The fifth season of Angel will be a full-length one on America's WB network.

No surprise there, you might think. But according to a report in Hollywood's top oracle, Variety, the WB had an option to cut the just-launched fifth season short at 13 episodes if it didn't perform well.

However, a full season has now been ordered for the WB's US viewers, since Angel's first two episodes in its Wednesday evening slot have performed well in the ratings. Angel has been retaining over 80% of the viewers of Smallville, which precedes it on the WB.

Obviously it would have been a bit disastrous for fans of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy's shows if their output had been cut from three weekly shows (Buffy, Angel and Firefly) at the start of the 2002-03 season to... well, none at all by early 2004. So a major sigh of relief there.

Click the links on the right for our Angel site - or the official WB site, but spoilers will be prominent if you go there.