Conversations With Dead People

The sun has set on Sunnydale, and so now we leave behind the hell of the small town and head into the Big Bad City. Stacey Abbott, Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Roehampton University, editor of Reading Angel: The TV Spin-Off With a Soul, and author of Celluloid Vampires: Life After Death In The Modern World and Near Dark (BFI Film Classics) joins me to usher in the era of Angel, the/a vampire with a soul. We talk for a bit about how she was, for years, a shining beacon of Angel Studies at many, many of the Slayage Conferences, being the only person willing and eager to present on the spinoff series, before FINALLY diving into our discussion of the first two episodes.   “City Of” introduces the new paradigm of the film noir Los Angeles setting, with it’s dark alleys, buzzing neon, and rapid-edit transitions. We’re also introduced to a new player in half-demon “sidekick” Doyle, sent by the Powers That Be (“Powers that be what?”) to be Angel’s sponsor on his quest for redemption. And we get the ve