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Putting to rest a persistent Web rumor, Angel co-creator Joss Whedon told SCI FI Wire that regular cast member Charisma Carpenter will indeed return for The WB series' fourth season in the fall. Carpenter's month-long absence in the middle of last season and her character Cordelia's ascendance into a higher plane of existence in the season finale fueled rumors that unspecified personal problems had resulted in her departure from the series.

Not so, Whedon said in an interview at the Saturn Awards ceremony in Los Angeles June 10. "I hadn't heard all the vicious stuff," he said. "I just heard people saying, 'Is she coming back?' I've heard every vicious rumor about everybody, and I lend them all very little credence. She is coming back. She's a part of the show. She's an essential part of the show. ... It's not as vicious a rumor as the rumor that I directed Boy Meets World, but it's up there."

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