I won’t bother with a box this time, since there really are not plot twists that would spoil future episodes or this episode, for those reading before it airs.
Habeas Corpses starts right where last episode ended. And it’s been nearly two months, so the teaser is basically a long re-cap.
This episode is action oriented, with almost no questions resolved. Cordy wakes up and feels icky about what she and Connor did. For the rest of the episode we get to suffer through endless double entendres when she and Angel talks about… well whatever.
Enough already. I’m getting really fed up with the love triangles:
Angel /Cordy/Connor
Gunn/Fred/Wesley
Resolve the damned things and get on with the story.
The conspiracy minded have suggested this. But the move away from Tuesday and the move from Sunday to Wednesday make a kind of sense if you believe the following:
In the beginning (Seasons 1 & 2 of Angel), Buffy and Angel were together on the WB, and the synergy between the shows was quite good. They were a good fit for one another, and their broadcast proximity allowed crossovers.
The audience for “Alias” and that for “Angel” have a fairly high degree of overlap. So putting “Angel” on against “Alias” was not especially smart. Begs the question of why they did it in the first place, but never mind.
The moves that never made sense were “Angel” on Mondays (as a follow-up to 7th Heaven? Who was the brain trust who thought that those two shows were a good mix?) and “Angel” on Sundays (see above re: Alias). I personally think that a “Smallville”/ “Angel” pairing has interesting possibilities, but I believe that the ratings show that “Gilmore Girls” and “Smallville” are doing credibly in their existing Tuesday timeslots, so neither one is likely to move.
Granted, the Wednesday move puts “Angel” on against “West Wing”, but I would suspect that the audience overlap between those two shows is less than the overlap between “Angel” and “Alias.” (Besides, with Charisma’s hair issues of late, the babewatcher dial definitely tips towards “Alias.” Rowr! )
Charisma is looking better with every episode. I always prefered women to have short, no frizz or frill hir. And she’s filling out with the pregnancy, which makes her look really delicious.
Maetros I really thought the episode was so-so. Not enough humour (almost none). The demon thing walks around and kicks ass, and no one has a clue. There is a small twist about midway that had me thinking… WTF? but it got resolved at the end. Basically not much happened aside from the melodrama of who gets to screw whom. So color me disappointed.
As for seeing it early. The mods would frown on me for divulging the way it’s done.
:eek: Oh, I think I know what you mean. I was thinking that you might be living in another state/or Canada, because I think Angel comes on earlier in a few other places.
[spoiler] Angel
9 pm/ET, WB
Another day has dawned for Angel Investigations, but terror still casts a shadow as the Beast cuts a murderous swath through the city.
The shaky gang gathers at the hotel after a seemingly endless night facing a rain of fire and the emergence of the monster Cordy’s vision predicts will bring about the Apocalypse. But before they can decipher recent events, they learn that Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), who went to Wolfram & Hart to uncover his connection to the Beast (Vladimir Kulich), is now trapped in the building with the demon.
Angel, along with Fred, Gunn and Wesley, prepares to rescue his son. But first the group must reckon with the firm’s employees, who have undergone a strange transformation. — Rebecca Peterson
There was one humorous line, when Angel was trying to explain to Conner about the zombies, how they were undead and mentally slow.
“Like you?”
“No, not at all.”
OK show, lots of dead bodies, this beast is good at something. I still think the costume sucks, but it’s a hard impression to convey. I thought Wes saving Lilah was pretty predictable, her Knight in tweed and leather, but when will she make her re-appearance?
Yeah, the Beast looked very odd in that wide profile shot in the white room: it’s huge feet really unbalence its whole look. I like the head and body though: very volcano.
We pretty much didn’t find anything out, after months of silence. The Beast knows Connor by sight and name, but we probably knew that already. Cordy is whishy-washy. Angel holds grudges and is nasty when he doesn’t get what he wants. Gunn is a prick to Wes. Nothing new here. We don’t know why the people became zombies: or who was responsible.
Wolfram & Hart has always seemed a little lamely used, and tonight was no exception. Instead of just a bunch of peons getting slaughtered, you’d think that they’d have some sort of security demons working for them as backup, or some sort of sorcerers. But they had nothing: just a bunch of fresh meat to be slaughtered. Where are their big guns?
What was up with Gunn and the zombies and Wes leaving him behind? It seemed kinda nutty: leaving him behind just to have him pop back two seconds later. Was there more to that that we missed?
Apos I also want someone to fill me in on what the littler girl was saying.
This is the most disappointing episode of either Buffy-verse show ever. It didn’t even give them a good set up for future episodes. It did have its moments, like Wesley and Gunn’s interaction when Gunn had been bit by a zombie. A few more of those would have gone a long way to improving the episode.
Here’s a spoiler question/speculation:
I keep hearing rumour that Angel is going to loose his soul again this season. Now I’d like to see this as Angelus is so much more interesting than Angel. Also I’m really curious what they are going to do to have him loose his soul. He clearly is far from a happy place so I’m affraid they may do some dumb ass mojo thing like the mayor tried. On the other hand the tried and true method would also be sort of dissapointing. I’m thinking that it won’t be sex but a moment of happiness related to Connor accepting Angel as his father or something like that. A moment where Angel lets his guard down because things are so bad and he looses himself in that instance. What do others think? I wouldn’t mind hearing what has leaked out to those who hunt actual spoilers.
Oh and I notice that electric girl is back next week. Woot.
Well, one might think that the Senior Partners at W&H knew this would happen and that the slaughter is part of their plan. Remember that we have only really seen one Senior Partner, and he didn’t talk too much before Angel killed him. So we don’t really know what their agenda is, just that they’re really evil and not at all above sacrificing those who work for them.
As far as Gunn & Wes, I think the whole point of that scene was to reinforce in Fred’s mind that Wesley can be incredibly ruthless and also to make her think that he might have been trying to take advantage of the situation for his own gain.
I liked the Lilah/Wes scenes myself. She seemed so close in the sewer to saying three little words to him, but hesitated. She’s finally become interesting.
And I think that as long as “Doublemeat Palace” is around, the “worst episode ever” crown is pretty safe.
“Doublemeat Palace” was shot in a very interesting manner. They highlighted the banality of the job and the disturbing but mundane nature of the place very well. It reminded me, in terms of look, of some of the better episodes of the X-Files. Additionally Buffy flipping out soilent green style was very amusing, along with a few other funny spots in the episode gives “Doublemeat Palace” more redeeming qualities than “Habeas Corpses”.
The Tim, I know exactly how Angel loses his soul. I’m not going to post exactly what happens, but I will post this You’re not wrong. It includes all of the elements you speculated about.
—I think the whole point of that scene was to reinforce in Fred’s mind that Wesley can be incredibly ruthless and also to make her think that he might have been trying to take advantage of the situation for his own gain.—
I didn’t see any of that from her, at least in terms of thinking ill of Wes: in fact, she seemed remarkably unupset by his seemingly near certain death… as if she knew that Gunn would be fine because she read it in a magical parchment known as “The Script.”
I concur that this ep. didn’t really live up to built-up hype that I had. However, I’m still not cool with the whole Cordy-Connor thing; that was just plain and straight-out wrong.
The reason I think it was such a bad episode is not just what happened in the episode but where it is situated. The over all storyline and how an episode fits into it or purposefully ignores it are very important to the quality of an episode. Additionally the season’s themes as they are played with in an episode go a long way towards determining my opinion, as well as things like where an episode is placed. All of these things interact as well.
This was the first episode after a good deal of time, set immediately after very interesting events and kicking off a block of new episodes. It was abysmally unfit for the possition and even in isolation not a particularly good episode. Now it is possible that later episodes will redeem it, this happens on occasion. I find Season 6 of Buffy far more watchable having seen the whole thing and thought a lot about it. Maybe if I think about the episode some more and watch it again I’ll place it among those episodes that are good but I don’t like watching over and over. Maybe there is some sort of really cool explination for the white room, the zombies and everything else in a later episode that is going to make me go “Ah!” and appreciate the episode a lot more. As of right now I feel that if I had missed the episode only my compulsive watching of all things Angel/Buffy would bother me. No other episode has given me that impression.
Thanks pepperlandgirl.
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