Angel:Unaired Pilot

Angel is one of my favourite shows, but nobody would judge the show on this.

In fact, it is quite disingenuous to call this a 'pilot', as it is merely a mix of footage from Angel's best bits from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, mixed in with some new footage (most of which used or redone in the actual premier episode) of David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter and Glenn Quinn.

It was basically a 'proof of concept' to sell to the network that the show could work.

And it worked! Often over shadowed by its more high profile mother show, Angel would go onto develop its own fans, and be critically successful also.

This is not a pilot at all. Instead, it's more like a pitch reel to show to the suits at the now defunct WB network. The suits already knew the central character and the back-story, so a full pilot wasn't really necessary. The question to be answered was - How would Angel do in his own show, in L. A., away from Buffy and the Scoobies?

The first half of this five-minute pitch reel has Angel narrating as he talks about his backstory and about coming to LA. There's lots of Angel-centric footage from BTVS. The reel also introduces the two other characters in the show - Doyle, the half-demon and Cordelia Chase, who is being ported over from BTVS after high school graduation at the end of Season 3.

Aside from making the Wolfram & Hart lawyers look like Agents from The Matrix, I thought it was very well done. Some of the footage in it even made it into the genuine pilot, "City of".