"Lonely Heart" is the second episode of season one of the television show ''

Angel In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...

''. Written by

David Fury David Fury is an American television writer, producer, actor and director. Career He is well known for his work on ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', ''Angel'', ''Lost'', '' 24'', ''Fringe,'' ''Tyrant'' and ''The Tick''. Fury was a co-executive ...

and directed by

James A. Contner James Atwater Contner (born June 12, 1947) is an American film, television director and cinematographer. His work includes episodes of such television series as ''Miami Vice'', ''Angel'', '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', '' Firefly'', ''The X-File ...

, it was originally broadcast on October 12, 1999 on the WB

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

. In "Lonely Heart",

Angel Investigations ''Angel'' is an American television series, a Spin-off (media), spinoff of the supernatural drama series ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''. The series was created by ''Buffy''s creator, writer and director Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Gre ...

looks into a series of killings linked to a trendy L.A. singles club. While there,

(

David Boreanaz David Paul Boreanaz ( born May 16, 1969) is an American actor, television producer, and director known for playing the roles of vampire-turned-private investigator Angel on The WB/UPN ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' supernatural drama (1997–2003 ...

) meets

Kate Lockley Kate Lockley is portrayed by Elisabeth Röhm, a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series called Angel. Lockley first appears in the episode " Lonely Hearts" as a young, skeptical detective for the Los Angeles Police D ...

(

Elisabeth Röhm Elisabeth Röhm (, ; born April 28, 1973) is a German-American television and film actress. She is best known for playing Kate Lockley in the television series ''Angel'' from 1999 to 2001 and Serena Southerlyn in the television series ''Law & O ...

), an LAPD detective also tracking the serial killer - who believes, because of circumstantial evidence, that the murderer is Angel himself. After discovering the murderer is actually a

body-hopping Body hopping is the ability and desire to possess people in quick succession. A body hopper can transfer quickly from one physical body to another physical body with little or no resistance and few conditions on moving on to a new body, and usually ...

demon, Angel seeks Kate's help in tracking down the bartender, now possessed by the demon, and killing him. Kate, believing the bartender committed the murders, accepts a provisional truce with a circumspect Angel.

Production details

Special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...

supervisor Loni Peristere explains that to get the effect of the demon burrowing through the characters' bodies, Dave Miller built a prosthetic back to identically match the actor. "We shot the actor doing his action with tracking points, little marks on his back, and I just soft edged, matted and tracked in a locked-off version of the actors back with the burrowing demon and stuck it on there," Peristere says. David Boreanaz's stunt double, Mike Massa, says the scene in which he is tossed across the room upside down is his favorite stunt of this season. To get the effect, he was shot across the room using an

air ram The air ram is a pneumatic device that catapults a stunt performer through the air. To simulate the effects of an explosion, the performer steps on a large "pedal" and using compressed air Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is grea ...

. "The reason I like it so much is because it really knocked the heck out of me," he says. "It was 900 pounds of thrust on the air-ram. I had to hit the corner just right. If I was off, if I hit dead center of the corner with my shoulders spread it could have broken a collarbone. I had to hit it sideways, my back flat to the wall and kind of skip into it, but it just pile drove me right to the ground." Director Jim Contner "was jumping up and down... He thought that was the best stunt he'd ever seen." In that same scene, a cameraman's arm holding a camera can be seen. In an essay examining the use of cinematic effects of time on ''Angel'', Tammy Kinsey points out Doyle's visions are depicted on film for the first time in this episode. Although short and simple compared to later visions, the quick cuts and flashes of light establish the aesthetic approach of ''Angel'' compared to the more conventionally filmed ''Buffy''.

Writing

wrote this episode to replace his original script, titled "

Corrupt Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

", which also introduces the character of Kate. However, in Fury's first script, Kate had a

crack cocaine Crack cocaine, commonly known simply as crack, and also known as rock, is a free base form of the stimulant cocaine that can be smoked. Crack offers a short, intense high to smokers. The ''Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment'' calls ...

addiction and worked undercover as a prostitute. Producer Tim Minear says the episode was "a little bit too hopeless, a little too grim"; after the WB Network rejected the episode it was completely rewritten.

References

External links

* {{Angel episodes Angel (season 1) episodes 1999 American television episodes Television episodes written by David Fury Fiction about parasites Television episodes about serial killers