6 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Characters Who Were Actually Way Better on Angel

When the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended, David Boroneaz left the series to headline the spinoff Angel. After turning evil for a short time in the second season and then dying and resurrecting in Season 3, he left after the “Graduation Day” finale to get away from Buffy and start a new life in Los Angeles. Rather than live in hiding and watch over Buffy, he opened his own detective agency called Angel Investigations and helped people in need. This allowed several characters to cross over from Buffy to Angel, and many of them ended up better characters on the spinoff than they ever were on the main show.

Here are six characters who crossed over from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Angel and ended up better than they ever were on the main series.

6) Harmony

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harmony Kendall was one of the mean girls who was in the clique that Cordelia was part of. However, she was much crueller than Cordelia, and when Harmony became a vampire in the “Graduation Day” storyline, sired by one of the Mayor’s vampire minions. However, despite becoming a vampire, Harmony remained the vapid and self-absorbed young woman she always was.

In Buffy, she was mainly a joke and, while a vampire, was clumsy, bumbling, and had an unrequited love for Spike, who considered her to be a joke. However, when she went to Angel, Harmony began to change. Harmony grew up a lot and ended up working for Angel as a receptionist, even though she was still a vampire. Harmony went from a joke to someone who showed even vampires could grow and change.

5) Faith

Fasith was great on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was so much more interesting than Buffy herself, a rebellious slayer who knew she didn’t have the respect of Buffy, but who was also willing to go to lengths that Buffy never did. Faith even had a chance to turn evil after she teamed with the Mayor, but she ended up in a coma when Buffy did the unthinkable and decided to sacrifice Faith to save Angel.

However, things changed when she came out of the coma. She sought revenge against Buffy and eventually fled Sunnydale and ran to Los Angeles. While there, Lindsey McDonald and Lilah Morgan hired him to kill Angel, but when she attacked Angel, her entire plan was to die because she believed she was “bad.” This allowed Angel to fight to save Faith, and he helped her rehabilitate and finally become the hero she was destined to be.

4) Darla

Darla was a villain on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A part of Angel’s past, as she sired him, Darla worked for The Master in the first season as a secondary antagonist. She was very dangerous in that season, but she ended up failing to kill Buffy for The Master thanks to her former lover, Angel, staking her to save the slayer. That ended her time on Buffy.

That said, Darla had a bigger and more important role on Angel when Wolfram & Hart resurrected her and brought her in to attempt to bring down Angel. The law firm even brought in Drusilla to help Darla, who was human again when she resurrected. Darla ended up pregnant with Angel’s child, which was a rarity for vampires, and she ended up sacrificing herself to save her son, Connor, a huge turnaround from her minion role in Buffy.

3) Cordelia

Cordelia was a very important character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and she had some nice character development on that series. She started as a mean girl and bully to Buffy, but this all changed as she learned about the vampires and monsters, and that Buffy was the town’s protector. She also began dating Xander, but ended up leaving after graduation.

While Cordy was an important character and played into a lot of big events in Buffy, she was so much more important on Angel, becoming his confidant and a partner in Angel Investigations. She grew so much that she was a warrior as much as anyone she worked with, and when Cordelia died on Angel, it soured a lot of fans because of how important she had grown to be on the spinoff series.

2) Angel

Angel was often a love-struck supporting character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and while he was a secondary hero to Buffy on the show, he never really got to show how great he was, with the exception of the second season, when he turned bad and reverted to Angelus. However, when Angel left Buffy and got a chance to stand on his own, he proved why he was better than Buffy ever allowed him to be.

Angel, on his own series, was as deadly as they come, and he showed that from the first episode, where he finally showed what he was, such a fearful vampire, and some people should take him seriously. Yes, he was good on Buffy, but on Angel, he was one of the best urban fantasy heroes in television history, and, in many ways, he made the spin-off even better than the original series.

1) Wesley Wyndam-Pryce

There is no question which character went from being a joke on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and morphing into an iconic hero on Angel. No one experienced such a drastic turnaround from Buffy to Angel as the former Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. On Buffy, he was Faith’s Watcher, but he couldn’t control her, was mocked by Buffy and Giles, and ended up losing more fights than he won, finally leaving Sunnydale humiliated.

Wesley ended up on Angel and turned into one of the franchise’s all-time best characters. He showed up on a motorcycle and wearing leather, and it was clear that he was cosplaying a hero. However, it didn’t take long before he began to mature, develop fighting skills, and become one of the best heroes in the series. By the time he died in the finale in a self-sacrifice, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce was one of Angel’s best characters.

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