Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It’s harsh, and it’s cruel. But that’s why there’s us. Angel Season Four
by JimTheFish
Or we could go with Gunn’s description to Gwen:
‘For the past nine months, my life could probably best be described as a turgid, supernatural soap opera.’
Let’s just say that it could be fairly argued that s4 is overly dark and overly self-involved. There are points where it makes s6 of Buffy look positively carefree. But for all that, I have to say I’m still a big fan of it.
It does of course have its problems. As well as suffering from the same fallout from the implosion of Firefly that hit the final season of Buffy too, s4 had other problems. Charisma Carpenter’s real-life pregnancy essentially knackered what had been a carefully planned arc, set up over more than two seasons. The scuttlebutt goes that Joss was less than happy for the show to be thrown for a loop like that and it’s only in the past few years that the two have really made up over it. But it meant that Cordelia’s days on the show were numbered.
And so out goes Cordy as the season’s Big Bad and in comes the recently unemployed Gina Torres from Firefly as Jasmine. Personally, I don’t think she quite works as Jasmine and it didn’t really allow Torres to play to her strengths. She didn’t really manage to be quite beatific enough or quite sinister enough when Jasmine is exposed in my view.
But then again, the Jasmine Big Bad arc is relatively short-lived and it is only enlivened by the character beats of the regulars around it. Which we’ll get onto in a moment. However, it does illustrate the series willingness to undermine its own tropes, to question everything it has previously set up. In s2, we learnt that the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart are essentially unbeatable, an enemy that can never be beaten so long as evil exists in the heart of human beings. Now, we’re shown that the good guys, the Powers That Be, aren’t really to be trusted either, that they’re as susceptible to corruption, to dictatorial behaviour, as anyone. In Angel, nothing is beyond question, nothing is incorruptible. A question that we’ll return to in s5.
It does mean of all the Angel seasons, s4 is the one that could most be described as a mess. It has some great set-pieces – the rain of fire, the fights with the Beast, Fred’s plucky invasion of the body-snatchers moment – but it does rather feel like what it was, more than a little improvisational. S7 of Buffy did also suffer slightly from the same thing at the outset but I think managed to paper over the cracks a bit more.
The real shame about the chopping and changing of the main arc – one that had clearly been gestating all the way back from s1 and the handing of the visions to Cordelia, through to the ‘new life’ loophole of the s2 episode The Trial – is that it gives Cordy an undeservingly ignoble end to her time in the Buffiverse. However, I think this was going to be Cordelia’s last season one way or another. Her character arc was done basically. She’d gone from high school bee-atch, to compassionate protector of the helpless to glowy goddess Earth mother. There was nowhere else for her to go but evil.
The romance that had been built up between her and Angel had essentially painted the writing team into a corner too. It wasn’t going to be really possible to discard a Cordelia/Angel romance as something that would fizzle out a la Fred/Gunn or Cordelia’s own with Xander back in Buffy. It would be a big deal. But if you go down that road then that has implications for the parent show too. The whole ‘cookie dough’ scene (which I really hate) in the Buffy finale would be markedly different if Angel had to chip in ‘Actually, Buffy, I’m with Cordelia now.’ Can you imagine how that would have gone down?
It’s not helped by the fact that Charisma Carpenter is doing easily her worst work on either show here. We do have to cut her some slack, of course. She’s heavily pregnant, working with a kind of pissed off production team which is undoubtedly going to lead to some stress. But it’s a shame that her time on the show comes to such a downbeat end.
Now, all this sounds like it’s a bad or unenjoyable season. I’ve met more than a few people over the years who would argue that it is, that most of it amounts to ‘people being unhappy in dimly lit hotel rooms’. But I’d say that there’s plenty here to love and I do count this season pretty high up in my Buffiverse ratings – it quite comfortably trumps both s4 and s7 of Buffy for me, for example.
For instance, I’d say Deep Down is a great season opener which really sets up the new paths the regulars are all on. We get our brooding, tortured Angel back. We see the new badass Wesley in action – his scenes with both Lilah and Justine are great. And we see Connor get his comeuppance, courtesy of Fred with a Taser (and the first indication that her time in Pylea has not left her as fully stable as you might think).
True, there’s not much funny here. The only episodes with a really light touch are The House Always Wins and Spin the Bottle. The latter is basically an Angel take on Buffy s6’s Tabula Rasa. But rather than memory loss, we get a delightful temporary ‘reset’ switch on all the characters. Thus we get a chance to briefly see once more the dweeby, less tortured, Wesley of Buffy s3 and also the vapidly mean Cordelia of those days. We also get a nice insight into Fred’s character – nerdy stoner conspiracy theorist – and the chance to mock David Boreanaz’s risible Irish accent.
But it’s Alexis Denisof who steals the episode. He clearly relishes the chance to do a last bit of clowning around as Wesley to contrast with the grizzled, shotgun/double-pistol wielding badass, suspiciously Bond-like, figure Wesley has become. And he is great at both. Look at his confrontation with Gunn in Spin the Bottle.
Gunn: What happened to you, man?
Wesley: I had my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me.
Now, there are lots of ways that line could have been screwed up. But Denisof delivers it perfectly, neither with too much self-pity nor too much gung-ho. Wesley as badass is not a character reset, or an artificial gimmick, it’s an evolution of character. The old Wesley is still in there and he’s hurt and resentful and actually a little confused.
And it can be more clearly seen in Wesley’s relationships with both Lilah and Fred. He clearly pines for Fred, has done since s3, but circumstances always just put her beyond his reach. And the Fred/Gunn/Wesley love triangle is going to play out for a bit longer too. It’s one of the most complex relationship seen in the Buffiverse. And not just from Wesley’s side either. It’s going to take Fred a long time to realise just what – and who – she wants.
But let’s talk about Lilah too. Lilah is the Other Woman. The temptress. Her relationship with Wesley is dark, carnal, and very adult, in terms of being full of unspoken agendas, desperate needs, psychological undercurrents. It’s full of snatched moments of lust borne out of hate or resentment, of phone sex, of role play. But rather than just play a straight Joans Collins-esque bitch, Stephanie Romanov infuses her with a touching vulnerability. See her jealousy at Fred, who she attempts to mock with the dressed-up parody of her, attempting to convince Wesley just how unthreatened she is. And witness her vulnerability, her hurt even, when Wesley turns the tables on her by making her go through with the sexual role play.
Not that there isn’t clearly genuine love and affection between them. Look at just how difficult Wesley finds dismembering Lilah after she’s thought to have been vamped by Angelus. “You didn’t love me” wails Wesley in their decidedly Six Feet Under-esque encounter in the basement. And his first act when he gains access to Wolfram and Hart is to try and – heroically but futilely – rescue Lilah from her eternal contract.
Wesley’s other key relationship this season is with Faith. The rogue slayer only makes a brief three-episode appearance in the season but it is a pivotal one and constitutes some of Eliza Dushku’s best work on the character. And it’s the culmination of a lot of long-running character arcs.
Primarily it’s Faith’s long-coming redemption. She finally gets to do the right thing, be the hero, be the Slayer. And she gets to repay Angel for what he’s done for her. She gets to save him. It’s telling that at Angel’s darkest hour, when he truly needs saved, it’s not Buffy who’s there for him, it’s Faith. Not that it’s easy. The beating that Angelus gives Faith, coupled with Wesley’s rather ruthless plan to bring Angelus down, really puts Faith through the wringer.
And it does, for me, put a whole new complexion on the Buffy/Faith dynamic in s7 of Buffy. I tend to agree with the Potentials taking Faith’s side over Buffy’s, especially over that whole night at the Bronze thing. If anyone deserved some R&R, it’s Faith. Alright, Buffy died and went to heaven and felt really, really sad about being back. But Faith has suffered just as much, more you might say, and I think by s7 you can give a credible argument that she’s just as much The Slayer as Buffy is. (As an aside, I do think it’s a real shame the Faith spin-off never happened as I’m not sure her character is done yet. And it’s the one Buffy spin-off I think you could still get away with, even after all these years.)
Wesley’s relationship with Faith is also resolved, more or less. Wesley’s first and most profound failure was as Faith’s watcher in Buffy s3 and this is something that has constantly been alluded to during his time in Angel. It’s an issue that clearly cuts deep with both of them, as we saw in the torture scene in Five by Five. Here we finally see what that might have been like, we finally see them working together side by side. And it’s not the easy ride we might have expected. In Wesley’s brutal torture of the vamp and Faith’s outrage at it, we see how far he’s fallen, and how far she’s reformed.
And the other final resolution we see is that of the Angel/Angelus relationship. This is the last time we’ll see Angelus, in the present at least, and what we see in Orpheus is Angel’s final mastery over his alter ego. Angelus is at last laid to rest.
But amid all this torture and dysfunctional relationships, there is at least one ray of positivity, one romance that’s flourishing, right? Not so much. The frankly sickening syrupy sweet romance of Gunn and Fred in s3 takes a serious turn for the worst in s4. As mentioned above, from her furious Tasering of Connor in Deep Down to her rebuke of Gunn in Ground State (‘You died and left me all alone’!), we see that Fred is still a deeply damaged person, capable of some really quite dark things.
This comes to a head in Supersymmetry, an episode I used to discount as being a minor one but now can’t for the life of me think why. It’s so loaded with major, major stuff. It’s the thing that sends Fred and Gunn’s relationship into terminal freefall as they both have to carry the burden of having taken a human life. It shows what Wesley is willing to do for Fred and just how broken his relationship with Gunn is. And it shows just how strong Fred actually is. And this is important for the later Shiny Happy People/Magic Bullet episodes.
And I’ve just realised I haven’t said anything about Connor. But what is there to say about his little Oedipal drama except ‘ewwwwww’. As Fred says, Connor’s relationship with Cordelia is ‘kind of icky’ but again the impression is that it was rather forced on the production team by circumstance, or at least ended up being a lot more rushed than it might have been.
It does serve to highlight how much Angel is informed by Classical myth and allusion compared to Buffy. We have things like the Oracles, the Furies, Angel’s descent to the Underworld to reclaim his soul, the sanctuary of Caritas (and what is Lorne but a Pan-like creature?) and we have the Powers That Be as capricious, corruptible God-like creatures, far closer to the Gods of Olympus than any infallible Christian concepts. And now we have the Oedipal myth. Buffy flirts with Christian mythology – demons, heavens, hells and so on – but Angel is much more Classical in its leanings. A world where Gods and Men and Demons all intermingle and none are necessarily better or more pure than the others, just more powerful.
With its detective trappings, Angel has always been something of a Noir show — as that strangely significant alley we see in the opening credits illustrates. And it’s never been more noir-ish than it is in this season. We have laconic, wounded masculine heroes (Angel, Wesley and Gunn all fit the bill in their own way), we have more than one femme fatale (Lilah, Cordelia and Jasmine) and we have a plot that is essentially a huge sting operation. Angel Inv are all conned and hoodwinked into releasing Jasmine into the world. This is foregrounded in a number of ways. The rigged game at the casino in The House Also Wins, Angel blackmailed into releasing Billy Blim in the previous season, the criminal antics of Electro-Girl Gwen and so on. It’s the last gasp of the detective gumshow schtick in Angel and they throw everything at it. Next year they’re going to be playing a somewhat different game.
And so we end the season with Angel Investigations having “ended world peace”. And being given a game-changer in the form of control of the LA branch of Wolfram and Hart. Season Four was essentially 22 episodes of our heroes in pain, and in darkness. But that’s over. Season Five is going to prove to be very different. There’s going to be more laughs. There’s going to be more sunshine. There’s going to be some serious shocks. And there’s going to be a kick-ass resolution – and one which for my money trumps Buffy’s.
Oh, and there’s also going to be some English peroxide bloke.
Right, just one more to go. Do you agree. Leave comments, questions and violent disagreement below. But keep Angel s5 off limits for now.
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I agree that there are good things in S4 -and I’d agree with the good things that you’ve identified. But it is more seriously flawed than any other series, I would argue. The story arc is not just complicated, it’s bordering on chaotic – the signs of the writers having to rethink and reshape because of external events and individual circumstances are all there, and the result is, well, messy. The whole Cordy/Beast/Jasmine thing doesn’t ever really hang together, even if bits of the story are powerful and well done. I really dislike the Cordy/Connor thing – ewwwww indeed – and I’m sure that if they’d been on form they could have found a better way of accommodating Charisma Carpenter’s pregnancy or whatever other circs were forcing their hand. I did like Jasmine – that strand of the story I thought was powerful and disturbing, and I thought Gina Torres was fine. Damn, but I need to rewatch…
@cathannabel — I’d definitely agree. It does get rather chaotic with a rather breathless childish ‘and then this happens, and then this happens and then that happens’ element to the plot. But it really was def con 1 for the Mutant Enemy brigade at this point. Not only were they trying to figure out how (and briefly if) Buffy was going to end with s7, Firefly was self-destructing and Joss was desperately trying to find work for his people where he could. And I believe Charisma Carpenter left it quite late in the day to break the news about her pregnancy.
But there’s also something of an element of hubris to the whole thing too. The arc as planned — which I won’t go into too much here because I think some of it was salvaged for s5 — was pretty ambitious, taking Doyle’s passing of the visions to Cordelia in s1, through the ‘free life’ won by Angel in s2’s The Trial, through to s3 episodes like Birthday and That Vision Thing. Basically Cordelia was meant to be the Big Bad I think, probably along the similar but not identical lines to how Jasmine was eventually portrayed. (And I don’t mean to diss Gina Torres. She was perfectly fine as Jasmine. I just didn’t think the part played to her comedic and basically ass-kicking strengths as seen on Firefly. I think Nathan Fillion slotted into Buffy a lot more seamlessly).
I guess if anything it shows the folly of trying to plan to far ahead in the US TV production system. Chances are something’s going to come back and bite you on the ass. It was possibly too ambitious and some of its calls were not without controversy. Compared to the often quite Puritan take on sex in Buffy and even in earlier seasons of Angel, this season is quite itchy in its sexual content, despite never really being explicit. There’s the Connor/Cordy thing, which is definitely uncomfortable. And there’s also the Wesley/Lilah relationship, which I think is a lot more deftly done. You also have the fact that for a significant chunk of the season, you have your title character being basically evil. I get the impression the network weren’t massively happy about this as it’s a great way to alienate the casual viewer.
So, yeah, it is definitely on the messy side. The Beast subplot was so obviously a treading water exercise. But the season has a very strong opening run of episodes, with Angel’s rescue, the rescue of Lorne from Vegas, the disintegration of Fred and Gunn’s relationship and the killing of the professor and then Spin the Bottle, which I think is a great little episode (and interestingly incredibly cheap — all shot on standing sets and with the core cast of regulars. That Joss Whedon knows how to save a buck or two).
But you can see why they wanted to lighten things up and bring a more tightly controlled structure in s5.
@JimTheFish @CathAnnabel
A wonderful, in depth and honest analysis of this season: a season I liked though at times I wasn’t prepared to. One of those issues that provided the ‘eew’ wasn’t just Connor and Cordy but Wes and Lilah, who makes a wonderful reappearance at the end, with a contract that keeps on giving -but the sex between the two of them, as Wes encourages Lilah to play out his Fred fantasies is quite tough to watch -there are moral ambiguities everywhere in this show which don’t always fit in the Buffy landscape and which, in its greyness, makes this show as @PhaseShift said the superior one. Possibly!
I don’t think I can really choose -but they’re similar beasts (no pun intended!) as acknowledged on the TV thread by Jim, the parallels are everywhere as are the opposites? If that’s the way to express it, not sure. I’m recalling the fight scene in the 2nd last episode with Buffy’s final in S7 -where the dwellers of the sewers and half the population waiting outside fight with Wes, Angel and Gunn -all fighting cleverly and with equal assurance. Wes really is Bond! Stripped down and ‘glary’, alienated and in love with Fred -a woman he couldn’t ever have. For Wes, victory in battle was the only reward. Even Xander had some reward -a meaningful, long term relationship-which he backed out of, but still.
Fred was the real surprise -perky (and not just that way ladies and gents!) and super clever working out very quickly the pretence of Jasmine and how to ensure the others could see her: jamming her transmissions, as it were, but not globally, not straight away: that’s the dimension where Angel traffics as does Buffy; in visiting the desert speaking to the First Slayer and seeking out Caleb in S7 by herself.
This show really does subject everyone to the collective seasonless glare -demon, half demon, perpetual people on a perpetual contract. You bargain your way out of suspicion (although in this investigative business that’s recurring anyway!) by the persistent repetition of good actions which create the individual as ‘person’ – humanity not conditional. That’s why Connor is so difficult to place on a spectrum, part demon, uneducated in human mores, easily distracted and manipulated by simple epithets. He’s so believing of Cordelia and she really has wised up over the past two years, she’s so believable and utterly compassionate, it’s easy to yield to her -even in rooms with chains, locks, crates and broken windows. All the time!
@purofilion — all good points and congrats on getting through s4 — some people find it the toughest ride of the Buffiverse. Rest assured, s5 isn’t quite so much on the glum side.
And I wouldn’t write off Wes’s romantic prospects completely just yet. There’s still time…
But, yeah, I think s4 belongs to Amy Acker, who does amazing work right through it. As I’ve said before, Fred is clearly damaged — not above the odd spot of Tasering or outright murder — but strong and with a coherent sense of right and wrong. She was the core of strength in this season when every other character was floundering in their own contradictions.
But I’d also give kudos to Alexis Denisof, who’s really transformed Wesley over the past couple of years, to the point where Joss says in one of the commentaries that they had to tone him back because he was in danger of becoming ‘cooler than Angel’….
@Jimthefish
That’s one thing I haven’t done is listen to the commentaries -I looked at a few mainly to see who did the dialogue/comment but I skipped it -way too interested in the stories. Boy Ilion is behind me by a whole season -which is great. I can pick up more hints now. Re-watching Angel and Connor at the end of S3 ‘get on’ knowing all the while Connor is going to throw him into the same ’empty’ space he saw in the previous episode when Fred and Gunn took him to the beach is spine tingly. How I ever thought he’d trust Angel so soon, I don’t know! Eternal optimism?
Wish fulfilment -for Wes too, that not all was lost? Maybe all of those. Certainly Wes is on the Cool metre and in danger of going into the Red Zone. Wonderful. I haven’t listened to any of his interviews so I haven’t heard him with his natural voice. Should be interesting -in a few weeks!
Sneaking a look at S5 now (I promised The Boy I wouldn’t but then he agreed to clean the table and do all his chores, so tough luck!)
@purofilion — I think you’ll enjoy s5. It’s one of my favourites from both shows. And as I said before, it works in a nicely dual way as wrapping up Angel in a satisfying way but also acting as a kind of epilogue to Buffy as well.
Just for yuks, I think my Buffiverse rankings would be:
Buffy s3
Angel s5
Angel s2
Buffy s5
Buffy s2
Buffy s6
Angel s4
Angel s3
Buffy s1
Angel s1
Buffy s7
Buffy s4
Of course, that ranking could well change tomorrow, or even in the next half an hour….
Blog on Angel s5 in the next couple of days hopefully.
Hi @purofilion @JimTheFish As always fascinating to read your thoughts.
Re the comparison (which I think was made on the General TV thread rather than here – I’ve lost track!) between the mass empowering at the end of Buffy 7 and Jasmine’s takeover of her followers’ minds, I hadn’t connected those at all. The Slayerisation was only of potentials, I think, and whilst it wasn’t voluntary, in the sense that they didn’t know they were potentials, it was giving them something more, rather than taking anything away from them. Although you could say it was giving them a dangerous destiny, a future of battling against Big Bads of various kinds, not necessarily something they’d have chosen.
The Jasmine effect obviously referenced Bodysnatchers as noted, and suggested to me various takes on the cult thing. EG the fairly trashy Race with the Devil which stuck with me, despite being fairly trashy, because that whole idea is so creepy and scary. (I was fairly briefly part of an evangelical charismatic Christian group in my teens, and even though the group was populated by genuinely lovely, kind, warm people, there’s something about that environment that I was reminded of here).
@cathAnnabel
Ooh, yes, that was me who suggested the Jasmine parallel -not in the sense it was the same, at all -in fact, as you say, these were potentials and they were good and had a choice -so, really, what I meant to say was that it’s like a complete twist: these are the eyes and ears of something terrible using the human ‘watchers’ without agency and choice -a direct swap, if you will. In fact I thought there were a few such ‘parallels’ in Angel: Wes’ turn to Lilah and aware of his own betrayal (note that lovely speech Lilah gives and Wes fills in about Judas) is similar to Willow’s going off the mark. But then, the Buffy area has its own family of kind, forgiving people: Angel, is darker, and it takes forever (or so it feels) for Wes to regain anyone’s trust.
“I was fairly briefly part of an evangelical charismatic Christian group in my teens, and even though the group was populated by genuinely lovely, kind, warm people, there’s something about that environment that I was reminded of here).”
Exactly, my experience also which I noted on the main thread. it was hard to watch, actually: the whole testimony thing, the pot-luck suppers. Christ. Well, exactly. I haven’t come to terms with my whole religious ‘place’ so it was murky to handle and I can imagine those who are entrenched in that system would have disliked the show in the first place. Though Stephanie Myer (sic) I believe has said she loved ‘angel’, yeah well….
@JimTheFish in re-reading your blogs of S4 and Angel, I was interested in checking out your preferences of the Buffyverse.
So you put quite a few series of Angel before Buffy, I notice? Angel 2 before Buffy 5?? Really?
And you also mentioned that this season (4) is better than 7 of Buffy? Interesting. Was it that the acting was, overall, better in Angel and could it have been that Buffy 7 just didn’t have the continuity you’d expect by now and also the development of the characters was hampered to some extent? I’d say that Giles’ reappearance saves Buffy 7, Will is more grounded and comprehending of her abilities whilst Faith’s resurgence and her confidence adds colour and life to this collection of people.
I think Andrew does a great job and the new school echoes Buffy 3 so popular in that universe for many people, I’d expect. But as you say, this season of Buffy “limps along” whilst S4 of Angel has some great acting and a momentum and drive that isn’t in Buffy 7.
Perhaps that’s one reason why I found the latter so hard to watch: it had its foot on neutral. No one accelerated the vehicle! So we get either the treading water analogy or the metaphor about the bus just going ’round and round’ but not really going anywhere. As a final season, Buffy could have been so much better. But maybe it really needed to be done and dusted by S5 -at that point it had reached a magnificent summit. Anything else, would (and did) expose the ruination of the characters subsequent to Buffy’s death and the usual grubby details of life -money, a job, a failed almost-marriage and then using the very magic that helps to save, in a negative, dominating and addictive manner.
All of those things were the key elements which made Buffy 6 “life is the Big Bad” so dramatic -and icky! I found it dark and oppressive so that, personally, I would need to place Buffy 6 before Angel 4 (which you did) but well below Buffy 7 -which had some character redemption and which I didn’t feel was replicated in Angel 4. Then again, lists change and I have no real business creating them after mostly one viewing! But fascinating.
Kindest, puro.
@purofilion — yes, I really do rate Angel s2 as one of the best of either show. It only loses marks for the Pylea episodes which didn’t even bug me as much this time around. But the core Angel/Darla arc and the key episodes like Epiphany and Reprise and Dear Boy really make it stand out for me.And much as I love Buffy 5, I think it does edge it.
I think you’re right about Buffy 7. It just doesn’t try hard enough, compared to Angel 5 which from the introduction of Illyria onwards is very clear where it’s going and goes there at full pelt. Angel does have the slight advantage in that it’s always had the same Big Bad throughout the whole show. The ending was always going to be about W&H and the Senior Partners. But Buffy 7 seemed to me to be struggling to think of a Big Bad and in the end made a duff choice.
@purofilion—
I suppose that is true but also one of the points of Angel is that it has a very different take on redemption than Buffy does. Buffy essentially gets her ‘prize’ at the end of s7, she gets to be a normal girl, or at least one in which the burden of Slayerdom is now shared. Angel is very clear that redemption isn’t a prize. It’s an ongoing process and one that is only ended by death. As I said in the Angel 5 blog, by the time you get to Not Fade Away there is not regular character in Angel who hasn’t taken a human life — not even Lorne — and by the ‘rules’ of the Whedonverse that means true ‘wipe the slate clean’ redemption is not an option for any of them.
@JimTheFish on Angel 2, having re-read your blog just now, I can see definitely the reasons for your choice: as you said, had the Pylean episodes been a bit different then it would have been nudged even further ahead. The character development with Lorne and Cordelia is remarkable and there’s a complicated sense of where and how Angel fits in: as Demon With Soul or Person Trying To Do Good (at all times). Wes’ development is marvellous and of course, right from the beginning, Amy Acker is terrific and you can see her fitting in -but with a question as to her damage and complexity. It’s probably a confusing series, but in a good way.
You can fully understand the grey areas here and how, in Buffy, the B&W note acts as census. Angel 2 goes off in many directions and it’s so different to the opening season where each episode had a different ‘evil’ to fight. Here we get a door opening into W&H and a sense that this is the Big Bad for the entire show. As you say, in Buffy, with every season having to top the one before, it became it bit….’who or what will be the Thing they fight this time?’
Mind you, by the end of Angel 5 you get the sense there’s a new apocalypse every year or so, too. The biggest in Angel 4 with The Beast and the Rain of Fire then moving across to Sunnydale where there was another Apocalypse to End All Apocalypses!
Then we have Lindsay describing the ‘starting gun has already gone years ago’ in Angel 5. It’s the nature of a show with monsters: each year someone has to top the one before. I remember the RTD years and each finale of Doctor Who having to be bigger and better than the one before. Daleks? Done. Cybermen? Done. Cyberman and Daleks? Why not!
Still, I thought Fillion really played Caleb wonderfully and had he somehow been more than just a ‘shell’ it would have been pretty good. The fact we had a Thing named The First just made me roll my eyes for a bit but I liked how it could take on the personality and face of another. It showed us how SMG could act so well and with subtly just as the young girl the scoobies almost save from death “on Friday” does a fab job of being partly evil and then obviously The First when she confronts Willow in the library. DB Woods didn’t really do it for me either, and yet I find he’s a pretty good actor from what others have said: a mellow grey area baddie in the American show 24 (didn’t thrill me at all) where he had a bit of a run, I think, and played the role exceedingly well.
@JimTheFish you’re quite right about redemption: the idea of it being so grey; almost unattainable. Even the statements which ‘head’ the show such as it’s the little things we do which matter, the little kindnesses as well as victory existing in the continuing battle, so then redemption isn’t seen as a final ‘act’ delivered on some platter: it may exist as a result of small victories piling up on the right side of the scales of justice -or it may not.
I guess Buffy played on the simpler idea of atonement or redemption where for Angel it’s a much more complicated issue: and, as you say, it’s a much more classically based show -where the Gods aren’t our traditional Christian ones but are harsh and fickle, catering to their own asinine needs and using humans as play things.
I suppose Angel works in the realm of hope and it continues to embrace that throughout its entire show. Whilst with Buffy the characters up to and including S3 (and maybe 5) trade on hope as they have the natural, raw optimism associated with high school and the enthusiasm of college (and freedom) ahead. That brings on more relationships, a move away from home, the pleasure of college life: parties, learning, technology, driving, a first love and so on.
With S4 of Buffy there’s nowhere else to go really and it’s why I love Buffy 3 a lot -it’s so youthful and optimistic and so darn hopeful! It’s engaging because of that and it’s all the more amazing that beyond the school’s environs, both metaphorically and physically, Buffy can still hold our attentions -right through S5. Xander may not be at college but he slots in well, and Giles’ role at the Magic Box works far better than when he’s moping about his flat.
Angel delivers on hope all the way through: with Lorne managing to go back to Pylea and Fred’s rescue bringing in a new love for Wes and Gunn. Gunn, too, realises he’s more than the axe wielding super muscle and Cordelia attains the sympathy and compassion that was always Will’s mainstay. Even after Wes’ disastrous life in S3-4, he still nurtures some hope for something other than nebulous happiness with Fred. And I, assuming nothing worse could happen to this character, was totally on board with him, hooting for him to arrive at the finish line intact. But who was I kidding? 🙁
@JimTheFish by “nebulous” happiness with Fred I meant a complete relationship -where both are invested. I was hopeful that they would recover that and they did -for one episode. Ahh, heartbreak.
@purofilion —
Yes, the ‘another apocalypse’ thing definitely became an issue. It’s not helped by Sunnydale and LA being in such close proximity. For instance, while she might have had her own stuff going on in s6, I can’t imagine that the whole news of LA’s sun being blotted out and vamps roaming the streets wouldn’t have got back to Buffy and that she wouldn’t have at least offered to help — bearing in mind the love of her life is in the middle of it. Similarly surely she would have at least been aware of Jasmine and wouldn’t Jasmine’s influence have at least stretched as far as SunnyD?
Similarly, with the apocalypse in s5 of Angel, complete with dragons and everything, couldn’t at least a few of this new army of Slayers have bothered to show up to help?
RE. Hope. Certainly Buffy is about Hope for the future and ends with the Scoobies looking forward to a tomorrow. There’s also hope in Angel, of course, but it’s more tempered with experience. It’s as much about salvaging something from the wreckage of your past, being able to live with your past actions. It’s most obviously seen in Angel but in s3 of Buffy Wes has sealed his fate somewhat by his ‘betrayal’ of the Scoobies and of Faith. It’s an act that he’s still feeling and dealing with the effects of all through his time on Angel.
But, you’re right, there is a suggestion that there’s always hope there. Which is, budgetary considerations aside, why we never see the final battle. There is a chance of survival, however slim, and that has to be enough.
And yes, I think Nathan Fillion does help salvage the s7 Buffy arc a great deal. He’s clearly channelling Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter and maybe even Hazel Motes in Wiseblood a little but I think it works. Fillion is I think better when he’s in heroic mode (as you’ll hopefully see in Firefly) but he does bring something chilling here. I also agree that DB Woodside wasn’t quite right for Woods and that someone with a bit more of a badass, damaged Samuel L Jackson edge was needed.
@JimTheFish @Purofilion
Yes, it’s my first time watching Angel. I’m not watching them with Buffy but I try to think along with what’s happening there. I just finished watching 4×06 (Spin the Bottle) and 4×07 (Apocalypse, Nowish).
4×06 is my favorite story now. It’s impossible to get any funnier. There were some serious themes for the characters to consider, but I was laughing way too hard to notice.
The last episode I really loved was 3×16. After seeing 3×16 I finally noticed how much the characters have changed. Wesley was serious now and hoping that Angel lightens up wasn’t going to happen.
4×06 is so great because it’s just pure payoff for the fans, for following the characters and knowing how much they changed.
Buffy’s Band Candy did the same kind of story, when Giles and Joyce turned into teenagers. We didn’t see them as teens before, so that was like seeing Fred and Gunn this time. It is amusingly funny and there is some interesting characterization at the same time. But Wes, Angel, and Cordy are so much funnier this time, because we have seen them before and didn’t think we would ever see them like that again.
Maybe the comedy was too good in 4×06 and the serious story arcs got overshadowed. That should make it worth re-watching.
4×07 is the perfect introduction for a big bad. Angel and his crew look completely helpless against this thing. The fight scene is close to the best ever in Buffy or Angel, (awesome special effects), but I think “the title goes to” – the battle when Xander loses an eye. I’m still traumatized from that!!
Lorne shaking his head, right after the Connor/Cody scene made me laugh. My thoughts on Cordy and Connor, well, um, err, um, well, yeah?! That about sums it up. 😉
@Barnable I know: Connor.Whoa. That whole thing was cringe worthy but you know? I liked him in the end. He’s a great actor -from what ppl say and from what I discern with these scripts.
totally concur with the episodes you’ve mentioned -very funny -every character has matured in so many ways that it’s great to see a confident cast.
Yes, Xander and his eye – a very sad day. I keep thinking of Xander in high school and it’s hard to realise he has an apartment, he’s a project manager and he’s very good at it. In many ways, he ‘made it’ whilst the others (including Willow) didn’t really. Although Ripper always ‘makes it’ -the smartest, the wisest of the lot.