It's only been three years since Angel went off the air, but it seems longer. The Buffyverse has not only vanished from TV, but it seems to have been edited from our collective memories. It seems like no one talks about Buffy anymore, and the only time its worthy spin-off, Angel, comes up is in parentheses after the names of the stars that have moved on from it -- mainly David Boreanaz, who once played the troubled vampire and is now playing an FBI agent on Bones.

(A quick where-are-they-now: August Richards (Gunn) was on Dick Wolf's canceled crime drama, Conviction; Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) did a half-season of Vernica Mars episodes last year, while Amy Acker (Fred) did a half-season of Alias; Alexis Denisof (Wesley), who went and married Alyson Hannigan (Willow), has been on How I Met Your Mother; James Marsters (Spike) had a recurring role as Milton Fine/Brainiac on Smallville -- during which he got to say "There's no such thing as vampires, Clark" (ha, ha); and Vincent Kartheiser (Connor) has had a recurring role on Mad Men.)

Meanwhile, pale imitations have cropped up in prime time, inspiring only a yearning for the outstanding writing and production values that created the deep canvas against which the Buffy and Angel stars did their thing. Yes, Mick St. John, I'm looking at you.

Nostalgia Time

So the time is ripe for some Angel nostalgia, and so for an ultimate-fan big-box DVD set containing all 110 episodes on 30 discs, along with the requisite special features.

Oddly enough the main goodies being touted by Twentieth Century Fox Home Video are the signed letter from show creator Joss Whedon and the collector's edition booklet that come with the set. A letter from Joss Whedon? He's an amazing guy, and I'm grateful for the fantastic stuff he's created, but -- a letter? Seriously?

As near as I can tell, what this means is that the collector's set doesn't contain any new material that wasn't on the DVD sets for each of the five seasons that have already been released separately, and so in order to have something new, they conjured up a companion booklet and had Joss write us a nice letter. So if you already have the Angel DVDs, chances are you don't need this collector's set. If you didn't get them, this may be a good opportunity to get 'em all at once. And of course there's always the gifting thing (the holidays are coming, after all).

Fortunately, those original season-by-season sets were chock-full of new material, including:

• Season 1: Selected Audio Commentary By Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt, and Jane Epsenson; Season One Overview With All-New Cast and Crew Interviews; Introducing Angel, I'm Cordelia and The Demons Featurettes; Scripts For Five By Five and Sanctuary; Image galleries and more;
• Season 2: Selected Audio Commentary by Tim Minear and Fred Keller; Season Two Overview With All-New Cast and Crew Interviews; Making Up the Monsters, Inside the Agency and Stunts Featurettes; Scripts for "Darla" and "Disharmony"; Still Photo Gallery
• Season 3: Commentary by Joss Whedon, Tim Minear and Jeffrey Bell; Scenes With Commentary by Tim Minear and Mere Smith; Featurette: Darla: Deliver Us From Evil ; Angel Series Outtakes; "Waiting In The Wings" Deleted Scenes With Commentary by Joss Whedon; Season 3 Overview; Featurette: Page To Screen ; Screen Tests: Amy Acker and Vincent Kartheiser; Still Gallery
• Season 4: Selected Audio Commentary by Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Alexis Denisof, Andy Hallett, David Fury, Vern Gillum, Steven DeKnight, Terrence O'Hara and Jeffrey Bell; Season Four Overview with Cast and Crew Interviews; Season Four Outtakes; Angel and the Apocalypse, Last Looks: The Hyperion Hotel, Fatal Beauty and the Beast, and Malice In Wonderland: Wolfram and Hart Featurettes
• Season 5: Selected audio commentary by Joss Whedon, David Boreanaz, Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Sarah Thompson, Christian Kane, Juliet Landau, Adam Baldwin, Skip Schoolnik, David Fury, Steven S. DeKnight, Jeffrey Bell, Brent Fletcher, Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain; "Angel: The Final Season" overview with cast and crew interviews; "Hey Kids! It's Smile Time," "Angel 100," "Angel: Choreography of a Stunt," "To Live & To Die in L.A.: The Best of Angel," "Halos & Horns: Recurring Villainy," and "Angel Unbound: The Gag Reels" featurettes

Clips for All Seasons

Fox has also made available some clips from the DVDs. Some of these are episode clips, and the rest are from featurettes and interview segments; Clip 3 of Season 4, for example, includes part of a season 4 overview featurette with interviews from Joss Whedon, David Boreanaz, and others. (All of these are WMV files.)

• Season 1: Clip 1
• Season 2: Clip 1Clip 2
• Season 3: Clip 1Clip 2Clip 3Clip 4
• Season 4: Clip 1Clip 2Clip 3Clip 4Clip 5Clip 6
• Season 5: Clip 1Clip 2Clip 3Clip 4Clip 5Clip 6Clip 7Clip 8Clip 9Clip 10

The set will be available Oct. 30 at a suggested retail price of $139.99, but it shouldn't be hard to find a discounted price ().