Boy, does it suck to be Angel, the toothsome title hero of the WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff. He's growing hotter every week for she-demon sidekick Cordelia, but if he ever achieves true happiness - ahem, horizontally - an age-old gypsy curse will transform him instantly from a haloed hero back into a soulless villain... or will it?

Although, in the undead do-gooder's days on his estranged sister show, his birthday hook-up with then-girlfriend Buffy returned him to his wicked ways, such a metamorphosis won't necessarily occur every time he hits the sheets. Rather, executive producer David Greenwalt reveals that only a perfect union precipitates Angel's about-face. "That's why [after a walk on the dark side last season] he [slept with fanged former flame] Darla and woke up... good again. It brought him back to reality."

Adds David Boreanaz, who plays the libidinous creature of the night: "Who is to say that if a consummation happens [between Angel and Cordy] that it really is true happiness? I mean, we don't know until we're there in the moment, right?"

Absolutely. And, even if the Angel Investigations colleagues never make a love connection that lasts past sunrise, Greenwalt is determined to see them hang a Do Not Disturb sign on his coffin at least once. "I've been dying to do the scene," he admits, "where Angel turns to a woman and says, 'You know, I can't know perfect happiness, but that doesn't mean you can't.'"

- Charlie Mason