What was this season really supposed to be?

[marukisu]

I heard alot of rumors about season 4 and how the whole Jasmine thing wasnt supposed to happen but instead Cordelia was set to be the big bad for that season. Are there are also rumors true about Joss and Charisma and the whole waiting too long into the season to tell him that she was pregnant? This infact had to make them hastily write in the baby thing. IMO it kinda shows that it was last minute. The season started off with alot of chaos with the sun being blocked out and angelus being released and cordy stabbing Lilah. But if Jasmine was trying to distract them was all the chaos really neccesary? she could have been birthed without them thinking it was evil.
I guess my real question is does anyone know what season 4 was originally gonna be?

[Ashxking]

From all the rumors I have heard it goes like this. The demon in Cordy started to take over turn her evil. Conner knew something was wrong tried to kill her but failed and then Angel kicked him out for what he did. In the end Cordy pushed out the demon and was sent into a coma

[Angel's vision]

I think it was because she had a misscarriage before hand,she was written out series three, to give her maternity leave
then she lost it, so when she got pregnant agian, she kept it quiet just to make sure everything wa sok before she announced it, thus the changes in the script, it was going to be her being the big bad at first, but because of her pregnancy it was changed.
This i heard from a fellow forumer on another forum who was in the know on this...

[VisionGuy]

I think it was because she had a misscarriage before hand,she was written out series three, to give her maternity leave
then she lost it, so when she got pregnant agian, she kept it quiet just to make sure everything wa sok before she announced it, thus the changes in the script, it was going to be her being the big bad at first, but because of her pregnancy it was changed.
This i heard from a fellow forumer on another forum who was in the know on this...

I always wondered if she was pregnant in season 3 because you can see her looking a little thicker than usual in the episode where she leaves with Groo.

[nerd4hire]

Here's what Angel 4 showrunner Tim Minear had to say about the pregnant Charisma matter.

J: Before Charisma Carpenter fell pregnant, what were the plans going to be for season four? I understand Cordelia was still going to be evil -- would this still have led to a similar Jasmine arc, what would Cordy’s motives have been?

TM: It was still going to be Cordy as big bad, if I recall, but it would have built to a throw down between Angel and Cordelia. But because of Charisma’s pregnancy, we made Cordelia pregnant too and had her “give birth” to an actress who wasn’t laboring (sorry for the pun) under a medical condition. But before we made that choice, there was even talk of shooting the Angel/Cordy battle scenes early in the year... but the idea of getting far enough ahead on breaking stories so we’d know exactly what those scenes needed to be turned out to be a pipe dream

Stakes and Salvation: An <i>Angel</i> Retrospective with Tim Minear (http://www.stakesandsalvation.com/2007/07/angel-retrospective-with-tim-minear.html)

[VisionGuy]

It would have been ironic having Angel fight somebody he trained in the first place. Not to mention because she was the woman he loved. It kinda would have been like Buffy season two with Buffy fighting Angelus.

[Bored of the Dead]

Not to mention because she was the woman he loved. It kinda would have been like Buffy season two with Buffy fighting Angelus.

Thats kinda why I'm happy they didn't get to do it as planned.

I'd rather have what we got then do s 'star trek' and reuse the same stories from sister shows just changing characters.

[marukisu]

Here's what Angel 4 showrunner Tim Minear had to say about the pregnant Charisma matter.



Stakes and Salvation: An <i>Angel</i> Retrospective with Tim Minear (http://www.stakesandsalvation.com/2007/07/angel-retrospective-with-tim-minear.html)

But he still didnt explain what Cordelias motives were and why was she going to all of a suddn turn evil. In the S4 we got it was because of Jasmine she became evil. Since Jasmine was created because of Charisma's pregnancy we still dont know what would have mady Cordy go all big bad on Angel Investigations.

[Lyri]

my guess is that whatever being Jasmine really was still possessed Cordy when she was on the higher plane, but there would have been no need for Cordy to give birth, it would just be a possession, like Xander and the solider or hyena, or a body swap like Faith and Buffy.
by the end of the season, the gang would have found out a way to de-possess her, or realize tat the only way to get rid of the evil thing controlling her, was to kill the body, kill Cordy.

but i could be completely wrong...

[marukisu]

Thats kinda why I'm happy they didn't get to do it as planned.

I'd rather have what we got then do s 'star trek' and reuse the same stories from sister shows just changing characters.

well i mean its not really the same because we dont know why she would have turned evil. It would have been an interesting thing for them to explain considering the fact that she ascended with the powers. Throughout the whole show the powers were said to help the good right? Idk it would have been interesting to see their explination of her becoming the big bad.

[Bored of the Dead]

well i mean its not really the same because we dont know why she would have turned evil. It would have been an interesting thing for them to explain considering the fact that she ascended with the powers. Throughout the whole show the powers were said to help the good right? Idk it would have been interesting to see their explination of her becoming the big bad.


No, its not really the same because it doesn't have Buffy BUT what it does have is the two lead characters being in love. One being turned to some truly evil force and the other being forced to kill her.

It doesn't matter why she turned evil, if you watch shows like Star Trek, they take the same premise and change it a little - which is what would have been done here.

[Buffy obsessed fan]

I always wondered about this. Reading over old threads really helps =] =P

[benboy606]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't last minute or anything like that. I think they wanted to do a big seasonal arc cause they don't usually do that, and then the WB didn't like that, so Season 5 was standalones.

[GATEGOD]

Well season 5 was good with the way they did itm but not as good as season 4. Everything came together quite nicely in season 4 i thought, maybe becasue i liked how one thing led to the next then the next then the next, which was great. Anyway, so we still really don't know why Cordy would have went evil without being pregnant? or do we ^.^ ?

[Bored of the Dead]

Well season 5 was good with the way they did itm but not as good as season 4. Everything came together quite nicely in season 4 i thought, maybe becasue i liked how one thing led to the next then the next then the next, which was great. Anyway, so we still really don't know why Cordy would have went evil without being pregnant? or do we ^.^ ?

This is pure speculation but I have always felt that had the season gone as planned, Cordy would have been similar to Jasmine.

I don't class Jas as evil, I believe she was misguided in her attempts to help the human race and I think had Cordy ascended to a higher plane and been able to see the true extent of the damage the human race was doing to itself, she'd want to help.
She'd get back to Earth and then do everything that Jasmine did, except it wouldn't have been the big Jas/Angel fight, it would have been a slightly better reasoning between the two Champions.

[Randy Giles]

I don't really think Jasmine was truly evil either. Yes she ate humans but she IS a different species so it's no worse than us eating cows. But since basically she was taking away free will she wasn't good either. I do think she believed she was doing something good though.

And I'm just assuming that the original arc would have been the same except without a pregnancy, in which case I agree with BotD and I'm glad Charisma got pregnant because I much prefer Jasmine over Cordelia and Angel having a throwdown.

[greetings]

I've always thought that it would have something to do with Cordy being part demon. Because that started off as such a good thing for her, as there was no more pain with her visions, and then the glowy thing that helped defeat various enemies, and then improves even more as she gets moved to a higher plain. But then it turns out that she doesn't want to be a higher power etc etc, so it's kind of going backwards, and I thought that with the original story arc (before the pregnancy) it would've been the part demon thing going further in a bad direction and 'taking her over' or something like that.

But I liked BotD's thoughts about how Cordy would be about to see the damage humans were doing to themselves from a higher plain, and would want to do something about it, and so would have a similar arc to the Jasmine one. I've never thought of that before and I just thought it was interesting.

[Tomp]

Twas an interesting season.