Towards the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s third season, there came an inevitable parting of the ways. Buffy’s blood-sucking, cradle-robbing creature of the night boyfriend, Angel (David Boreanaz), and Xander’s peerless, tactless, witless-foil girlfriend, Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), were forced to break off their respective relationships -- the one, ‘cause of his allergy to sunlight, and the other ‘cause of cheating and a big metal spike through her body -- for the very good, very franchise-buildy reason that both were destined for a brand new venture out of Sunnydale and out in sunny LA.

The resulting spin-off, Angel, created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt, was a little shaky in the beginning. Angel was fighting the good fight, but without any real plan. Enter, then, Doyle (Glenn Quinn), a half-demon prophet whose visions from the mysterious Powers That Be led him to the vigilante vamp, and would heretofore lead Angel to whomever needed saving. One of whom was our old friend Cordelia; she had decided super-stardom was her destiny, but so far that hadn’t worked out too well, and Angel saved her both from becoming a vamp snack and also from destitution by taking her on as his assistant. When Doyle met his half-demon maker only nine episodes in (passing the visions to Cordelia), and Buffy’s hated Wesley Wyndham-Pryce then showed up, it made for more than a few angry letters directed Greenwalt and Whedon’s way, but they soon demonstrated that they knew exactly what they were doing. Angel explored more adult, more insidious demons than those on Buffy, and Cordelia and Wesley – and, later, spanking new characters Fred and Gunn – had to grow up fast in order to stick around to stake another day.

After five seasons, Angel was canceled by the WB, to much outpouring of shock and remonstrance; fortunately, the story lives on in the Angel “Season 6” comics from IDW. But while the actors who breathed life into those characters have lent their faces to the pretty pictures contained therein, what have they themselves been up to since Angel came to its cliffhangery, the end-is-nigh end?

Let’s see…

Amy Acker

The introduction of Winifred “Fred” Burkle toward the end of Season 2 added a whole new dynamic to the tight knit monster killing group at Angel Investigations. Discovered in an alternate dimension, where she had been trapped for five years and had gone slightly batty, she was brought home and raised as one of their own. Regaining her sanity was an ongoing challenge, but her superior intellect and sunny disposition soon won out, and Amy Acker played each step in Fred’s evolution to perfection. Whether spouting some arcane mathematical theorem or struggling with her feelings for both Gunn and Wesley (after recovering from her understandable crush on Angel) or, in the end, delving deep to find the essence of ancient, bloodthirsty god Illyria, Acker’s Fred was ever a joy to behold.

And since the conclusion of Angel, Acker is a joy to behold everywhere, with numerous appearances on many and varied TV shows. From How I Met Your Mother to October Road to Private Practice, she has brought her winsome vulnerability and deceptive wholesomeness to many diverse roles. Of genre note, she showed up in Supernatural and The Ghost Whisperer, voiced Huntress on Justice League, and her appearance as double agent Peyton on Alias was both brilliant and bone-chilling. Also in geekdom, Acker rejoined Joss Whedon for a run as scarred (in many ways) Dr. Saunders on Dollhouse, and she also showed up in a few episodes of Angel and Firefly exec Tim Minear’s short-lived Drive.

Her films include her turn as lovelorn Los Angeleno in the romantic-dramedy Mr. Dramatic, a do-gooding temptress in The Novice, and a self-sacrificing nurse in the emotional bio-pic 21 and a Wake-Up (alongside Winnie from The Wonder Years!).

Acker’s TV movies have been a little more genre, with the creepy low-budget Canadian horror Voices, and the then-Sci-Fi Channel’s enjoyable 2008 dragon-fest Fire and Ice--the latter of which also stars 300’s Tom Wisdom and Sliders and Lord of the Rings luminary, John Rhys-Meyers, and in which Acker plays a teenager! (How very Gabrielle Carteris of her.)

Of more recent note, Acker is all over TV screens this month, with her guest role in the season finale of the excellent comic adaptation/re-make, Human Target, as well as her lead role in the October Road creators’ new effort, Happy Town, premiering April 28 on ABC.

And in the (increasingly distant) future, Acker will be seen in Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s much-anticipated horror-with-a-twist The Cabin in the Woods, currently slated for release in April, 2011. However, since this release has already been delayed over a year (it was originally due out this past February) in order that it might undergo conversion to 3-D, who knows when we’ll actually see it? Maybe they’ll decide to hold it over for holodeck conversion, too.

Post-Angel Grade: A-
Geek Rating: 80%


David Boreanaz

Boreanaz was clearly Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s breakout star from almost the very first time we saw him. That hair, that smile, those broad shoulders and brooding brow. He could kick ass but also bring the pathos, and make it look all so easy (and pretty damn good). Season 2’s shock tweak of his permanently angst-ridden character to that of a maniacal, joyful serial killer gave Boreanaz a chance to stretch himself, to move beyond Angel’s save-the-world righteousness, and he pulled it off with flying colors. (Well, mostly flying shades of black, actually, but you get the idea.)

Thence, to Hell, and then back from Hell, and then off to his own show he did go. Leaving Sunnydale and Buffy behind, he set up shop in the City of Angels and set about saving his soul, his friends, the city and the world from yet more impending Apocalypses. In the end, he let one slip past the keeper, and the final episode had Angel and his surviving cohorts facing off against a phalanx of demons the like of which they had never seen. And then, that was the end. (In live action, anyway. Thank Joss for those comics!) Boreanaz consistently delivered the goods through all five seasons of Angel and more than proved himself able to headline his very own series.

Now with a permanent home on the enduringly excellent Bones as oddly-named but frighteningly-hot Special Agent Seeley Booth, Boreanaz has also produced a peculiar body of film work in this post-Angel world.

2005 saw him part of an enormous ensemble cast in mediocre crime caper The Hard Easy (including, er, Nick Lachey), and the same year saw him the only decent thing about The Crow: Wicked Prayer (with Tara Reid and Edward Furlong). He also played an unwilling philanderer in the terrible, terrible These Girls, and 2006 had him a very willing philanderer in the Hitch-esque romantic comedy Mr Fix It, in which he sports some questionable blond hair.

In 2007, he shone in the befuddling-yet-compelling over-the-top sophisti-thriller Suffering Man’s Charity (AKA Ghost Writer), and, yep, of course he’s done some voice work for a DC cartoon (as most every Mutant Enemy alum must, it seems): he was Green Lantern in Justice League: The New Frontier.

Upcoming for Boreanaz, aside from Bones -- which is wrapping up its fifth season, and was pre-approved for a sixth – may possibly be feminist 70’s sports movie The Mighty Macs, where he shows off some wide lapels and a wicked side part as lead Carla Gugino’s husband. (“Possibly” because this movie’s release date has undergone more revisions than Cabin in the Woods and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead combined.)

There is also a rumor that Boreanaz might play Namor in Marvel’s proposed Sub-Mariner movie. Sub-Mariner, the progenitor of DC’s Aquaman, is one of your less hero-ish superheroes. Also, kind of an obscure one. (Although, the Blade movies were a roaring success, and that guy has way less comic cred than the venerable Prince of Atlantis and “Marvel’s first mutant.”) However, a Sub-Mariner movie has some problems: one, the merfolk form Atlantis are tall and blue, which would bring inevitable comparisons to the Na’vi, and two, Namor once married his cousin!

Which might have been okay in the Golden Age, but now… ew.

Post-Angel Grade: A
Geek Rating: 5% (subject to change pending Sub-Mariner confirmation)