Posted 9:02 AM by Paul
Death of an Angel

Heather is gutted. The news has come through that her favourite TV Show - Angel -, a spin off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer will close at the end of this season. Angel is by turns darker and wittier than the show that gave birth to it. It has a brilliant plot device that involves The Devil (referred to as the Senior Partner) being represented on Earth by a firm of lawyers called Wolfram and Hart. My favourite character is Lorne, a camp empathetic demon from the parallel world of Pielia, a place that bears an uncanny resemblance to Idaho. Lorne runs a nightclub and loves the music of Aretha Franklin.

Apparently the show is being pulled not so much because of falling ratings but because it is not "hitting the right demographic" I think this is code for "only the over 25s are watching it in any great numbers". Short of Heather and assorted Angelheads picketing 20th Century Fox and promising to watch the adverts and buy youth oriented brands - Angel will be joining Cheers (getting better and better) and Sex in the City (getting poignant as the end approaches) as a footnote in cultural history.

These are shows where the most sympathetic characters are homosexual, promiscuous or a mixture of all three. When they are gone, who will help us wage the culture wars against the forces of the Christian Right?