Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne

We already know Oz from his time in Sunnydale. He became a werewolf mid-way through his first senior year in high school and, two years later, dropped out of college to travel the world in search of a 'cure' for his lycanthropy. No such thing exists, but he did find a way of controlling the change, of repressing his wolf side – but only if he can maintain an emotional balance, which is not always easy. Returning to Sunnydale, he found that his girlfriend Willow had moved on to a new love, and was then captured and tortured by the Initiative, a government funded agency experimenting on vampires, demons and other such creatures. His friends rescued him, but the combination of Willow's rejection and the Initiative's continued presence in town made it impossible for him to stay.

On arriving in San Francisco, Oz drifts into both a job and a 'home' at the Monico and stays on, enrolling at the university in an attempt to regain control of his life. Still struggling to come to terms with everything that has happened in his life, he is happy enough not to make any plans for the future just at present.

Buffy canon tells us that by nature, Oz is talented but unmotivated, quietly confident and amazingly laid-back, with a biting sense of humour. He is also very generous at heart, and always willing to help out.


Original Characters

This is how I see the characters, or at least intended them to be. Whether that works, and whether they come across this way or not, is another matter entirely.

David and Emma Gibson

David and Emma Gibson are the owners of the Monico Coffee Bar. They both come from Los Angeles originally, and met at university. Their backgrounds are very different, though. Emma's parents are extremely wealthy, and disapprove immensely of her marriage to David, who worked hard to put himself through college with little or no support from his family. He studied music but, not getting the breaks he needed for a career in the industry, instead invested everything he had into the Monico, while Emma gave up the lifestyle she'd grown up with to support him in the venture, and now works part-time at a fashion boutique to help boost their finances.

Buying a haunted theatre to convert into a trendy coffee bar was David and Emma's first glimpse into a supernatural underworld they'd never dreamed existed, and since Oz's arrival they've been slowly learning more than they ever wanted to…

Impetuous and enthusiastic, David tends to jump in feet first and think second. This impulsiveness is what leads him to offer a job to Oz just moments after meeting him for the first time. He's very generous and up beat by nature, while Emma is the sensible half of the marriage, balancing her more excitable husband. Occasionally frustrated with the way her life has worked out, she loves gossip and romance, while her nurturing nature can lead her to be something of a mother hen at times. While David quickly embraced the new supernatural world that Oz introduced them to, Emma was more hesitant, finding the weirdness much harder to come to terms with.

Elli Murphy

Elli, real name Eleris Talvalin, is an enigma. Having grown up in a world very different to ours, she was sent here in her mid-teens and, five years later, has learned to adapt and fit in, generally managing to fake what she still fails to understand. After living in Australia for several years, she spent some time backpacking in Europe, where she met The Doctor and spent some time travelling with him, before finally landing in San Francisco. An artist, she rents an apartment and studio from David and Emma, in the old stables behind the theatre.

Half-human Elli inherited a great deal of innate magical power from her non-human mother, but because she was raised by her human relatives with no real understanding of those powers she has never learned to use them to the full. As the daughter of a visionary, she has flashes of foresight (think Drusilla rather than Cordelia) but can't always interpret them accurately, and doesn't always pay any attention. When she does listen to her intuition, though, it is generally accurate. Her magic is internal, rather than acquired or learned as with Willow: she is very much a creature of instinct.

A practical soul to the core, having been raised largely by warriors in a war-torn world of nobility and chivalry, Elli is highly skilled at various arts of combat and will always leap into a situation that she thinks she can help with – she sees it as a duty. In her own way, she is every bit as reckless as David, although this is tempered by her depth of experience. Light-hearted and just a tad mischievous by nature, her background has inevitably left her rather serious-minded and, forbidden to tell anyone the reason she was exiled to this world, she carries a lot of emotional baggage around with her.

Charlotte 'Charlie' Sullivan

Charlie is an English girl studying archaeology at university in San Francisco. On first appearance, she appears to be average in every way…but appearances can be deceiving. Her mother became a vampire when she was just eight years old, and Charlie was barely into her teens when she was eventually forced to stake her to save the life of her younger sister. Meanwhile her father – who worked for the Watcher's Council – abandoned his children to go demon hunting after losing his wife. Charlie's brother Ed is also a vampire, turned by their mother, and enjoys tormenting his sisters each in turn. It was while fighting off her vampire mother that Charlie first developed telekinetic powers, a la Bethany in Angel or Roald Dahl's Matilda, and she has been honing her skills ever since.

Having grown up deeply embedded in the world of the supernatural, Charlie tends to be refreshingly matter-of-fact about it all. Happy-go-lucky by nature, although she possesses something of a hot temper, on the whole she is a down-to-earth girl, whose vampire brother Ed is her one main vulnerability.

When Ed turns up in San Francisco to make her life a misery, Charlie comes to rely heavily on the support of her new boyfriend, Mat.


Recurring guests and extras

Mike Hanson and Matías Cordoba

Mike and Mat are police officers, and appear in every episode, even if only as a tiny cameo. Because they are useful, and I like them!

Mike is a thoughtful, broody kind of personality, in contrast to his very laid-back and fun-loving partner.

Mike becomes involved in a very stormy relationship with the Monico's chief waitress, Shanei. This relationship is conducted almost entirely off-stage, however, quite simply because it amuses me. Mat, meanwhile, becomes involved with Charlie just in time to provide much-needed emotional support when her vampire brother comes to town.

Shanei Shanei was intended to be an occasional extra, because in any show or soap opera featuring a pub or café, there have to be extras working as waitresses, so that the regulars can dash off to have adventures and leave these extras running the shop! Since then, though, the No Nonsense waitress has joined the makeshift band formed by David and Oz, and become involved in a fiery on-off relationship with Mike, which is conducted almost entirely off-screen.

Anouk McKenzie Anouk becomes Oz's new girlfriend. The daughter of a rich businessman, she's cute and perky, just a tad spoiled, and, having led a pretty sheltered life so far, fairly innocent - but probably not for much longer. Her father, Gil, raised Anouk and her younger brother Leon on his own following the early death of their mother. Anouk is infatuated with Oz, pretty much from the moment they first meet - but is he equally as fond of her, or is she just the rebound girl?

Sook Charlie's best friend at university, Sook pops up now and then as needed.

Ed Charlie's vampire brother, he was turned at the age of 16 and in the years that have passed since then has developed a nasty hobby of tormenting his sisters by stalking them and their friends.

Jim Pirie

Piers Mainwaring
Former Watcher Piers owns an antique store next door to the Monico, and is a useful contact for the gang.