I also wanted to add that they aren't taking anymore donations at this time but look for the ad in the "Hollywood Reporter" to run in the Weekly International Edition on March 9, and in the National edition of "Variety" on March 15. The Guerrilla Billboard campaign is scheduled to start on or about March 15.

More details here:

http://www.savingangel.org/donations.html

twiggy | March 05, 01:51 CET

Sent mine off. We might still make WB change its collective mind.

RootBoy42 | March 05, 02:18 CET

May every pro-Angel postcard you guys send in to Mr. Levin's bosses result in a stinging lash of disapproval across Mr. Levin's craven shoulders. Rock on!

phlebotinin | March 05, 02:43 CET

Even though news looks dismal on Angel's behalf, I think this is a great way to show The WB that fans have power. If Tribune is soliciting fans to postcard, then we should. With enough, we might be able to accomplish it. They are, afterall, the backbone of The WB.

BlindHawkeyes | March 05, 03:54 CET

Also with the recent events that has occurred with 2 of the dramas the WB looked to pick up next year being pushed to mid-season do to scheduling and production problems - this is as good a time as any to push for Angel's return. Also anyone else notice how the WB has kinda quieted down on their promotion of DS. Also don't forget to contact the Sinclair group as well they have 19 WB affilate stations in 24% of the market you can find their contact information at supportangel.org.

RavenU | March 05, 04:40 CET

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!

bloodflowers | March 05, 04:52 CET

bloodflowers -- are you also going to give the St. Crispian's Day speech? :)

(edited for spelling error...which shows you how NOT erudite I am!)

[ edited by phlebotinin on 2004-03-05 03:00 ]

phlebotinin | March 05, 04:55 CET

phlebotinin--I thought it would be more constructive and positive than admitting to making a Jordan Levin voodoo dolly. Ooops!

bloodflowers | March 05, 05:00 CET

bloodflowers -- my Jordan Levin voodoo dolly endured only a few hard jabs of needle torture before it crumbled into useless fragments. Damn that disintegrated devil doll! I hope your dolly is of stouter build...... the better to torture it for eons to come as is its original's due.

phlebotinin | March 05, 05:08 CET

phlebotinin--My sister brought my dolly back for me when she visited New Orleans. It has been sitting on my drawing table, biding its time, waiting to be of service. And now fortune has smiled upon it. "Your time has come my little friend," I say. "The soulled vampire is in need of your help. Do your worst"

bloodflowers | March 05, 05:15 CET

Can I just say :P to the WB - who seem to being having some demographics problem with their teen angst drama OTH - Just this past Tue UPN's ANTM bested the WB's OTH by 31% in the overnights and 100 percent among adults 18-49. I ask you how can any show best another in that demo inparticular by 100% and that show stay on the air - perhaps it to is on the chopping block seeing how UPN keeps mopping the floor with it every week.

RavenU | March 05, 05:51 CET

We will not make WB change their mind. Angel was not cancelled because of ratings. The cultural environment has become too conservative, and is not conducive to an artist like Whedon who breaks the mold and ventures into unexplored territory. Why was One Tree Hill favored? Why do we still have Seventh Heaven next season and Gilmore Girls and Everwood? Shows like that? They cover familiar, consistently successful territory. They don't take too many risks. Why have there been court dramas on television since Perry Mason? Or cop dramas since before Dragnet? Because they work. If you broadcast them, people will watch.

Angel, Buffy, and Firefly are not safe investments and dependable money makers. The demographic is not wide and certain. Those who are fans of the show are often avid and vocal, but a larger percentage of people either watch it and have no reaction, or they have an adverse reaction, because something about the fictional world Whedon weaves goes against the grain of how they like to view the world. So they opt not to return. And an even larger percentage of potential audience members make assumptions about a Whedon show before they even watch it, and therefore shoot it down before giving it a chance.

Whedon's programming goes against the grain of traditional thought. He breaks conventional guidelines of storytelling and introduces characters who are not quite that predictable. To Whedon, good and evil are not absolutes. They're descriptors but they're not concrete definitions of people. That is why you and I like Whedon's programs. That is also why networks hurting for advertising dollars do not like them. When one can make a Survivor clone for a fraction of the cost of actual art, and make just as much money, one will go the cheaper route to increase one's profit margin.

We are fighting a losing battle.

ZachsMind | March 05, 07:31 CET

RavenU -- the dismal stats you provided for OTH made me cackle and choke with glee. But what is "ANTM?"

bloodflowers -- may your little friend from New Orleans wreak perpetual havoc on That Miserable Hack of the WB! May your sticking pins be ever sharp!

Cackling, voodoo dolls, sharp pins. This is not good. Well, Jordan Levin drove me/us to it. Let that be my/our defense.

phlebotinin | March 05, 07:31 CET

yeah, I think I figured out I was fighting a losing battle when the WB said Angel was cancelled. I'm still contributing, sending out, and fighting. Thanks though.

jack knight | March 05, 07:34 CET

Karma baby, just plain karma. It seems as the WB announced it's killing of Angel that things are starting to fall apart for them. Yippee! Let's hope it continues and that the only show left standing will be Angel, which they will be forced to show in repeats and realize what foolish asses they have been for not doing that in the first place.

Phlebotinin and Bloodflowers, you guys just cracked me up! Can I have a voodoo dolly too?

Firefly Flanatic | March 05, 07:34 CET

Everwood is a really good show and they do take risks. I can see the argument for 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls because from everything I've heard, they just aren't that great anymore (never watched them so don't know for sure). I don't know anything about One Tree Hill except it seems like yet another 90210 clone.

Firefly Flanatic | March 05, 07:39 CET

phlebotinin - American Next Top Model = ANTM - although if you drop the M I think that is more fitting since they probably weigh as much as one even though I seriously doubt they could even lift an ant. :)

Zach - Angel wasn't canceled because of rating as it was canceled because of money - the WB doesn't like to spend it and FOX likes to charge it. Everything is about the bottom line and if anything was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt it's that ratings can be changed to fit a need on a whim. Nielsen has already re-did the changes it made which increased it overall sample size but cost the network by skewing major demographic numbers toward the downside.

[ edited by RavenU on 2004-03-05 06:12 ]

RavenU | March 05, 08:07 CET

One Tree Hill is perhaps one of the worst dramas I have ever seen. I honestly tried giving it a chance, watching a few episodes, but there just wasn't anything interesting there. It was a carbon copy of Dawson's Creek only attempts to be racier.

BlindHawkeyes | March 05, 08:10 CET

RavenU, hee hee on the models comment. You speak great truth there.

blwessels, I insist you get a voodoo dolly, too! The more the merrier. And merry it shall be, because really, what fun can't you have with a dolly and some sharp pins?

ZachsMind, I agree that our cultural climate (in the U.S. anyway) has lately become much too conservative, fearful of difference and dependent upon simplistic good-evil dichotomies to well tolerate the iconoclastic creativity of someone like Joss Whedon. Wretched, rock-bottom dreck gets renewed. Soothing simplistic stuff gets renewed. Fairly good to pretty darn good sometimes gets renewed. Truly groundbreaking creative brilliance always -- always -- gets stamped on by the jack-booted networks and entertainment industry hacks. I am amazed that we got seven years of Buffy and five of Angel. The less said about the horror of Fox's treatment of Firefly the better. I'll start to froth and spittle will fly and my keyboard will get all gummy.

But this kind of cultural climate we're in strikes me as nothing new. It's more a matter of degrees. Sometimes the climate is more accepting, sometimes it's less accepting, but to me it seems a matter of inches rather than miles. The great majority of commercial entertainment has in my memory and the memory of my parents and grandparents always been mediocre to crappy, lacking in subtlety, complexity and narrative risk. When someone like a Joss Whedon comes along, it's celebration time. Enjoy it while you can. For me, before Whedon was David Lynch's Twin Peaks, which as far as I'm concerned was great, groundbreaking television. Flawed, sometimes annoyingly pompous, but great. I'm sure people can think of other examples. They are few, but they exist.

And they will continue to exist. At the risk of sounding maudlin, many of us may remember the past eight years of Whedon-graced tv as our "one brief shining moment," a tv Camelot. But I don't doubt that something else will come along and dazzle us with its brilliance. No cultural climate stamps out all creativity, no matter how harsh.

We will always be fighting a losing battle in the larger sense. That's status quo. From time to time, though, the creative side will score a stunning success.

And Wonderfalls does look pretty darn good.

phlebotinin | March 05, 08:16 CET

If only I knew Jordan Levin's email address so I could send him something from pinstruck.com, excellent voodoo dolls there!

pezwitch | March 05, 09:58 CET