Quick note: The new "Dark Shadows" is not on the WB's fall schedule. Two comedies (one starring Jeff Foxworthy, and the other starring Drew Carey) will air on Wed. night in "Angel's" old timeslot. Thanks for making it easy for me, WB! Now I can change the channel right after "Smallville" ends.
Part Twelve: The Beginning of the End
Fresh off of their vacation following the taping of the fifth of the final six episodes, Angel, Lorne, Gunn, Spike, Wesley, Fred, Gwen, Lindsey, Connor, Paige, and Kathy met once more in Angel's office for discussion of the final episode and examination of the script.
Lorne was already there when the others arrived. He was sitting in a corner next to two heaps of letters of about equal size. One was labeled Pile A; the other, Pile B. After everyone sat down, he began, "Everyone have a nice vacation? Good, because we have to buckle down right away. We have bad news and good news. The bad news first: Our overall ratings are only up by 8%."
"After all the work we did to pull off those lousy scenes?" Gunn protested.
"But I think something's changing with our viewership," said Fred. "I went online to a few of the bigger 'Angel' message boards, and the most popular topic was 'Spike is sooooo hot,' with 691 replies. The person who wanted to discuss the thematic elements in 'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco' only got one response, though."
Angel looked at Lorne. "You said you had good news?"
"Yes, our fan mail is extremely encouraging." As an illustration, Lorne pointed to Pile A, which was topped by a letter written in purple ink and signed with a smiley face.
Wesley looked at Pile B. "If the first pile is the positive response, then what is the second one devoted to?"
"Oh, never mind that one," Lorne said quickly. "It's unimportant."
Wesley reached over and snatched a letter from the top of Pile B. He skimmed it and raised his eyebrows. "My, my. This is what you call unimportant?"
His companions looked on alertly. Lorne sighed and settled back in his chair. "Fine, go ahead; read it to them."
Wesley did so. "It says, 'I've been watching "Angel" since day one, have never missed it, and after seeing the last few episodes I have this to say: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING? My formerly favorite show has become a crappy shell of itself. The only thing the current character of Angel has in common with the old one is his name. Are you all on drugs?'"
As soon as Wesley finished reading, Lorne grabbed the letter from him, crumpled it into a ball, and pitched it into the wastebasket. "That guy wrote in last week, too, and I had him checked out then. Turns out his household doesn't have a Nielsen box, which basically means his opinions don't count."
"What's a Nielsen box?" Kathy piped up.
"The official method of measuring television viewership in the U.S., where the viewing habits of several thousands of households are used to represent the patterns of the country as a whole," Lorne rattled off. "If you don't have a Nielsen box or diary in your home, too bad. But Nielsen does have some positive news for us: Our audience of teenage girls has tripled over the past five weeks. And now that we have a chunk of the target audience hooked, we have to keep them. Script six is the key. We're building up to a big finish complete with huge cliffhangers involving every single character that will force the network to renew us for next season."
"Lorne?" Fred said tentatively. "Don't take this the wrong way, but what if, for some strange reason, we don't get renewed? Won't the fans be mad that we left things up in the air? Shouldn't we work on resolving stories instead?"
"No, because it's more fun to be childish and spit in TPTB's faces than it is to reward our loyal viewers by giving them a graceful ending. Haven't you learned that by now?"
"We all talked about this possibility," said Gunn, indicating Spike, Wesley, Fred, and Angel. "And we agreed. None of us will play out a death scene, so scratch that idea."
"Death scene?" Lorne cried. "Wherever did you get that foolish idea? No, no, no. When I say cliffhanger, I mean cliffhanger of the emotional sort. Not cliffhanger involving mortal peril. There's a no-kill mandate for the season finale. Rest easy."
One by one, Fred, Gunn, Angel, Wesley, and Spike relaxed. "So if you aren't going to kill any of us off, what do you plan?" Spike asked.
"Gunn and Gwen's wedding, the trial for custody of the twins, the epic love triangle of Angel/Buffy/Spike, Lindsey's efforts to stop Kathy from getting revenge on Angel, Wesley and Fred's attempts at reconciliation, the mayoral election, and Paige and Connor falling in love," Lorne rattled off. "Plus, of course, my own weight-loss struggle, culminating in a check of the scale to see if I met my goal. Very exciting stuff!"
Angel looked around the room. "Speaking of Buffy, where is she?"
Right on cue, Buffy swept in. "What did I miss? Anything important?"
"No, just our usual pre-script complaints," Spike filled her in. "The real bitching comes when we actually lay eyes on our ridiculous scenes and can't believe the crap we're asked to do."
"Which is coming right about now," Lorne picked up, as Harmony entered with a stack of scripts.
end part 12