I'm not sure about TNT and promos but wanted to ask the same of The WB. Has The WB promoted Angel at all??? The website isn't really even updated.

I'm looking forward to TNT showing Angel, I haven't seen most of the episodes since the first time they aired. With hardly any repeats during seasons or even in the summers it's been tough to catch them in repeat form.

Grace | September 26, 22:30 CET

Apparently, there's been sightings of huge billboards advertising Angel on TNT. Someone spotted one in New York. Anyone here seen one?

Simon | September 26, 22:46 CET

I've seen some huge billboards here in LA for Angel weekend runs on UPN.

The TNT run might really help Angel's ratings as shows like Third Watch and Law & Order saw ratings jumps once the hit syndication. Hopefully, TNT will pull peole in who wouldn't watch a vampire show on the WB.

[ edited by unitas on 2003-09-26 20:53 ]

Unitas | September 26, 22:52 CET

The WB has been promoting Angel fairly well. They show a promo or two during the commercial breaks for their other primetime dramas.

I never watch TNT so I don't know if they're doing anything to promote Angel. I already have the DVD sets for the first two seasons, so I won't be tuning into to their reruns until they get to season 3.

lalaa | September 26, 22:54 CET

I've seen the TV promo a few times, I think during Charmed...

it's pretty cheesy though:
"He's a vampire, he's a good guy, he's ANGEL! Coming this fall to TNT at a time when no one who works full-time can watch!"

protector | September 26, 22:55 CET

gotta hook the kids

brother_grady | September 26, 23:05 CET

There's a billboard here in Dallas too. Which I see during my commute through the downtown mixmaster every morning. At first I assumed it was advertising the new season, but when traffic was particularly bad one morning I got to actually read the details on the billboard and it's actually talking about how reruns are playing on some cable channel I don't get. Big whoop. Oh well. At least Angel got a billboard in Big D. That's more than Buffy or Firefly ever got around here.

ZachsMind | September 26, 23:29 CET

The thing I thought was strange is their promoting it with the tag line "The Vampire with a conscience" instead of the Vampire with a soul. I wonder if they thought the word soul sounded too religious?

vpecoraro | September 26, 23:29 CET

You can bet your boots that TNT thought "the vampire with a soul" sounded too "religious." They're probably right--in the Buffyverse, a "conscience" is more or less what a "soul" allows a being to have. No guarantee that the conscience will function properly, of course!

Maeve | September 27, 00:03 CET

Anyone not into the Buffyverse wouldn't understand that Angel having a soul means he has a conscience. I'd imagine they put "conscience" instead of "soul" in the advertising so that people would have some idea of what the show's about.

David Nabbit | September 27, 03:22 CET

fiveironalex - Exactly. If you do not know the Whedonverse then the soul tag line sounds like he works for Motown.

Oddest thing today, I was reading an interview with Jeffrey Bell (Angel EP) in Dreamwatch and he said how WB market research found that only 25% of the audience that watched Buffy also watches Angel, which is one of the main reasons for a certain cast addition. I was surpised that the number is that low (could be off after all) but I do know a good number of people who watch BTVS and not Angel so maybe so.

Unitas | September 27, 05:22 CET

TNT actually seems to be advertising Angel quite extensively. Just about every time a show or movie comes back from a commercial break, there's one of those icons at the bottom corner of the screen, telling people to start watching on Mondays.

And in the commercials themselves, the clip from the opening of the show where Angel's walking down the alley... they have the TNT logo Photoshopped to look like it's on the wall of a building on the right.

Part of me thought 'Neat!'. The other part realized it was pretty cheesy.

But lots of yayness for Angel reruns!!

Greyflowers | September 27, 12:20 CET

I started watching Angel late in season three but it wasn't because Angel was a spinoff of Buffy. I think it was sorta in spite of that. TV shows before Buffy have had spinoffs and that's not always a good thing. Mary Tyler Moore spun off Rhoda. All In The Family spun off Maude and Jeffersons, which in turn spun off Good Times if I remember correctly. Happy Days spun off Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, Joannie loves Chachie. Spinoffs are very rarely a good thing.

If a spinoff caters to the old audience from the old show, it won't aquire new viewers because new viewers will just be confused, and viewers from the old audience are notoriously fickle and gunshy when it comes to new series based off their beloved old one. If a spinoff caters only to aquiring new viewers, they lose a majority of the old viewers who get easily insulted if they are not catered to, and it's like you might as well have started completely from scratch. What's the point in making a spinoff if the old viewership flips the bird at you. Just change the names and places and start completely over.

Angel tried to cater to both the old Buffy viewership and also stand on its own, separate from Sunnydale. It's been a rough ride. Some would argue that while Whedon's learned from the errors of shows like "AfterMASH" and "Lone Gunmen," it didn't do him much good. The fact Buffy & Angel were on two separate networks made any attempts to crossover entirely cumbersome and frustrating. The infamous Thanksgiving episode for example. Ow.

I never personally really liked Angel when he was on Buffy, having first seen him (I think) in the Oz-centric episode "Beauty and the Beasts" early in season three and only later learning about his backstory. I thought Angel was just the token star crossed love interest for Buffy, and didn't think much of him. On a whim one night I caught Angel by chance, and discovered that though not particularly like BtVS at all, it is a show that stands on its own two feet and holds its own. So I have begrudgingly become an Angel fan in season four, and have now also gone back and watched the first two seasons on DVD. Being a "spinoff" has never been a good point in Angel's favor. The concept has bad connotations in Television City. Angel has to prove to the other 75% of fans that though it's not like BtVS, it still exists in the same fictional world, and is in its own right entertaining. If people tune in expecting Buffy-like fun they'll be disappointed.

Angel the Series can be fun, but it's certainly not BtVS, which is in the final analysis, to its credit.

ZachsMind | September 27, 21:34 CET

The thing I thought was strange is their promoting it with the tag line "The Vampire with a conscience" instead of the Vampire with a soul. I wonder if they thought the word soul sounded too religious?

A vampire with a soul? Oh my god, how lame is that?

stavrogin | September 28, 12:06 CET