He’s a shadow. A faceless champion of the hapless human race. Season One of Angel

By the end of Season Three of BtVS, the Buffy/Angel story arc had no place left to go. And the whole show was going in a new direction as the Scoobies left high school and went to college/real life. There was no longer going to be any place for Angel. His story was done. Wasn’t it?

No, not even remotely. It had taken David Boreanaz two seasons to really get to grips with Angel’s character and he was increasingly shaping up to be ideal leading man material. A spin-off featuring the vampire with a soul could be a winner.

But what kind of show was it going to be? Where was Angel going to go after his inevitable break-up with Buffy. We get our first inkling in the S3 BtVS opener, Anne. Set in LA, it was perhaps a darker episode than we’d ever seen of Buffy, tinged with real life issues like homelessness and human despair being filtered through the supernatural trappings of the show. Many of the images of the LA montage in the first act would find their way into the Angel title sequence and, of course, Anne would later become a small but arguably pivotal character in Angel. (And ‘Anne’ did also feature Carlos Jacott, who would later reappear in s1’s Bachelor Party.)

Like BtVS, Angel took a while to find its feet. Initially it attempted the private detective/story of the week format. Much has been made of the show’s debt to Batman but personally I think the early episodes of Angel owe a far greater debt to The Equalizer, which is what they often remind me of. It’s certainly notable that by the end of s2, the detective agency angle has become far less of ‘a thing’.

The half of the inaugural season shows a marked disinclination to stray too far from the roots of the parent show, with lots of guest appearances and interconnected stories. Among the guest appearances, we get Spike, Oz, Harmony and, of course, Buffy herself. This is all good, of course, and it’s like having an extra helping of Buffy to enjoy, especially at a point where the parent show was going through something of a ropey patch. And in general I’d say those stories are stronger than a great many of their Buffy s4 equivalents.

But I’d say that it wasn’t until Eternity that the show changed gear slightly. The episode The Prodigal had started to flirt with Angel’s backstory but Eternity was the first where it had the courage to play with the characters and explore the implications of the mythology. And it marked the show’s first real engagement with Angelus. From this point on, Angel began to develop a tone and themes and a style that was very much its own. (And would, I’d argue, start to influence the parent show in its final seasons.)

And despite being a continuation of a Buffy story, the following Faith two-parter continued the trend. It’s immensely enjoyable to watch the two Buffy episodes and go straight to the two Angel ones and despite the overlap between them, there is still a marked difference in the style of the shows beginning to emerge. Angel is far more about grey areas than Buffy is. In Buffy, Faith is the villain, albeit a deeply conflicted and sympathetic one. In Angel, she is someone who needs saved, who needs help. If anything, it’s Buffy who is portrayed negatively. And we see things in Angel that BtVS would never dream of showing us. The torture of Wesley for a start but would we ever have seen Angel striking Buffy in the parent show?

Interspersed with what is essentially the resolution of Faith’s arc, we also see more and more flashbacks of Angelus and Darla. It’s often forgotten what a pivotal character Darla is in both series. She is, of course, the first vamp we ever see and her resurrection is the major cliffhanger of s1, foreshadowing what is to come in the excellent s2. And Julie Benz gets the chance to really run with the character here.

Thematically, if Buffy is about development and growing up, then Angel is about what happens when you get there. Later series of Buffy would tread this ground too, of course but Angel’s tack is slightly different. Even in later series, Buffy is about hope, about looking to the future. Angel is about the regaining of hope that has been lost and therefore dwells a lot more on the past of almost all its characters. From Doyle, to Angel, to Wesley, to, er, some characters we don’t meet until later seasons, they all have a past and to some extent it comes back to haunt them, define them, change them.

I won’t dwell to much on characters in this season, except to give a shout-out to the late Glenn Quinn who gave a short but fine performance as Doyle. Clearly a surrogate for Max Perlich’s Whistler, Quinn brought a nice roguish charm to the part, although I always suspected he was slightly too young for the character. I’m also not sure if there would have been that much mileage in the character and bringing Wesley into the mix was a far better idea.  But Quinn still deserves some kudos and he died way, way too young.

And this is the last we see of the old-school Cordelia. From To Shanshu in LA onwards, we start to see a Cordelia who matures, who becomes a more maternal, nurturing figure. It’s necessary and desirable to see her character evolve and mature but there will always be a part of me who will miss the old Queen C. But just as the Scoobies had to grow up, so had Cordelia. And Wesley too for that matter. But much more on that in later seasons.

One of the most notable things about Angel is that it to an extent did away with the concept of the seasonal Big Bad. Many of the seasons had major villains, of course. But the Big Bad in Angel was always constant. It was always Wolfram & Hart. The demonic law firm would continue to provide the hum of sinister menace in the background for pretty much the entire series.

As ever, please leave your thoughts below but no spoilers for anything beyond s1 of Angel and seasons 1-4 of Buffy.


10 comments

  1. It is worth noting that Wesley came in to replace Doyle for (ultimately tragic) off-screen reasons, but to make him work they had to change him.

    The scenes where the brought about that change were the reasons the first season of Angel has an 18 certificate in the UK (side stepping spoileryness slightly, since I think puro is a bit behind).

  2. Spike [as Rachel, falsetto]: How can I thank you, you mysterious, black-clad, hunk of a night thing?
    Spike [as Angel, basso]: No need, little lady, your tears of gratitude are enough for me. You see, I was once a bad-ass vampire, but love and a pesky curse defanged me. Now I’m just a big, fluffy puppy with bad teeth. [Rachel sways closer to Angel; he steps back, warding her off with his hands.] No, not the hair! Never the hair!
    Spike [as Rachel]: But there must be some way I can show my appreciation.
    Spike [as Angel]: No, helping those in need’s my job. And working up a load of sexual tension and prancing away like a magnificent poof is truly thanks enough!
    Spike [as Rachel]: I understand. I have a nephew who’s gay, so…
    Spike [as Angel]: Ah. Say no more. Evil’s still afoot … and I’m almost out of that nancy-boy hair gel that I like so much. Quickly! To the Angelmobile — AWAY!

    I have to admit that I approached the idea of a series based on Angel tentatively, as I didn’t think it would work in the long term. The fact that I think it surpassed its parent show pretty quickly is a testament to some very hard work from all involved.

    As @Jimthefish s excellent summary indicates, it does have its own feel and the Buffy episode Anne really is the starting point. The suburban Sunnydale masked its own horrors, but the areas of LA that Angel patrols have obvious and real horrors that may mask the supernatural ones. I like that the series can make some points about the haves and have nots in one of the worlds richest cities and keep it low key.

    As Jim says, each of the series of Angel deals with those fears you have as an adult, and I think that Series 1 constant is that the fear of loneliness.

    In the opening episode you have the Vampire who prays on the lonely and vulnerable who come to the big city to make their fortunes. You have the difficulty of forging romantic relationships in Lonely Hearts and I fall to pieces. Phantom Dennis, killed by his mother who feared being alone.

    It’s a great counterpoint, I think, to how the characters are introduced. The romantic notions of the lone wolf/dark avenger that Wesley and Angel are trying out are fine in a trite comic book way, but the need for support and relationships to keep you grounded and honest really signals the shape of things to come.

    I too enjoyed Glenn Quinn as Doyle. His easy charm really counterpoints Angel through the first part of the series. His pursuit of Cordelia is quite charming, if a little predictable. He is charged with a partial conversion of Angel from sullen to simply brooding, and it’s great to see Angel progressively lighten up a little and Boreanaz to show a very adept way with humour, underplaying some very funny lines.

    Again, I thought Wesley would be a mistake and I was very wrong. As he and Cordelia had tried the romance thing and ditched the idea with one kiss, it allowed a new dynamic to play out, and very funny it is too. I particularly like some of the squabbling and various appeals to Angel as if they are kids an he’s the long suffering parent.

    Cordelia: [having difficulty cutting] Maybe if you’d branch out into the solids he’d keep a decent knife around. [starts to hack in pan with special enchanted Keck knife]
    Wesley: [shooting to feet] That is not appropriate! It’s for killing extinct demons! Angel, make her stop!!
    Angel: Cordelia…
    Wesley: That blade is very old! Who knows what kind of corrosive effect your cooking may have on it?
    Cordelia: [brandishing knife] ‘Corrosive effect’?
    Angel: Cordelia, just.. put down the very sharp knife…

    That series of episodes really does seem like an innocent carefree time for Angel in many ways. As the bonds of friendship seem to harden. Even episodes that don’t fully work, like She (which I find about the least engaging episode in the series) have things like the awesome “I don’t dance” scene to delight the viewer.

    Buffy series 4 may have dropped the ball but I think Angel worked its magic well. The concept that Demonkind were really not homogenised evil really started here in Angel. The backstory for Angel (even with accents) is enticing. Having Wolfram and Heart as an ever present Big Bad just works.

    Having set up the family unit, To Shanshu in LA really kicks the crap out of it, and it really brings home to you the good work Charisma Carpenter has been doing all series. The mental attack to disable her is painful to watch and Angels absolute fury magnificent to behold.

    Genuinely love it.

  3. @pedant — RE. Wesley. I don’t think they really change him that much in the ret-con sense of the word. I think what we see is a gradual and logical evolution of character — which takes place throughout all the seasons of Angel — and facilitated by both some fine writing and a great performance from Denisof. He pulls off badass just as well as he does dweeb and dare I say it a bit better than even ASH managed in his Ripper moments. But I’ve never felt there’s ever been anything particularly jarring between Buffy Wesley and Angel Wesley. It always felt like a natural progression for the most part to me.

    RE. Quinn. Yeah, while Joss always seems to maintain that he intended to get rid of Doyle anyway I think David Fury has gone on record as saying his drug issues had definitely become a problem. Ironic too when you consider that they ruled out going with Max Perlich for much the same reason.

    @Phaseshift — I love that Spike dialogue. Spike slagging off Angel was always very funny.

    And yes, Boreanaz really upped his game for this series. You can even see it in his brief returns to Buffy in season 4. He’s much more assertive, his character much more clearly defined. And he nicely underplays the humour. What saves Angel, the character, from becoming overly pompous and pretentious, is that nice deflating of his ego and highlighting his insecurities from time to time.

    The concept that Demonkind were really not homogenised evil really started here in Angel

    Very true. And while I’ve seen Buffy criticised as being essentially a supremacist parable, with the suburban, white Scoobies as vigilantes rooting out and killing anything Other or Not Normal, you absolutely couldn’t level that accusation at Angel.

    Having Wolfram and Heart as an ever present Big Bad just works.

    Agreed. And the individual representatives, from Lindsay McDonald, to Lilah, to Holland Manners were always brilliantly evil and well cast.

    The mental attack to disable her is painful to watch and Angels absolute fury magnificent to behold

    And agree once again. It’s an amazing season finale with Carpenter and Boreanaz doing amazing work. And that’s a hell of a payoff at the end which leaves you panting for s2.

  4. Oh, no – no implication of a retcon.

    But when he turns up he is still very much the Wesley we know. Then *that thing happens* and he is changed by it – an altogether darker, more worldly and more determined man (leading right up to “Step away from the glass” in a few season’s time).

    In the Whedonverse things that happen change you. And it was necessary to change him, or the character wouldn’t have worked.

    In much the same way – only more so –  they were able to rev up Giles following Passion (I nearly wrote Passions there – now that would just be wrong!).

     

  5. @pedant

    Then *that thing happens* and he is changed by it – an altogether darker, more worldly and more determined man

    Yeah, that’s definitely true. And compounded by another couple of major, major character events that we can’t even begin to talk about yet.

    Buffy Wesley was essentially a one-note comedy character who’s purpose was basically to make Giles look cooler. Angel Wesley had to be a lot more than that and I think Denisof gives one of my favourite performances of any regular in the Buffiverse. Very layered. He can do the comedy, he can do the badass and he can do the pain, without resorting to mawkishness.

    It’s worth nothing that his ruthlessness in ‘taking the fight to the Mayor’ in s3 of Buffy highlights a major character detail — that he will get the job done, do whatever is necessary. We’ll see that time and time again in Angel. (And compare it to Giles’s sentimentality and compassion, which leads him to being fired. Not that one is approach is inherently better than the other, but it illustrates the strength of the writing. They’re not identikit characters but are in fact very different.) It’s a real shame, I think, that we never saw a Giles cameo in Angel, or a late-Wesley one in Buffy. I’d have liked to have seen how these two characters would have related to each other.

    But it’s a definite process. And his encounter with Faith in Angel is definitely a defining one. And it’s inkeeping with one of Angel’s mission statements — that your past will always come back to haunt you, define you. He receives major and disproportionate payback for how he treated Faith in s3 of Buffy.

  6. Really enjoying your Buffy and nowAngel blogs @Jimthefish Great stuff. In fact all this Angel discussion is motivating me to a rewatch. I really enjoyed the bits of Angel I saw, but it suffered from the Beeb’s decision to send it wandering all over the place scheduling-wise and I kept missing a lot of it.  I liked how they developed Cordy’s character in particular, Angel as well, as both were limited in where they could go in the main Buffy. And as you say it explored a lot more adult themes in imaginative ways.

  7. @ScaryB — glad you’re enjoying them and definitely do dip into Angel. As @phaseshift and I have said before, it’s an amazing series which I think ultimately outshines the parent show in terms of quality and depth. It never really got the love or the kudos it deserved in my opinion.

    (I think it was Channel 4 that were responsible for the mangling of Angel in the UK. They were expecting their very own Buffy and they just didn’t get that. They really didn’t know what the hell to do with it. I might be misremembering but I think eventually it was Channel 5 that ended up completing its run.)

  8. @ScaryB

    but it suffered from the Beeb’s decision to send it wandering all over the place scheduling-wise

    Channel 4 – even more disappointing since 4 still had a bit of a rep for being willing to take the odd risk back then. At one point they showed the uncut version at convenient home-from-the-pub time on a Saturday, but still dicked it around.

  9. @Jimthefish @pedant

    😳

    Er, yes… Channel 4,

    *facepalm*

    But it was dicked about something awful. I wasn’t daft on Boreanaz on Buffy (not a patch on Spike’s cheekbones, haircut and general sass. And leathers! 😉  (yeah, I admit it, I’m shallow 😉 ) – as has been said, he took a couple of seasons to really find the character, but he really came into his own in the bits I saw of Angel. I’ve seen him on a few things since then, but didn’t come anywhere near the work he did with Angel. The secondary characters were great too.

    Right that’s it! Am off to Amazon!!

    Channel 4 was great when it started. 6 hours of music on a Fri night via the Tube. That’s more than you get now all week, across all channels. Jools was good back then  too.

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