Try this.

Good interview.

Has anyone ever asked him in-depth about the Choices Angel script? I've read rumors that production was halted, because it was too dark, and needed to be re-written. I've read a copy of the original, and it certainly was darker. Some elements of it were used later in the series.

I think he's (understandably) confusing titles -- "Choices" was a Buffy ep he wrote, and I've always seen that Angel episode referred to as "Corrupt." Anyway, Minear talks about it a bit here (toward the bottom):

It would seem that this was about the same time that the Internet ran rampant with rumors that the WB had shut down the show for retooling. `You can’t really call it a shut down because we hadn’t really started,` Minear clarifies. `We just pushed back the shoot date for the first episode a week or two. It’s not like alarms went off and we had to pull plugs on everything. I’ve read on the Internet where people were saying the network freaked, and they told us to shut down, and that’s not true at all. We were still creating what the idea of the show was going to be, and basically we decided to rethink that first episode. The other thing that people don’t realize is that a lot of the other episodes that we’ve done this year were written much earlier and did not change significantly. It was really that first episode where we went back, rethought it, and we were lucky we had the luxury to do that.`

It's interesting (considering various internet Spuffist kerfuffles) that Fury talks about how much he likes writing Spike. Also how he wasn't confident writing Lilah, when he wrote one of her best scenes (the decapitation chat with Wes).

JOZIC: I read an interview with Drew Goddard where he said that every script he writes he writes to music. Do you have a method of your own for writing?

FURY: No. It's more like a lot of procrastination followed by playing Half-Life on the computer followed by surfing the 'net followed by writing a little bit followed by taking a nap. That's basically my process.

I love that.

I guarantee that, if we waited as we normally did, by the time May had come around they would have picked up Angel. I can guarantee that.

That, on the other hand, makes me want to cry.

Ah well, hope they still feel good about their decision when Charmed gets renewed for its 12th season and is pulling in a 2-share as their second highest-rated program.

I'm skeptical about that part. He mentions the ratings being up, but they were up by a tiny amount. And some of the bump toward the end is probably fans who'd left tuning in only because the show was ending, so the early announcement may have helped them. Plus, contracts would have been up, and Boreanaz certainly seemed relieved to have it over.

OK, no crying then. Just a wistful sigh.

Aha. I referred to it as Choices, because of that article. Corrupt does read darker, though.

Corrupt does read darker, though.

Kate was a crack whore!

(I never get tired of saying that.)