The Greatest Supernatural Spin-Off of All Time Is Officially Streaming for Free

It is rare that a spin-off can outdo the legacy of what it was derived from, as generally these projects have a finite ability to innovate. Since spinoffs are based on only a specific portion of what made an original property successful, they tend to have less lasting power, and thus only appeal to a fraction of the audience. The expectations of following Buffy the Vampire Slayer were tremendous, as the Joss Whedon coming-of-age fantasy series became a cultural phenomenon with a complex mythology, memorable characters, and a very specific tone. The spinoff Angel learned the best lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but transformed into a unique series of its own by taking a completely different narrative approach. If Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the ultimate example of a “hero’s journey” told over the course of a protagonist’s adolescence, then Angel was a dark, conflicted character drama about the fungible line between good and evil.

It was early on in Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the character Angel (David Boreanaz), the enigmatic love interest to Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), was actually a vampire who was cursed with immortality and seeking redemption. Although Angel became an ally to Buffy over the course of the first three seasons, it quickly became clear that the “will they or won’t they” dynamic was holding both characters back. It was at the same time that Buffy and her friends went off to college in Season 4 that the first season of Angel relocated to Los Angeles, where Angel starts his own detective agency helping fend off supernatural threats. Angel may have begun as a slightly darker, neo-noir version of the “monster of the week” series that Buffy the Vampire Slayer had originated as, but it steadily became a more ambiguous and demanding show about the complications of morality. Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to reach the same degree of excellence that it had attained in its first three seasons, but Angel got more compelling and interesting as it went along.

‘Angel’ Is a Subversive, Complex Spin-Off

Angel benefits from containing a more complicated set of protagonists who had matured since their time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) began her time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a vain, self-absorbed teenager with a grudge against Buffy, but Angel turns her into a deeply empathetic, intelligent ally to Angel whose strength is seeing the good in people. Similarly, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) was introduced in the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an immature, inexperienced member of the Watchers, and Angel shows his growth into a leader who sees the importance of sacrificing personal pleasures for the sake of retaining balance. The biggest shift in Angel came in the characterization of the titular hero, as Angel himself grows beyond the somewhat humorless, detached anti-hero he was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although Angel begins the series with the express goal of doing good, he steadily realizes that no amount of lives saved will make up for the lifetime of atrocities he committed as the soulless vampire “Angelus.”



















Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz
Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving?
Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky

Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.

🏕️Jason

🔪Michael

💤Freddy

🎈Pennywise

🪆Chucky

01

Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do?
First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.





02

Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong?
Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.





03

What is your most reliable survival asset?
Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?





04

What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through?
Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.





05

You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role?
Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.





06

What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make?
Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.





07

What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means?
Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.





08

It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it?
The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?





Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated
Your Best Chance Is Against…

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.


Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th

Jason Voorhees

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

  • He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
  • Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
  • The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
  • You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.


Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween

Michael Myers

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

  • But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
  • Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
  • Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
  • You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.


Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street

Freddy Krueger

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

  • You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
  • The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
  • Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
  • Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.


Derry, Maine · It

Pennywise

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

  • The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
  • You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
  • That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
  • It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.


Chicago · Child’s Play

Chucky

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

  • You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
  • Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
  • Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
  • Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.

Angel is a step up from Buffy the Vampire Slayer in terms of filmmaking artistry because the flashback scenes add greater depth and offer a complete timeline of the different lives Angel has lived. Showing how his past comes to haunt him is critical in making the redemption arc compelling, especially since Angel has to constantly wrestle with his own dark side. The most profound idea in the entire series is established in Season 2, in which Angel realizes that evil can never be truly vanquished, and that there might not be a way to prevent hell on Earth. It’s a radical maturation from the “good versus evil” mentality in most genre stories, but it’s not entirely cynical; the fact that Angel and his allies realize that their fight is never-ending makes the sacrifices they make more resonant.

‘Angel’ Is a Complex Psychological Thriller

Angel has just the right amount of crossover with Buffy the Vampire Slayer because watching the two shows simultaneously makes for an unparalleled experience. The early cameos by Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters in Angel help to bridge the gap between the two shows and flesh out the mythology, but they don’t replace independent development. By the end of Season 1, Angel establishes a new prophecy that guides the rest of the series, with a new core antagonist in the evil law firm of Wolfram & Hart. Perhaps the most significant shared storyline between the shows was the inclusion of Spike (James Marsters), Angel’s rival, who became a core member of the cast in Season 5. Although Spike’s conclusion in the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was somewhat disappointing, his arc on Season 5 of Angel was a reminder of what a funny, enigmatic, and complex character he could be.

Although it was sadly cancelled during the peak of its creativity in Season 5, Angel has one of the best series finales of the 21st century, as it took a major storytelling risk that paid off. Despite being a darker series than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel was not absent of humor, with episodes like “Smile Time” showing just how creative it could be. Boreanaz is the rare actor who has had a consistent role on at least one network show continuously for the past 30 years, but Angel features the best and most consistent acting of his career.

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