Joss Whedon's thoughts on the end of Angel.

Angel ended its acclaimed five year run in America last night with the episode Not Fade Away.

"The cancellation was a horrible blow. It was much more emotional than I thought it was going to be," Joss Whedon told journalists in a conference call earlier this week.

We're not going to tell you what happens in the finale - mainly because we haven't seen it ourselves yet. We do know, however, that we should expect a less upbeat ending than the last Buffy episode.

"I had restrictions [with Buffy's finale]. I had to go out on a happy ending ... With Angel, it's a darker tale, so I have more license to do what I want to who I want to do it to - to make the audience miserable and excited... It's not the end of all things. It's not a final grace note after a symphony, which I think Buffy was. But it is a final statement about Angel."

Whedon also discussed the financial reasoning behind The WB's decision to cancel the show.

"We were staring at a brick wall, which is the financial model the WB operates by. This is a really bad time for television and for television drama... I just felt we didn't have a shot, or I would have been outside the WB with a placard and bullhorn myself...

"Ultimately we were cult shows. We didn't make Friends. No one is going to use us as a financial model. If I had invented reality-TV, I would have had a greater impact. But then I would have to kill myself."