eternalfate

myheadsgonenumb

But they were as painful as the show wanted them to be. Twice we see them knock him off his feet (Lonely heart and the first vision in The Bachelor Party). He describes them as 'migraines' and 'mind numbing, skull cracking vision headaches' - hours of them one after the other with no let up would be a lot for him to bear, demon half or no.

The fact that they are damaging Cordy more than they damaged Doyle isn't actually brought up until ep 18 of season 2 (Dead End) when Wesley tells Gunn that Cordelia got the visions from Doyle "but he was half demon" he then says "I'm not sure the human body can carry..." and then switches to talking about what happened to her in Shanshu. This is the very first suggestion we get that being fully human is a problem when bearing the visions - 1 year and 9 episodes after Doyle died.
We then see the pain they are causing her in the first half of season 3, which she keeps a secret, and it isn't until Birthday that it is actually verified that humans cannot bear the visions. That's 2 years and 2 episodes after Doyle died.

So that means - back in season 1 - they would still be able to go in whatever direction they wanted with the visions and have them affect Doyle however the show required them to affect him. Humans not being able to withstand the visions is not canonical during his time on the show (because it simply never comes up - it's not an issue), which means his survival would change the canon as they were forced to do something different with them. But they could make up whatever lore suited the story line they wanted to tell, they would not be tied down to a canon which - in a world where Doyle survived - never actually existed.

As it's Angel's show, not Doyle or Cordy's, it always comes down to what they want Angel to do. So in Shanshu, they want him in that crypt, they want him to see that box, they want him to kill Vocah and they want him to cut Lindsey's hand off. He cuts Lindsey's hand off to get the scroll, he wants to get the scroll as it is the only way to save Cordy - realistically, in a show that still contained Doyle, the writers would just put Doyle in Cordy's place because that suits the story about Angel they wanted to tell - rather than dream up a whole different way to get Angel into that crypt and wanting that scroll. Especially as, at this point, the fact that the visions are hurting her more than Doyle isn't a story line, so they can hurt Doyle as much as the writers want them to hurt him.

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Originally Posted by eternalfate (View Post) [FONT="Tahoma"I am not sure... without the backstage drama, I do feel Doyle would've lasted in the long term. Spike was suppose to be killed off as you mentioned but his popular kept him around. With Doyle, he was quickly fan favorite with his first 9 episodes so if Glenn doesn't have the backstage thing going on, I don't see why he would get killed off.

Yeah - that's what I mean. I believe the idea behind Doyle wasn't to make him a long term character (although not to kill him off as early as they did) so their long range plan going into season one (such as they had one) might have been to kill him off in the season finale - possibly killed by Vocah and the visions. Obviously what happened happened and he was killed off in ep 9 but had he NOT been, and stuck around - then, like with Spike, the writers would have changed their long term plans and kept him alive because he had turned out to be so popular it wasn't worth killing him off purely for the shock value.

I wonder if maybe they had a vague idea of 'separating Angel from the PTB and severing his link to them' (which is what Vocah does) and they sort of (back as they were going into season one before filming started) had an idea of 'severing the link' meaning killing Doyle. But - like they had no intention of killing Cordy by the time it came to Shanshu - similarly they would have altered the ending so instead of dying, he woke up - just like Cordy did in the show, as he would have proved to be too popular to kill off.
But maybe the reason Cordelia is made to suffer the way she is in Shanshu is because the writers had this long term plan of 'severing the link' that they wanted to keep - as it sounds dramatic and threatening enough for a season finale. They originally meant it to mean 'kill' and altered it to 'incapacitate' because they no longer wanted 'kill' as part of the story line.

I think if he'd made it past episode 9 he would have made it at least to the end of s4 (assuming Glenn also didn't die, because he would be in a very different place as well).

It would be interesting to know what they would have done with Doyle during s2 and 3 - because there is no reason they couldn't write a 'the visions are slowly killing him' story line - the writers are in charge of the lore and can write what they want. But I don't know if they would have gone down that route or chosen something different for him. And it would be interesting to see how they used and developed Cordy now she didn't have visions. I wonder if she would have picked up another power or skill instead, which would have allowed her to stay central to the plot.

Obviously if they did go down the visions are killing him route, the 'cure' would have had to have been something different as he was already half demon.

Maybe they would have switched it around completely and had it so it was the demon half that the visions were killing, as only humans can bear them (there are plenty of human seers on, or mentioned, across both shows - and the lore is whatever the writers say it is). Though if the 'cure' was removing his demon half, I imagine he would have bitten Skip's arm off to take it

starryeyesxx

I don't know if they started out with that much of a longterm plan, I always felt like because it was a spinoff & they wanted to make it different from Buffy, they felt there way through season 1 as they figured out what the show was going to be. I think that, if it wasn't for the bts problems, Doyle would have stuck around longterm, definitely through to season 4 like you think, because that's when the show started to get a lot darker. But up until that point, I think he would have been as important as Cordelia had always been, & I didn't really expect them to ever kill her off

myheadsgonenumb

No - I don't think there was a long term plan, certainly not like in Buffy where he had ideas for seasons well in advance up to the end of 5 (6 and 7 are pretty much made up on the spot lol) ... though there is some planting of stuff, like Hotlz first gets mentioned in a season 2 flashback. But I think they pretty much got to the end of each season and thought 'what are we gonna do next?' And then came up with a way to make Angel even MORE miserable than the previous season

I've heard that they had absolutely no idea how they were going to get Cordelia back from being a higher power when they made her ascend (and tbf we don't ever really get an answer - she just turns back up with her memory missing and the end of the season we're told 'Jasmine did it all ... everything - every last thing. Yeah even Fred going to Pylea and Gunn's sister dying. EVERYTHING')

And I've heard that Doyle wasn't conceived as a long term character - although their original claim that he was always supposed to be killed off that early was a lie - he was supposed to be killed off quite early (if they didn't get cancelled - which they always half expected.) So I think (if that is true) then the season finale would be where they originally planned to off him. But had he made it that far then, like with Spike not being killed in what's my line, they would have changed their plans because of the character's popularity (the decision to kill Doyle, possibly even the filming of Hero, must have happened before the pilot even aired - they wouldn't have realised just how popular he was going to be).

I've also heard that Wesley would have joined anyway - maybe not in episode ten but still maybe in the first season (although having him arrive in town on a bike chasing Barney would have worked just the same whether it was Doyle or Cordy who got kidnapped and auctioned - so maybe he would have entered it in a similar episode (though not one called 'Parting Gifts' obvs) somewhere in that mid section of the season). Wesley was supposed to die in the fight in Graduation Day Part 2 but because they liked Alexis so much they let him decide whether to kill Wes or just injure him. Once Wes survived the battle, I think plans to bring him across to Angel got seriously underway.

It's easy to imagine a Sanshu where Doyle is in Cordy's place, but it's hard to imagine how it would work without Wes - because who would be translating the prophecy or who would read it to cure Doyle/ Cordy of the visions? (I guess they could have created some translation skills for Doyle but it's easier to believe on a trained watcher, and obviously Doyle couldn't have read the words of anatole if he was practically comatose). Also the Faith episodes wouldn't have worked without Wesley - so it isn't really the presence of Doyle but the absence of Wesley that would cause major rewrites to the series, particularly down the line. But if they were both there, things would go down pretty much the same.

I heard that in the original script for Somnambulist it was Doyle up on the roof at the end talking to Angel (which makes sense, they did the same in In The Dark). There's a line where Wesley walks into the office and says he's spoken with his contacts (about Penn - and is immediately taken hostage by Penn) that never really made sense to me. He's brand new in town (and a blithering idiot) - how does he have contacts and access to 'word on the street' that Angel doesn't have? But that line makes a lot more sense if it originally belonged to Doyle, who frequently used his contact to find people. So it seems that in the beginning they just refitted some of the scripts, swapping either Wes or Cordy for Doyle but the meat of the episode remained the same. I think that would be true for the vast majority of at least s1 episodes but the other way round - Cordy and Wes' actions/ lines being given to Doyle.

Maybe Doyle's long term presence would have altered the way the things in the series go down - but as they were pretty much making it up as they went along on a season by season basis a lot of the same ideas would have been kept, because it is always about making Angel MORE miserable than the previous year.

As bad as the break with Angel and Wes is is s3 - it would be so much more heart breaking if they had had Doyle betray him that way, because Angel and Doyle's relationship was so special. It would have been interesting to kick the person with the visions off the team because Angel and the rest are then separated from the powers and unable to help the helpless the way they are supposed to and Doyle would still be getting the visions but unable to do much about them.
It would be nice to think that Cordy wouldn't abandon Doyle completely the way she abandoned Wes because 'Angel's feelings was all she cared about' but ... I think that would be one of those things they stuck with for story purposes and just ignored how out of character it was - it was already out of character enough for her to abandon Wes that way.

Angel/ Cordy/ Doyle had such a lovely little friendship - but in the end it would get to the point where character was getting sacrificed for the histrionic story lines ... and god alone knows how they would have dealt with Charisma's real life pregnancy if they had not already set Cordy up as the season big bad in the rough plan for the season.

eternalfate

starryeyesxx

That's what I think too, like I said, I don't think they had a real big longterm plan, so if Doyle was still alive, all their plans would have turned out different.

myheadsgonenumb

I just think these are the ideas the writers had and Doyle sticking around wouldn't have changed their ideas too much, either with the big stories or the little MOTW ones.It's the same group of people in the same room at the same time, stands to reason they would have many similar ideas. Their inspiration was coming from all over the place and Doyle would be such a tiny, insignificant factor in that.
There might have been the occasional 'oh we can do this with Doyle' which would switch up an episode or two but he's only the secondary male lead and would be part of an ever expanding cast. At least 18 out of 22 episodes would essentially be the same for the first three seasons (as the two versions of somnambulist prove, his presence or absence doesn't really change the outcome) and he wouldn't have been allowed to alter the main story arc in any meaningful way for 2 and 3 because the story is more important than all the characters who aren't Angel are.

I think Wesley would have come into the show in season one (because Joss Whedon loves Alexis Denisof) and would still have stolen the baby in 3 - he's the only one who can do the translating (I mean - I know Doyle could have been able to do anything they wanted him to be able to do, they could have given him any power they wanted ... but Wes' translator abilities are part of the watcher package).

The baby would still have definitely have been stolen, one way or the other though - writing the series was always about breaking Angel down as far as they could and seeing what he would do next, and you don't get much more broken than the loss of a child. Doyle being in the show wouldn't change Angel sleeping with Darla or Darla coming back pregnant. He just isn't that important. The writers push the others out of the way to make sure it happens, the same would have happened to him. And they don't want a baby long term on a show like Angel -so it had to go.

In season one and season two, Cordelia doesn't have much in the way of any story lines of her own, beyond 'she has the visions now'. So in the first two seasons there wouldn't have been much to change in terms of what happened just because Doyle had them instead. For example, in Untouched when Cordy has the vision of Bethany at the beginning - the episode is not changed significantly if Doyle has that vision instead, and there's no reason they wouldn't run that same story. Season one is entirely MOTW episodes and season 2 is 7 story arc episodes in a 16 episode run (so 9 MOTW) then two MOTW and then Pylea. And at most, before Dead End, Cordelia's vision is the catalyst for the case but it isn't actually a story line about her.

Having Angel fire everyone and go after Darla, or lose Connor, is far more important in the eyes of the writers than anything any of the support characters might do. But Cordy doesn't actually play much of a role in either of these, so beyond Doyle being present nothing much would have to change. And I know fans like to think about how Doyle would have affected the Beige period and Angel wouldn't have fired him ... but if the writers want Angel out on his own then that is what matters and that is what would happen. It's all always about Angel and the other characters do what they have to to get Angel where the writers want him, not what the fans believe they would or should do in the real world.

Pylea would probably be altered quite a bit. I do think something like it would still happen though, the writers wanted this goofy upbeat ending so that arriving home and finding out about Buffy would have that real sucker punch. Again - Doyle is not important enough to change that.
I'm torn on thinking Cordelia would have been sucked in to the portal because they prefer to damsel female characters and thinking Doyle would be sucked in because it makes sense for the person with the visions to be the one to go there. But either way - the story line around Groo would be massively different, because the show was not ready for gay comshucking. Maybe they would have just made a female version of Groo - like a Pylean slayer. That would be the quickest fix, but I don't know. But then with a female Groo - I feel like they would have romantically paired her with Angel rather than Doyle. Maybe they would have kept Groo as is and just removed the comshuk element.

I do think Angel/ Cordy would have happened at some point because the execs would still want Angel to have a romance. Season 3 already has a huge over reliance on love triangles so one could quite easily slip in there. Plus ... this is a Whedon show- Doyle and Cordy would not be a happy couple all the way from season one to the end of season 3, it just isn't happening.

I also think Cordy wouldn't have found out about Doyle's demon half in episode 9, they would have dragged that out longer. She only found out when she did to close out the story. If a version of the Somnambulist script exists with Doyle in it, as in it was written before the decision to kill him was made, then the idea for 'expecting' would already have been broken long before Hero happened (it's the episode directly after somnambulist). So it's unlikely they had planned to get her with Doyle before episode 13.

I actually think the biggest changes to season one would have come before Hero, if Doyle was not going to die. Obviously Hero would be different- as in, different name, probably completely different themes, not Doyle focused. They cobbled it together to get rid of the character and I don't know what they were originally thinking of using in its place. Perhaps Somnambulist was the original episode 9? I also wonder if we would have got quite as much info in The Bachelor Party if they weren't planning to kill Doyle two episodes later. These episodes feel like they exist purely to answer every question about Doyle and close his story but that would have been neither necessary or desirable if they weren't killing him.

So, I don't see that Season one and season 2 would see much in the way of change simply because most eps are MOTW and the writers would have mostly the same ideas as they did sans Doyle and because for the tiny fraction that is story arc, he wouldn't have been allowed to change it. Doyle would just be another sidekick. We only get 9 episodes of Doyle, if he doesn't die then we disregard Hero and there are only 8 canon episodes and he is a brand new character we know little about. the writers could bend him in any direction they wanted, to do what they wanted - but they're main interest is in Angel, not Doyle, so they would be bending Doyle to facilitate Angel's story and keep the story they want to tell.

The question is what they would have done with Doyle in season 3.

The big vision based episodes are 'that vision thing', 'Billy' and of course 'Birthday'. The fact that the visions are hurting Cordy are low key in the background of some of the episodes, but not all are vision based and Cordy in pain is just a few seconds of screen time of her taking tablets or whatever. Not a huge change required to the episode to not include that. So i don't think eps like 'heart throb' or 'carpe noctem' would be that different. The main story arc would have remained - Cordy is not a major player in that and either Doyle would be incorporated in it or like Cordy, he would have been on the side, but the story line itself is far too big and important for just the presence of Doyle to change it.

Of the vision episodes: That Vision Thing and Billy are linked, so I think we would have got a version of them but not the same as what we got. I think Billy would have changed more than TVT because Billy's powers are not as resonant if a man was tortured to free him. Maybe Billy would be the same and TVT wouldn't be about visions but Lilah would kidnap Cordelia to get Angel to free Billy or they would change it all up completely. But that's only two episodes, which don't actually have any bearing ever again.

Birthday is setting up for the next season. It might not have happened in the same place, and might have looked different to fit Doyle but I think essentially we would have got a set up for next seasons story line episode somewhere in the mix. Whichever character they were planning to centre the nest season around, this version of Birthday would have been centric to them and would probably include the 'it's a wonderful life' trope.

After Birthday the visions are pretty much relegated back to what they were in season 1 and 2 - a quick moment to establish the case.
The glowing and the higher power stuff probably wouldn't have happened. But again - the glowing happens twice, out of no where. If anything, the episodes are improved when they are removed and the higher power stuff is right at the end of the finale. The bulk of the season would have remained the same.

But as Cordelia's only major ongoing story line is that the visions are harming her so she becomes a demon and then that has a knock on effect for season 4, I think they would have given Doyle some kind of vision angst in the same place and all the scenes where we see Cordy in pain we would be getting Doyle angsting over whatever his problem was. .

I feel what happens to Cordy happens because the writers are getting bored with the visions or they have plans to use them for a bigger story arc in s4. Either way, that would still be the case so they would still be switching something up with the visions (3 years of the same schtick would be getting a bit old). Tim Minear loved the idea of Doyle as a villain - and I really think they might have gone down that route (so glad that never happened - I was annoyed enough when they retconned Skip into being a villain).

As the cast gets bigger and bigger each character gets less and less screen time and the story lines get more and more involved, so Doyle would play less and less of a role just from a time perspective and therefore his ability to make big changes gets more and more limited.

However s4 would probably look the most different because the original plan was to simply have Cordelia be the big bad and Jasmine is a last minute change to the plan to incorporate CCs pregnancy. That wouldn't have been a factor if Minear had got his wish and Doyle had been the big bad. But I think they would have still wanted to explore the same concepts around free will, they would have wanted similar high stakes and apocalyptic happenings and the big reveal. I don't know who they would have big badded in a Doyle version after three seasons with Doyle in (Minear wanting Doyle back is different to destroying a long standing character - but then they did do that with Cordy. But also Charisma would still be pregnant and Joss would still be mad about it) but I do think that, whilst the overall story line would share a few elements but be very different overall, episode to episode there would still be a lot of the same stuff going on. They would still want Angelus, they would still want Faith, they would still want a rain of fire, they would still kill Lilah off because otherwise they would have to start paying Stephanie Romanov more money to appear The writers room is still packed with the same people, episode by episode - they will still be coming up with the same ideas.

Anyway - today is 21 years since the pilot aired. 21 years since Doyle met Angel and they rescued Cordy - Happy Birthday AtS!

starryeyesxx

I do think that a lot of the motw episodes would have been the same, but I think the further down the line we get, the more things would have been different just from all the little vaariables that would have been different. So once we get to the Pylea storyline, I think it all would have been pretty different & may not have even happened at all. Same with Connor being born. But who knows, this is all a big what if

It does suck to know that Joss wouldn't just let Doyle & Cordy be happy together though, especially if they put her with Angel when Doyle was still around. I think that is a triangle thta would have received a lot of hate all around

Depending on how it was handled, it might have ruined the Angel/Doyle friendship for me too

eternalfate

starryeyesxx

I don't think I would have liked to see Doyle back as a villain either, his ending was so heroic, it would have tainted that



https://lets-go-to-work.tumblr.com/post/90600702001

eternalfate

starryeyesxx

Yeah, she seemed to be willing to put up with a lot! I think I would have been out of there straight away!

myheadsgonenumb

I agree the writers are making it up on the fly. I disagree that their ideas would have been in anyway radically different simply because Glenn Quinn remained on the cast list. Their ideas for monsters and the inspiration they were drawing from would be the same. No way is one extra person on a cast list enough to change that in any big way, especially earlier on. Butterfly effect would be inevitable - but overall the big ideas would be the same even if execution was a little bit different. (But only a little bit different - Angel is the main character, a side man would not change that much, he is not that important to the show. Clearly demonstrated by how easily they kill him off and hardly ever mention him again.)

If it's true about the execs wanting an Angel romance by the end of season 1 (which doesn't preclude the fact they also wanted a s3 romance, that is fairly well known knowledge within the fandom) that just proves Doyle's presence wouldn't have changed anything big. The execs want a romance for Angel, Minear picks Darla, beige phase, pregnancy, kidnap - and Doyle would just be worked into that. Same as Wesley was.

I've never considered for a moment that Doyle and Wes wouldn't be friends- they would have worked side by side on the team. Similar to Wes and Gunn - but they would still both be there to facilitate Angel's story lines which is their job as supporting cast, and not create radical changes. Their getting along or not would be used to create either tension or nice team moments - but it wouldn't change the monsters they face or the way Angel saves the day. Because it's still the same people writing and they will still have the same ideas for both monsters and resolutions. And it will still be Angel saving the day or getting emotionally broken down because it's still his show.

In a way I'm torn about Doyle coming back as a villain. I hate the idea, it would upset me immensely if it ruined the original arc (I wouldn't mind evil thing pretending to be Doyle or possessed Doyle as much) but on the other hand ... nine little episodes is just so few. It would be nice to have him in more episodes, just because I just don't care about the non-Doyle episodes and there's really only so many times you can watch the same nine episodes again.


But if Doyle had stayed - everything would have inevitably gone to *****. Angel and Doyle would have fallen out, Doyle and Cordy would have broken up ... there's just no way on this earth they could have got five seasons of happiness and what we ended up with would be horribly painful to watch - and possibly Doyle's character would have been assassinated similar to the way Cordy's was.

I wish we had so much more of Doyle, but I recognise how lightly we got off with him dying so soon before everything went horribly wrong.

starryeyesxx

I have mixed feelings about that too. It would have been awful to see his relationships with Angel & Cordelia ever fall apart around season 4 if that would have happened. But I still wish for a lot more time with him

eternalfate