Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is widely considered to be one of the best and most influential TV shows of all time. Series creator Joss Whedon crafted such a rich mythology for vampires, demons, witches, and mad gods that it provided material for seven seasons of escalating threats for Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends, aka the Scooby Gang. That world building also paid off in one of the best TV spinoffs of all time – which is now streaming for free on Tubi.
Angel premiered in 1999, running side by side with Buffy’s fourth season. It followed the soul-stricken vampire, played by David Boreanaz, after he leaves Sunnydale to become a paranormal private investigator in Los Angeles. Just as Buffy didn’t hit its stride until season 2, it took a while for Whedon and his co-showrunner David Greenwalt to figure out exactly what they wanted from Angel. But what could have easily been just a supernatural-flavored crime procedural grew up to deliver episodes that were just as good as the best of Buffy.
The series begins as a highly episodic neo-noir as Angel meets a generic LAPD detective/love interest who helps him find cases involving ghosts, demons, and other supernatural creatures. He’s assisted by Francis Doyle (Glenn Quinn), a half demon who gets visions of people in need, and Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), the former Sunnydale mean girl who gives up her dreams of Hollywood stardom to help protect people.
Things start improving halfway through season 1 when Doyle heroically dies, passing on his prophetic powers to Cordelia. He’s replaced by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), the slimy, self-righteous, and incompetent Watcher of the twisted vampire slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku). Wesley was one of Buffy’s most hated characters, and he starts off as a joke, an egotistical “rogue vampire hunter” trying to make up for his failings by serving as the team’s occult advisor. Wesley grows into one of the show’s best characters, becoming a relentless crusader who really embodies Angel’s neo-noir sensibilities with his willingness to do almost anything to get justice.
The ensemble really came together in season 2 when the vampire-hunting street fighter Charles Gunn (J. August Richards) joined the main cast. The season also introduced the demon bar owner Lorne (Andy Hallett) and Winifred Burkle (Amy Acker), a physics genius who spent years trapped in a demon realm. The group’s dramatically different skill sets and personalities provided endless opportunities for teasing banter, unlikely romance, and clever problem solving.
Just as Buffy had some far weaker plots and seasons, Angel hit a big snag with the introduction of Angel’s teenage son Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), who winds up impregnating an amnesiac Cordelia, putting her in a coma she never wakes up from. The plot is especially awful in light of allegations by Carpenter that Whedon harassed her when she got pregnant and fired her soon after she gave birth. While the payoff involving their twisted child Jasmine (Gina Torres) was strong, Connor was extremely annoying. Carpenter (and Cordelia) deserved better.
Darker than anything on Buffy
Angel had several significant villains, like the time-traveling demon Sahjhan (Jack Conley) and the vengeful vampire hunter Daniel Holtz (Keith Szarabajka), but the greatest recurring threat was the extremely evil law firm Wolfram & Hart. The firm represented the corrupt power structures and perversion of the law at the core of the noir genre, but in this case, its employees literally sell their souls and represent demons. Wolfram & Hart spent four seasons constantly antagonizing Angel and his allies, while trying to use Angel in a larger scheme involving an apocalyptic prophecy. Then, in a brilliant twist, Wolfram & Hart offers Angel and his crew the chance to take over the firm’s LA branch at the end of season 4.
It’s the ultimate devil’s bargain, and season 5 represents a hard pivot for the show as it becomes far darker than Buffy.
While Buffy touched on the anxiety that people without supernatural powers felt keeping up with the chosen one, Angel brutally tackles that theme through Gunn’s street-tough character. Wolfram & Hart offers him a mental upgrade so that he can become an expert lawyer overnight. But when those skills start to fade, his own feelings of inadequacy lead him to make a deal he knows is wrong to get the knowledge back — and the consequences are more terrible than he could have imagined.
There are several plotlines like that in season 5, which simultaneously gives Angel’s team endless resources and takes away everything they value. The season began after Buffy had wrapped, and provided a new home for Spike (James Marsters), who could lighten the mood as a foil for Angel while also continuing his own redemption arc. Season 5 also dealt with other consequences of the end of Buffy, like an unstable young woman developing Slayer powers and breaking out of a mental institution to try to kill Spike. Angel has a rare perfect finale, an episode filled with brutal surprises and deeply satisfying conclusions to all of the show’s biggest plot and character arcs.
While Angel could have coasted on Buffy’s popularity, the series stands out on its own as a darker, more mature drama sharpened by a willingness to reinvent itself over the course of five seasons. It has a brilliant mix of black comedy and real horror, delivering some truly emotionally devastating episodes like “A Hole in the World” and “Awakening.” The Buffy cameos always went beyond simple fan service to really add depth to the characters, setting a new standard for what a spinoff could do. If you enjoyed Buffy but never watched Angel, now is the perfect time to take a trip to a very dark version of the City of Angels.
Angel is available to stream for free on Tubi.
