Angel Fails To Fly
(From TV Extra, Herald Sun - March 26 2000)

When hunky vampire Angel (David Boreanaz) broke away from the mega-hit series Buffy The Vampire Slayer with this series of his own, it was a matter of how soon he would draw ratings blood.

Well, it is going to be a battle for Seven to find a large audience for this series as, although it is shamelessly aimed at teenagers, it screens at 10.30pm.

Still, a good vampire needs the dark wee hours and Angel might just make something of this ratings coffin.

We missed previewing this spin-off series from Buffy when it premiered a few weeks ago, but this week we thought we would look in on the brooding inner-city apartment blocks and dank warehouses to find out how Angel and his sidekicks, Doyle (Glenn Quinn) and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), are surviving now they have left Sunnydale far behind.

The first thing we noticed is Angel has these mini angst attacks over his former squeeze, the potentially lethal Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), which, with neatly slotted flashbacks, allows the fledgling fantasy-drama to reaffirm its pedigree. (Buffy, by the way, screens on Seven at 10.40pm Tuesdays.)

But while Angel the series has the hunky Boreanaz and, for the boys, the gorgeous Charisma, it lacks the tongue-in-cheek chutzpah of Buffy.

That is not to say there is not some wit in the writing - just a lack of the other charisma.

Written by Tony Johnston