David Boreanaz played the ironically-named Angel on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series. His character has *so many* parallels with Lucifer (far more than Booth outside of the law enforcement/crime procedural connection).
Angel’s spinoff also has noir crime drama aspects mixed with the supernatural starring an immortal protagonist with a dark past and infamously villainous reputation fighting evil as a supernatural private detective in the City of Angels (a city known for its dark underbelly juxtaposed with fame and glamor, broken dreams and chasing eternal youth) and navigating human law (including the LAPD and evil lawyers) while not legally existing.
Angel also fell in love with a blonde human heroine (Buffy Summers) after lifetimes of self-destructive, not-so-heroic behaviors (getting his soul back did *not* make Angel a hero and human Liam was a lecherous drunk with unfulfilled ambitions and father issues) who inspired him to become a better man and make human connections.
AtS made heavy use of sprawling nighttime Downtown L.A. cityscape shots, which Lucifer also shared an abundance of.
During both of their first cases, they failed to save the troubled blonde girl they were trying to help (Tina and Delilah, respectively). They also have a connection inside the LAPD through a blonde cop who also takes their identity secrets pretty badly (Kate Lockley in Angel’s case).
Note that Buffy not only screamed (twice, given it repeated during her memory loss in Halloween), but also came after Angel with a crossbow when she thought he’d attacked her mother (it was Darla), so Chloe taking the Devil face reveal (Monster Reveals are iconic old horror imagery) poorly to the point of considering poisoning is par for the course. However, it only took Buffy seven episodes instead of three seasons to get the identity reveal via seeing the horrific second face (arguably also an accident on Angel’s part).
They are metaphorically or literally Hell’s angels. They also had long stays in Hell or a hell dimension.
Lucifer and Angel are also both Prodigal Sons with long-held grudges against their long-absent fathers (patricide in Liam/Angel(us)’s case) and they’re later faced with a situation where they have unexpected, thought-impossible offspring who show up as adults (neither got to raise their miracle child) wanting revenge. Yup, major Connor/Rory parallel there.
Angel is also in a constant struggle with the Powers that Be manipulating his fate and free will (like Lucifer, he’s a champion of free will no matter the cost) and making him prophecy’s bitch.
Bones famously got jokes about how Booth is Angel getting his Shanshu (made human), since the character is given constant Angel-isms like references to a dark past having killed people (Booth is also named after a historical murderer, in addition to having been a sniper), both being Catholics full of Catholic guilt (note that the Buffyverse is most accurately polytheistic, though Angel does face off against a take on the antichrist–Angel has constant biblical imagery/themes and not just because of vampire iconography), kicking down doors (just not off their entire frames–LOL), turning on a dime and threatening people up against walls, constant wink-wink references to the Buffyverse (familiar casting, references to the Hyperion Hotel, etc…), etc…
The Lucifer finale used the words “Close your eyes.” right before Lucifer is sent to Hell. This is literally the BtVS season 2 finale where Buffy kisses Angel and sends him to hell for a century with a stab to the gut (see the season 5 finale, not to mention Lucifer giving up his life for Chloe’s à la I Will Remember You).
Note that D.B. Woodside was on BtVS (playing Robin Wood, whose Slayer mother Nikki Wood was killed by Spike). Aimee Garcia was in both episodes of AtS (Birthday–she’s older than she looks!) and Bones. See her also playing a cross-wearing religious girl on Supernatural who was slaughtered in a police precinct by Lilith. Kevin Alejandro was also in an episode of Bones.
Tricia Helfer was in an episode of Supernatural playing a ghost who reenacts the night of her death every year. BtVS also had an episode along those lines, but with Buffy and Angelus possessed (not to mention Phantom Dennis!). Lucifer having Dan as a ghost is yet another thing they all have in common (ditto referencing Ghost, Patrick Swayze and/or Unchained Melody–Vincent Schiavelli a.k.a. Ghost’s subway ghost was Jenny’s uncle Enyos, whom Angelus killed).
Lucifer name-checked Castiel and Supernatural referenced Lucifer using their Lucifer (crime-fighting angel in L.A. made it a double-reference whammy). Supernatural returned the favor again by having Castiel forced to sing in Enochian. Lucifer’s reference to his singing voice was already a zing about Misha Collins having to put on that monotone gravel voice and Enochian being far from melodious.
Russell T Davies was quite heavily inspired by the Buffyverse when he revived Doctor Who and spun off Torchwood, so there are absolute tons of Buffy, Angel and Spike respectively in Rose Tyler, the 9th/10th Doctors, Captain Jack Harkness and Captain John Hart (right down to the actor). School Reunion is the episode where the Buffyverse inspiration is most on the nose, complete with Anthony Stewart Head saying “shooty dog thing” in a school setting and a Mayor/Angel-esque speech about the curse of immortality. The Time War gave the Doctor a huge genocide-level guilt complex. Note that the creator of DC comics’ version of Lucifer, Neil Gaiman, has also written for Doctor Who and is also the co-creator of Good Omens (the show is brimming with Doctor Who Easter eggs thanks to David Tennant). A barely-recognizable Tom Ellis played Martha Jones’ ex-fiancé Tom Milligan during the Year that Never Was, as well.
A lot of shows take inspiration from the Buffyverse and you’ve probably seen some of them. It isn’t just the copycat vampire romance stories either.
Angel’s forerunners in turn were a mix of guilt-stricken, rat-eating Louis de Pointe du Lac (his Jekyll/Hyde-esque alter-ego Angelus is closer to the pre-retcon, fully-evil Lestat de Lioncourt, who got woobified into an antihero rocker not unlike Spike–the entire Fanged Four mirror Anne Rice’s character lineup), sword-wielding, immortality trope-influencers Connor/Duncan MacLeod of Highlander fighting for the Prize of humanity (akin to Pinocchio becoming a “real boy”–see also Barnabas Collins of Dark Shadows, though he was before vampires became antihero superheroes, not just sympathetic antivillains) and Nick Knight of Forever Knight (vampire detective).
Additionally, Tom Welling was famously the longest-serving Clark Kent of them all (Smallville) on the old WB (there’s that DC comics connection, too), so it’s not just a Fox shows thing (though Fox, not just Warner Brothers, did indeed own the Buffyverse). One of the least-known things about Clark is that he also has an immortality problem where he wouldn’t age parallel to Lois (they wouldn’t be able to have kids either) without a workaround. The Kryptonite line directed at Cain/Pierce by Lucifer was quite on the nose! Lucifer and Smallville sort of crossed over even further in Crisis on Infinite Earths, so Tom is canonically the face of both Clark and Cain in parallel universes of the DC multiverse.
Supernatural had quite recently had their own takes on Cain (played by Timothy Omundson, who also played God Johnson) and the Mark of Cain when Lucifer did it. Dan’s killer Le Mec was, of course, Rob Benedict, who was God a.k.a. Chuck Shurley, the ultimate villain of Supernatural. Richard Speight, Jr., who was archangel Gabriel/Loki the Trickster, directed a lot of Lucifer’s later episodes in addition to being a prolific Supernatural director.
Supernatural and Lucifer use the exact same font for their titles (Supernatural Knight).
The X-Files (which Supernatural referenced constantly) and Supernatural also had stories about nephilim (see the apocryphal Book of Enoch). Lucifer ultimately had two nephilim (forbidden interspecies offspring of angels and humans), even if not saying so as a known concept. Connor can also be compared to the vampire equivalent of being something like a dhampir, though he’s not quite that (mostly-but-not-quite-human offspring of two vampires instead of a human/vampire hybrid–see Blade for an actual dhampir). Supernatural has also covered the even rarer cambion species (human/demon hybrid).
Speaking of joining Doctor Who Yasmin says: “If anyone would have told 8 year old Yasmin that one day she’d be part of this iconic show, I would have never in a million years believed them. This show has a place in so many people’s hearts, so to be seen as a trans actress by the legend himself Russell, has not only made my year, it’s made my life. I cannot wait to begin this journey and for you all to see how Rose blossoms. Get Ready.”
Russell T Davies, Showrunner adds: “Life on Doctor Who gets brighter and wilder, how can there be another Rose? You’ll find out in 2023, but it’s an absolute joy to welcome Yasmin to the Doctor Who set. We all fell in love with her in Heartstopper, one of those shows which changes the world - and now Yasmin can change the Whoniverse!”
The future is here: Ncuti Gatwa has been announced as the next Doctor to take control of the TARDIS
Star of stage and screen, Ncuti Gatwa is best known for his critically acclaimed performance in SEX EDUCATION as the iconic Eric Effiong, for which he was awarded Best Actor Award at the Scottish BAFTA’s in 2020 as well as numerous nominations including Best Male Performance in a comedy programme at this year’s BAFTA’s.
Speaking of his new role, Ncuti said: “There aren’t quite the words to describe how I’m feeling. A mix of deeply honoured, beyond excited and of course a little bit scared. This role and show means so much to so many around the world, including myself, and each one of my incredibly talented predecessors has handled that unique responsibility and privilege with the utmost care. I will endeavour my utmost to do the same. Russell T Davies is almost as iconic as the Doctor himself and being able to work with him is a dream come true. His writing is dynamic, exciting, incredibly intelligent and fizzing with danger. An actor’s metaphorical playground. The entire team have been so welcoming and truly give their hearts to the show. And so as much as it’s daunting, I’m aware I’m joining a really supportive family. Unlike the Doctor, I may only have one heart but I am giving it all to this show.”
You-know-who just hired a local company which makes plastic products to do a job they’ve never done and have no idea how to, so…
My girlfriend: That definitely sounds like an RTD plot: Boris Johnson hires a hoover company to make respirators and they don’t help you, they suck the life out of you.
So that wasn’t even necessarily the Eighth Doctor there, it was the final regeneration of the Doctor, I suppose, and I guess I miss it being Eight, but I also really like the idea that the Doctor lived so many lives during this war, its just unintelligible in a way. And his age is finally explained! I like it.
AND THE SETTING. That imagery was really great, and way more in line with the kind of unimaginable madness that I thought a TIME war would have to be. It’s not just people a city under attack, its fragments of all of time and space mushed together. My brain does some astonishing things with the vagueness of that. I love it.
I can see this leading into “Rose”, and how this Doctor is kind of traumatised but also thrilled and excited to be back to small scale world saving after the tragedy and pain of the war.
Does it replace the canon in my head? Well, let’s just let there be multiple parallel universes =D ‘Cause I can carry more than one canon at once!
so this must be what Poirot wld feel like if he were about to deliver his all-revealing speech in the library only to have one of the assembled guests leap up and shout TWAS I — I DID IT IN THE CONSERVATORY WITH A POTTED BROMELIAD AND YOU NEVER GUESSED!!
bc altho for the past months i have had no heart to participate in fandom bein as it were utterly disheartened by the petty vapid & above all spiteful turn that PR & indeed the whole of selfstyled social “justice” fandom has gone down
makin me not willing to even log in for months on end
the confirming coincidences have not stopped mounting up where i keep running over & into them
& all my MAAAAYBE?s turn out to be so right my hesitance is laughable
bc chris nolan turned the son into a daughter & stuffed a watch into the revised INTERSTELLAR script
& ridley scott stuck a mockery of the horse sacrifice into his inexplicable-except-as-parody EXODUS
& stephen moffat spent the whole of last season getting more & more overt slams at GDT to the point where i knew that elba showin up to talk abt relearnin to ride a motorbike for GHOST RIDER 2 while wearin red trainers wasnt a joke but a warning HMS LYDIA IS COMING ABOUT TO CROSS YR T — he wasnt just gunning for ridley scott but at the NuWho team bc they shot first & over again
& did it most explicitly by stealin the Jaeger pilot armour from Comic-con for Nightmare in Silver, but then went all-out hostile open fire in the s8 finale, when they mocked both Thor & PR in it
bc all of them are tryin like fuck to be the anti-Pterry — & succeedin tho its an own goal
& then on team resistance side charlie h went & took la muerte’s cloak from her hands & rode to his own king-horse sacrifice as a warrior jesus for modern america THE ONE YOU WANTED THE ONE WHO BEARS THE SWORD RIGHT PPL? if i had any more doubts that jax TELLER was stringer BELL in another incarnation & both of them evil mirrorverse versions of the eternal defender (& dominic west is just as much part of the game & has been all along as rinko kikuchi & jessica chastain now are)
but the proof will be tonight in the xmas special
that all these folks are acting in concert , even if some of them are on opposite sides but meanwhile watch ENGLISHMAN IN NYC and see the proof that elba & john hurt have been playin the same charas all along
ETA: no matter how many times team wallbuilder kills our heroes in effigy playin mr teatime in their love of empire & grimdark mundanity they have lost already - & partly by their own deeds!!
I’ve had this on my mind and since my brain is like a messy desktop of a computer, I’ve gotta say this so I can clear up some space in my head.
Titled: Not so concise hot take about the 13th Doctor’s Era
I wanted to like it, I really really wanted to. I was *so*excited about 13 being Jodie and I really did do my best to go into it with positivity. But there is a huge problem that doctor who should’ve thought about. changing writers, while also making history by having the first female doctor - that was a mistake.
having the first female doctor was a very huge deal to a lot of fans. it’s the first time fans who are girls could see themselves as the main character and not just the friend. HOWEVER, given how many misogynistic people are in the fandom, it was a very delicate transition. If BBC had thought it through, they wouldn’t have changed the writers as well. This is because if (and it did) go wrong, everyone’s blame would instantly be placed on the fact that the doctor’s a woman. Not even bothering to think about whether or not it’s the writer’s fault or the characters fault. So all of that blame fell on 13. When, in reality, if Moffat or RTD was writing the 13th doctor, viewers would still feel some sense of normalcy. This would’ve keep a lot more fans because they would’ve realized that doctor who hadn’t changed entirely.
But then they added a different writer at the same time. Now you have two massive changes. People have a hard time telling what it actually is about the new seasons they don’t like. But, Jodie and the Doctor being a woman, they didn’t stand a chance of being given the benefit of the doubt. So now no fan will ever trust another female doctor even if the writing is amazing because they hold a grudge against chibnall and Jodie. If they had brought Chibnall in while 12 was still the Doctor - everyone would’ve been able to see the shift in writing and not associate it with the most delicate change that girls and women have been waiting to see for generations!!!
Chibnall can be BRILLIANT but Doctor Who is not his strong suit. He does so much better with dark drama and that’s what he turned Doctor Who into. But that’s not what Doctor Who has been about for years and years before. In past episodes, they always did their best to reiterate hope into viewers. But I realized after watching Orphan 55 (which I’ll never forgive him for) that he wasn’t interested in keeping up that same momentum. But that’s what made Doctor who so amazing!! The hope! The liberation! The feeling of being bigger than yourself and being special!!! Orphan 55 was fear mongering in the worst way because there was no hope at the end. The Doctor basically told 3 humans that if the world didn’t fix climate change, we’d all turn into monsters. What the FUCK are they supposed to do with that??
Not to mention how absolutely bone-chillingly evil it was to hear Benni’s last words and what Kane had to say after that (still gives me nightmares)
I understand that once you’re in a position of power to make change, you should do so. But Chibnall went so hard with the wokeness that it wasn’t even subtle like it was with Moffat which does more damage than help. And ending it on a hopeless note doesn’t motivate anyone to make a difference, it makes us sit there and shrug like why the fuck should we even bother if there’s no hope?
Moffat had a talent for implementing wokeness and awareness into his scripts without making it blatantly obvious. Just enough to put some motivation in your heart and to make you feel able to cause change. The show was stripped of that. It became so obvious. Are you telling me Jack Robertson wasn’t inspired by Trump? And “Can You Hear Me” had so much potential to talk about mental health but it was just a lot of talking and not a lot of making sense. There was no nuances, no subtlety, just too much.
There were a few episodes I loved. I loved Kerblam. I loved Tsuranga. Rosa was beautiful. But maybe it’s because those episodes *felt* like Doctor who. Well, Rosa didn’t but I still loved how that went because it was about damn time they put some emphasis on how incredible Rosa Parks was.
Onto the timeless child: phew. okay. I’ll admit I liked it at first. Or maybe I just liked the cinematography but this goes to my point about having a new writer and a ground breaking character. On top of all of that, chibnall changed the very bones of the entire show with this storyline. And as soon as I started to really think about it, I realized how god damn disrespectful it was of him to do this storyline.
You may be asking: why was it disrespectful Abigail? Well, you think back to 1963. The very first classic Who episode. The person who created that story, created this entire franchise, did that person have this planned? Probably not. They planned for the doctor to be a timelord from gallifrey with 12 regenerations and lives to save. but for the love of god, I can’t imagine how horrible I would feel if someone hijacked a story I came up with, every detail, and changed it without a second thought. If someone flushed all of my hard work and deep thinking down the toilet? holy disrespectful. beyond disrespectful to the original creators. because just like that, the doctor is not gallifreyan. the doctor is not the last of their kind, they are the ONLY one of their species now. In fact, we don’t even fucking know what that species is!!!
If I sat my jolly ass down in 1963 to write out this incredible plot for a show and someone just changed it?? All of my hard work and brilliant ideas? Completely retconned and thrown away as if it wasn’t good enough? I would be devastated. Wouldn’t you? That’s why it was disrespectful. Because Chibnall, who worked on the series for five fucking minutes, came in and used all of his power to wash away everything without even considering the possibility that it was wrong. That storyline would’ve been brilliant for someone other than the Doctor.
AND WE ARENT GONNA EVEN TALK ABOUT HOW FLUX’ MAIN VILLAINS WERE CLEARLY MODELED AFTER DIA DE LOS MUERTOS BECAUSE ILL BE HERE ALL DAY YELLING ABOUT IT
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it became a huge clusterfuck for several different reasons. It was poorly executed because they made so much change so fast that nobody knew what to blame for not liking it anymore. Nobody knew if it was the female doctor they disliked or the writing or the plot changes. And with each change, they tried to manage the criticism with more change. If they kept Jodie on for one more season and did it with RTD’s return, I think it would heal a lot of viewers. I think a lot of them would fall in love with 13 the way she deserved to be loved. I will forever feel bad that Jodie had to deal with this because she was groundbreaking, but too much other ground was breaking around her for her to get proper praise. And because of Chibnall’s writing and the evidence of how hard BBC is working to reverse the problems created, it’s clear that we will likely never see another female doctor again.
Hopefully if you were feeling the same way I have been, this will map out those feelings a little better
Ps. BBC, If you’re reading this, drop the series 10 soundtrack pls I need it like I need oxygen
