TITLE: Cancellation Notice
AUTHOR: Kelso
E-MAIL: kelso28 AT excite.com
SPOILERS: through "Shells"
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: "Angel" has been cancelled. Angel, Spike, Lorne, Fred, Wesley, and Gunn fight back..
WEBSITE: see my author profile for the link. I have B/A(us), B/S, and miscellaneous stories posted there.
DISCLAIMER: "Buffy" and "Angel" characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.

########################

Cancellation Notice

It was a seemingly ordinary morning early in 2004 when Angel called an emergency meeting in his office. After Spike, Gunn, Lorne, and Wesley arrived, he announced, "I have bad news. We've been cancelled, as of the end of this season." He allowed a few moments for everyone to curse and complain before continuing. "The problem is that we don't attract enough viewers and our episodes don't do well in repeats. But don't count us out yet. I trust our fans to save us. They've already put together an online petition and they're racking up signatures to show their love and support for us. If they make enough noise, we can still return in the fall with new episodes."

Wesley seized onto this ray of hope. "Let's see how the petition is going." He logged onto the Internet, with the others gathered around to watch over his shoulder. Within a few moments, Wesley found the petition site and smiled. "Excellent. Over 40,000 people have signed it." Then he skimmed the list of signatures and his expression changed to a frown. "Oh, dear. This doesn't look good at all."

"What's wrong?" Gunn pressed.

"Shh. Let me check on something." Everyone else anxiously waited while Wesley examined several dozen pages of names. Finally he turned back to them. "I'm afraid this petition won't be taken seriously. Among other irregularities, someone named Mickey Mouse signed it 172 times last night, and President Bush is supposedly taking time out of his crowded schedule to visit it twice a day with words of encouragement."

"Okay, the petition's obviously not going to bail us out, but our fans are sure to phone and write and e-mail too," Angel pointed out. "The network can't overlook all that response."

Wesley nodded. "We'll definitely get fan reaction, but we need to do our part as well. We have six episodes left in which to raise our ratings. Essentially, how do we get more people to watch?"

"Look at the situation logically," Lorne urged. "We air on the WB network. We were cancelled, while other WB shows weren't. What do they have that we don't?"

Everyone was quiet. Then Angel said, "We don't know what they have because we don't watch them. We need to study the competition."

No one else had a better idea, so they went with Angel's. Wesley obtained a list of all the WB nighttime programming, and Angel sent a secretary to collect videotapes of the shows. When the material was accumulated, Angel looked at the list. "Right. You guys need to watch about two shows apiece. All the comedies together count as two, and the dramas are one each."

Even Spike accepted his assignment without too much protest, and the group agreed to return to Angel's office at 8 that evening with their reports. When they did, no one looked very happy.

Angel, who was settled down behind his desk with a notepad, prompted, "There's no time to waste. Lorne, tell us about the shows you watched."

"I saw eight episodes of 'Smallville.' In the first one, Clark battled a man who developed fire-starting abilities as a result of exposure to Kryptonite. In the second one, Clark battled a girl who developed shape-shifting abilities as a result of exposure to Kryptonite. In the third one, Clark battled a boy who suffered from permanent hypothermia as a result of exposure to Kryptonite. In the fourth one, Clark battled... oh, you get the point and I'm tired of saying the same thing over and over. It was bad enough watching it over and over."

"The show is predictable. Right. We can do predictable," Angel said desperately as he made a note. "What about your other show, '7th Heaven'?"

"It's a preachy, sappy, feel-good family drama that never met a moral lesson it didn't like," Lorne summarized.

Angel made another note. "How about you, Spike?"

"I want you to know, I only helped out because I didn't come back from the dust just to be cancelled at the end of my first season here," Spike informed everyone. "Right, so I drew 'Everwood' and 'Gilmore Girls.' 'Everwood's' mostly social issues and old-fashioned narration. 'Gilmore Girls' is mostly quirky characters and snappy dialogue."

"We have snappy dialogue," Angel protested. "Well, sometimes we do. We have to work on the other part, though. Gunn, you're not quirky enough. Develop a quirk, fast. And while you're at it, what did watching the WB comedies tell you?"

"That they suck."

"Yeah, but what do they have that we don't?"

Gunn shrugged. "A laugh track, I guess."

Wesley spoke up. "I covered the remaining two series. 'Charmed' features three nubile sisters and derivative plots."

"What the hell does that mean?" Gunn demanded.

"They rely on sex to sell and you've seen most of their plots somewhere else before. Then there is 'One Tree Hill,' a series that attracts a substantial teen following and is considered to be a 'cool' show among many in that age group."

Spike said what most of the others were thinking. "What does all this rot tell us?"

Angel looked up from his notes. "It tells us that we need to become a whimsical, nostalgic, formulaic, sermonizing, unoriginal, hot, cool, socially conscious, female-oriented series with a laugh track. We have a lot of work to do, gang."

end part 1