to renew the series and, despite a phenomenal protest by fans, the series ended (1999-2004). The end of the series, therefore, creates an ideal opportunity to reflect upon its five year run and the context of its production. In the light of recent discussions within academia about American Quality Television, Angel demonstrates how the commercial convention of the spin-off, designed to capitalise upon a successful formula, has been appropriated by the Mutant Enemy writing team to allow for an even more complex televisual experience that does not simply repeat the formula of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but imbues the series with its own distinct identity. The aim of this research project is to explore how the series Angel is a milestone in television due to the complexity of its narrative, genre, style and theme. In particular I will be exploring the series' place within a history of horror and fantasy television, as well as how the series has contributed to a modern vampire mythology. I will place the series within discussions of authorship, but rather than attribute credit to the series' producer Joss Whedon, I will examine the contribution of the Mutant Enemy writing team who worked collaboratively over five years to develop the series and push it towards increasingly challenging and transgressed limits. In so doing, I will examine their approach to narrative structure, creating a balance between the episodic and greater narrative arcs, while also addressing how the different influences and approaches of a range of different authors are brought together to create a narrative coherency. Finally, while Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been hailed as a feminist icon and a complex post-feminist text, I will explore how Angel reverses this focus by exploring issues of contemporary masculinity, a subject of increasing significance within both film and television studies. This research is being undertaken as part of a broader discourse within television studies, addressing contemporary developments within American Television as a cite for quality, experimentation and, in genre television in particular, transgression.