Angel: Season 04 on AllMovie

As it began its fourth season, Angel was missing several of its key players -- not just onscreen, but also behind the scenes. Show co-creator David Greenwalt had departed, leaving Jeffrey Bell to assume the duties of show-runner after an abortive stint by David Simkins. (Meanwhile, co-creator Joss Whedon was busy overseeing the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the short-lived space drama Firefly.) As for Angel's actual characters, the titular vampire hero (David Boreanaz) was trapped at the bottom of the ocean. Leading lady Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) had ascended to a higher plane, supposedly to serve The Powers That Be. Lounge-singing demon Lorne (Andy Hallett) had left for greener pastures -- or so he thought -- while darker-than-ever Wesley (Alexis Denisof) was still estranged from his friends. That left do-gooders Gunn (J. August Richards) and Fred (Amy Acker) to babysit the secretly traitorous Connor (Vincent Kartheiser) and wait around for word from their allies. Picking up where the previous season's extended story line had left off, the show's writers spent several episodes reuniting their ensemble only to unleash an A-list apocalypse upon them. By the time new villain The Beast (Vladimir Kulich) arrived to wreak havoc on Los Angeles and temporarily blot out the sun itself, viewers had settled in for a story line even darker and more epic than the previous season's. Now critically adored after years as an underdog, Angel still didn't attract an audience large enough to elicit faith from the WB network. The show continued to jump around the schedule and even sat out large chunks of sweeps months. All this despite a carefully negotiated return to Buffy crossovers and the return of fan-favorite character Faith (Eliza Dushku). By the time the WB and Joss Whedon's Mutant Enemy production company finally negotiated a fifth season -- with smaller budgets, more bite-sized story lines and the addition of Buffy refugee James Marsters to the cast -- changes were already afoot. The arrival of Jasmine (Gina Torres), the season's über-villain, had recast much of the Angel mythos into a dark fable of free will vs. celestial manipulation. And the casualties of Angel's battle with Jasmine included actors Vincent Kartheiser and Charisma Carpenter, both of whom were written out of the regular cast. Longtime fans were horrified at Carpenter's ouster; she had returned to film the season finale just weeks after giving birth to her first child, only to find out it was her last episode. But, with Buffy the Vampire Slayer no longer in production and Marsters preparing to reprise his fan-favorite role, Angel looked poised for a ratings bump.