There was "Angel," but there was supposed to be "Ripper."

Following the cult success of the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" television series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, creator Joss Whedon announced plans that he would continue the spinoff nature of the show by developing a show around Anthony Stewart Head, the British actor who played Giles in the Sarah Michelle Gellar-starring series.

The show never happened, but Head -- who now stars in the BBC series "Merlin" -- said it wasn't from a lack of trying.

"There was one story," Head told SFX magazine. "Joss fed it to me when we were filming the last episode of 'Buffy.' He told me this idea, and it was just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And I said, 'Yeah, I'd go with that.'"

But after a flurry of initial discussion, the whole idea just seemed to die a quiet death. Mostly, in part, because of red tape.

"The problem being that anything to do with the Buffy universe has to be signed off by so many people, it's pretty much a non-starter from the beginning," Head said.

If the project had gotten underway, it likely would've involved a familiar name to "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood" fans. Head said he introduced Whedon to former "Who" executive producer Julie Gardner.

"I met Julie, and she started talking about Joss, so I put the two of them together," Head said. "They got on really, really well. But then Joss had that lunch meeting with Eliza Dushku, and that was that."

That lunch meeting, of course, was the genesis of the short-lived Fox series "Dollhouse," which starred Dushku.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has been off the air for some seven years now, but that doesn't mean Head's interest in continuing the franchise has waned.

"I'd still love to do it in some form," he said. "I still think it's a beautiful idea, which is why I'm not telling you what it is -- it's the most extraordinary ghost story.

"It doesn't have to be Giles. I'd still do it as a one-off."