TV Guide Talks About New Additions to Angel
TV Guide
"I thought there were gonna be strippers or at least cocktail waitresses," says a newly blonde Charisma Carpeneter, surveying the scene wher WB's Angel is shooting for the day: Larry Flynts Hustler casino outside of Los angeles. Even so, the view is still eye popping. While the drama's cast rehearses including star David Boreanaz, who plays the bloodsucker with a soul, Carpenter (the prophetic Cordelia), J.august Richards (vigilante Gunn), and Amy Acker (brainiac Fred) - a few dozen men in elaborate monster makeup and loud suits mill about the casino floor.
Actual patrons,seemingly oblivious to the proceedings, continue to play the slots, sidle up to blackjack tables and order drinks from the aforementioned hostesses. Security however is a diffrent story. Our location department sent out a memo saying, "There will be armored car deliveries while we are here, so the security officers will be a little wary of any masked demons" Richards says. So we've been all instructed to carry ID with us.
Surreal as the scene is, shooting Angel in a gabbling hall seems somehow appropriate. After all, when the drama returned for its third season last fall (mondays at 9:00) the odds were against its success. Buffy the vampire slayer, the show that spawned it and had led into Angel on tuesday nights - had pulled up stakes from WB after rival network UPN outbid the former in a bitter battle. Whats more WB executive's had decided to pair Angel with its wholesome hit 7th Heaven, a move those involved with the vampire drama thought, well sucked. "Its a little like following Mary poopins with Seven" says co-creayer david Greenwalt.
Everyone was saying, arent you worried your show is gonna get cancelled? adds David Boreanaz, now sitting at a casino table, absentmindedly playing with some stray poker chips. "Nobody could imagine that people who like 7th heaven sticking around to watch our dark little show".
But a funny thing happened on the way to a possible demise: Angel rediscovered its wings. Even with the seemingly incompatable lead-in, the series actually increased its audience by 8 percent over last season, averaging 4.3 million viewers a week. "Angel has a very loyal audience that followed it to its new time slot says analyst Stacy lynn Korener. With Buffy on another network, Angel has finally proven that it can be its own show."
Thats just what Greenwalt was aiming for. "When we ended up without buffy, I think we all felt it was the best thing" he says. "I've always wanted Angel to stand on its own".
Helping the show come into it's own:
Angel and Cordelia's tentative stabs at romance and a darkly compelling story line revolving around the brooding hero's first time fatherhood. All sorts of unsavory character's have been after Angel's baby boy, Holtz, whose family angel murdered before he was cursed with his soul, to the depraved lawyers of Wolfram and hart (who spiked angel's blood supply with his owns sons blood, making angel realize his son smelled like food). Fearing for the childs safety, demon fighter Wesley (Alexis Denisoff) tried to skip town with Connor until Holtz made off with the boy instead, vanashing through a poratl to another dimension.
In a good bloody twist, Connor returned in the April 29th episode - as a teenager (played by new cast memeber Vincent Kartheiser).
"In the dimension where he's been, time moves diffrently" says Greenwalt. "We didnt want to raise a baby for 18 years" admits the executive producer. It seemed more intersting for angel to have an adolesent who, like most, hates their parents and wants to kill them.
In this case literaly, having been raised by Holtz, Connor is hell-bent on dusting dear old dad.
But Kartheiser, who earned crittical acclaim for playing a junkie opposite James woods in 1998's "Another Day in Paradise", is a bit unnerved by his roles rigorous physical demands. "I didn't know I was gonna have to be Jackie Chan" says the 23 year old Minneapolis native.
"I'm only like, 105 pounds soaking wet with a rock in my pocket" he laughs, "I'm not really a good fighter".
Nonsense, says Greenwalt: Vincent may be a skinny little thing, but he has a wonderful presence on-screen that makes him seem much bigger. You'd never be able to tell thats he's unexpierenced with fight scenes, he seems like a natural, Take that Buffy!
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