Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Every Character Ranked Worst To Best

The idea behind Angel is nothing short ingenious: What if a vampire was cursed with a soul? That's it, in a nutshell, and the results more than live up to the potential.

Introduced as a tentative ally and then an ironic but perfect love interest for Buffy, Angel was a 200-odd-year-old vampire with a soul, forced to live an immortal life haunted by the memories of all the terrible things he did as a remorseless monster.

Wise, heroic, romantic and hoping to atone for his many, many sins, Angel's biggest draw as a character came in his Jekyll/Hyde personality and his romance with Buffy, which remains the most personal and heartbreaking romance on the entire show. Their love feels very genuine, and the obstacles they face only help to make it that much more passionate and dangerous.

It's easy to see Angel in the early seasons as nothing more than a whiny, brooding loner, but under his mysterious allure there hid a great amount of depth. He may have done terrible things, but with a soul he was a true hero, willing to do whatever he had to to make things right. It was a tough juggling act to maintain, but one which Angel pulled off without fault.

Honestly, it's little wonder he got his own spin-off.