#44: Sahjhan

Sahjhan is a non-corporeal time-shifting alien from Angel. What all that means is that he has no substance in this dimension – like a ghost – for most of his storyline, but can move through time at his will. At best, he's an agent: in order to allow someone from Angel(us)'s past to pursue him in the modern day, a character like Sahjhan was necessary. Thus, even though he shows up on the top fifty, and actually comes in ninth for worst spoken in season three, he's not really all that important of a character, except as the main agent of the deception (rewriting of prophecy) that causes Wesley to be estranged from his friends and that causes Connor to be raised in a hell dimension.

So for a character of no great import beyond being an agent to move the plot forward, it's interesting that Jack Conley gives him a real screen presence: wise-cracking and attitudinal, smoking cigarettes, making jokes, hitting on Lilah. Sahjhan shows up 8 times in total, all but one appearance occurring in season 3 and all but one appearance being 'minor' (in other words, not being one of the characters in the 'top five', with the most words per episode). We first meet him in season 3 episode 7, “Offspring”, written by David Greenwalt, where he speak a mere 99 words. His chief performance, however, is in “Quickening”, the episode that immediately follows it. Though it is hardly a 'Sahjhan episode', though its main purpose is to provide the Holtz back-story, Sahjhan says more words than anyone else in this episode: 550 words, which in other episodes would rank a #3 or #4 at best (in “Guise Will Be Guise”, Angel drops off the top five count altogether with only eight words fewer than this). After that quasi-starring role, though, it's back to the sidelines. His remaining five appearances that season are all below the top five, though 329 words in “Loyalty” and 335 words in “Forgiving” are hardly small bit parts.

After season three, the Sahjhan character disappears, trappe in an urn. However, as season 5 wraps up and certain characters are given their closure, we get the Connor episode “Origin”, where Connor has to fulfil the prophecy as originally written: kill Sahjhan. He does, bringing about the character's demise two seasons after we'd probably figured he was gone for good.

• Overall ranking: #44
• Ranking on Angel: #22
• Total words spoken on Angel: 2118
• Season 3: 1963 (#9)
• Season 5: 155
• Total speaking appearances on Angel: 8
• Ranking #1: 1
• Minor: 7

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