"Angel" star David Boreanaz
loves being evil.
"David Boreanaz is so great as Angelus. He's
wonderful as Angel, but there's a glint in his eye and
a spring in his step when he's Angelus," said Jeffrey
Bell, co-executive producer and the new showrunner of
"Angel," which has its season premiere Sunday.
Angel, the vampire with a soul, will become the wicked
Angelus again this winter when the gang needs the help
of a Hannibal Lecter-like creature to catch the season's
Big Bad. But Fred (Amy Acker), Gunn (J. August Richards)
and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) are prepared when
Angel's soul is removed; they put Angelus in a cage.
Of course, Angelus escapes, and it'll be up to the
vampire slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) to capture him during
February sweeps. The saga leading up to the new Angelus
storyline will begin during November sweeps, which begins
Thursday, Bell said in a phone interview.
"Episode 7 (airing Nov. 17) will introduce the
character who will be the Big Bad for the season,"
Bell said. "That episode will be a cliffhanger,
and we'll come back with episode 8 (in winter 2003).
This guy is so bad and so tough that only one person
can handle him, and that leads us to Angelus during
February sweeps.
"He (the villain) is not someone we've met before.
He's not human; he's the toughest thing Angel has ever
faced. He's smart, he's strong, he's cruel," Bell
said.
And will the much talked-about apocalypse, the one
involving Angel, happen this season on the "Buffy
the Vampire Slayer" spinoff? Bell won't say for
certain, but something big is going on this year.
"We have an episode called 'Apocalypse Nowish,'"
Bell said. (He added it's not connected to the new hellmouth
stirrings on "Buffy.") Bell declined to say
too much about the new villain or how Angel's soul will
be removed and later restored.
"We'll have to find out," Bell said about
the soul. "We won't take any shortcuts."
Bell explained why now is the time for Angelus. Angel
hasn't shown his evil side since the second season of
"Buffy" when he lost his soul after one moment
of true happiness during sex with Buffy (Sarah Michelle
Gellar).
"We've tried to get Angel to the place where
he can make peace with what he's done. He's now doing
the right thing because it's the right thing and not
to atone for what he's done in the past," Bell
said.
As Angel approaches the point of contention, it's
important to take some peace away from him. That's the
philosophy of mixing pain and joy in "Angel"
and "Buffy."
"Angel" has been moving forward at a quick
pace during last season and the new one. Lilah became
the new head of the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart,
when she didn't just go over her boss' head. She cut
it off - at a board meeting.
"On our show, anyone can die at any moment. You
never know," Bell said. "It makes it fun." |
