I am – Hercules!!

TV Guide Online reports here that Sarah Michelle Gellar will NOT appear on “Angel” during its fifth and (barring a last-minute rescue) final season.

According to the report, Gellar is in Tokyo shooting “The Grudge” the same week Mutant Enemy is shooting 5.20, the episode that would have featured the return of Buffy Summers. (Buffy may still be glimpsed, but fleetingly, and played by a body double.)

(Of course, Herc’s not counting out Mutant Enemy misdirection. According to the Variety production charts, “The Grudge” completed principal photography some time ago.)

The same report indicates that Buffy was never meant to appear in 5.21-5.22, the two-part season finale. Those episodes are said to focus on Team Angel’s final confrontation with its seasonal “big bad” (likely the forces behind the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart, introduced in the “Angel” pilot five seasons ago).

(Interestingly, the report’s author apparently forgot that the bulk of Angel’s appearance in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s” final season actually occurred in the series finale.)

Swing the crebbil!

I am – Hercules!!

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