Angel

When "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spin-off "Angel" got staked by the WB Network Wednesday, it was the end of an era for television.

But creator Joss Whedon’s series won’t be dusted without a fight. Fans have launched a "Save Angel" Web site, signed petitions and bombarded the WB and its advertisers with postcards, phone calls and e-mails. They’re even begging other networks to adopt the show.

SavingAngel.org raised more than $41,000 for the campaign and hired Guerilla Billboard trucks to drive around Los Angeles proclaiming, "We Will Follow Angel to Hell ... Or Another Network."

Sadly, we won’t be following Angel anywhere, although the WB says it is open to "Angel" TV movies.

As a "Buffy" and "Angel" fan who collects action figures and trading cards, and even met some of the shows’ stars at Atlanta’s DragonCon convention last summer, the whole ordeal has made me want to turn off the TV permanently.

The thing that made the demise of the original Buffy tolerable was that the Buffyverse lived on in the show’s more mature sister series. But media pundits always treated "Angel" as Buff’s bastard son, even though it sometimes eclipsed the original.

This year "Angel" found its footing with the addition of Buffy regular James Marsters as Spike and a change in setting. Angel’s team went corporate, heading up the evil corporation they’ve been battling for years, where they tried fighting evil from the inside. Fans can only hope for a Whedon-penned spin-off after he finishes writing X-Men comics and the film "Serenity."

I’m pulling for something that combines the best of "Buffy" and "Angel" — perhaps the vampire-with-a-soul Spike carting the bumbling-villain-turned-hero Andrew around on the back of his bike, fighting evil.