Coming a bit late to the thread, since my usual sources are failing me.
I enjoy the show. I do. I’ve grown to like the characters, and the way the show amtured over the first four years was interesting. And I really should avoid passing any judgement based on only three episodes. I remember passing judment early on about Angel last year, and I was proven wrong in many many ways.
However, this episode gets a meh rating from me. It seemed to revert back to what Angel was the first season, but really without the sense of humor that was present in exchanges between Doyle and Cordy. I suppose the writers think that bringing snarky Spike into the mix and adding Harmony will get the jokes into the show, but so far it’s really just re-hashing old jokes from BtVS.
I got a feeling it’s getting crowded too. Last year we had seven major characters:
Angel
Wes
Gunn
Lorne
Fred
Cordy
Connor
This year, nine:
Angel
Wes
Gunn
Lorne
Fred
Spike
Eve
Harmony
Wolf-Girl
And the cast was a wee bit big last year. It was quite action packed, with some episodes taking place within a couple of hours, so having Lorne or Gunn off stage most of the time during some eps didn’t matter so much. Also, last year’s arc was totally plot driven, whereas this year seems to be Monster o’ the Week with the arc driven by character. One would think Mutant Enemy had learned its leason from the over crowding of Buffy S.7.
But hopefully, it’ll gain speed, and I’ll be proven wrong, as I was last year. Still, going back to satorytelling as it was during season 1 is not a good sign, so my impression right now:
Eve, Harmony and Wolf-Girl are not “major characters” (criminy, we’ve only seen wolf-girl this once and there’s no strong hint we’ll see her again), so really we’re one down from last year.
If you are going to count Eve, Harmony, and the wolf-girl as major characters for this year then you should add Lilah, the Beast, Faith, and Jasmine for characters from last year.
Mercedes McNab has signed for 15 episodes, I think the girl playing Eve has done the same. All of those you mention, Joshmaker were only on 3-4 eps, I think Lilah was in six last year.
Some questions occurred to me while watching last night’s episode:
1.What happened to the Electro-shock girl (was her name “Gwen”?) from last season? It seemed in her first appearance that she was being primed to become a major character. Then after two more appearances, she just vanished. Is she coming back?
Are Fred and Gunn still a couple? I know they were having problems, but I can’t remember them officially breaking up. Gunn also does not seem to be as jealous of Knox as Wes obviously is. BTW, was Gunn’s murder of the Fred’s old boss ever brought out in the open?
I know Conner is now living somewhere in western U.S. as a normal kid from a normal family, but…wasn’t he predestined to eventually kill Sajahn? (the time-jumping demon from 3 years ago who ressurected Holtz). IIRC, Sajahn was last seen being sucked into some urn, but not killed.
What I want to know is, do they remember breaking up? What do the non-Angel members of the MoG remember from last two seasons? Do they not remember Wesley’s betrayal, or was it ret-conned to be about something besides Connor? Do they remember Sahjahn at all? Darla? Holtz? They know Cordy’s in a coma: how do they think she ended up in it?
I’m wondering if Sahjahn is going to have something to do with Spike overcoming his immaterialism.
Meh here too. Since last season, there are just so many danglers, and the three eps so far, all basically blowing most of their efforts on MoW eps, have made things feel disjointed and sloppy. They can’t just pull what they pulled with erasing Connor without establishing what the hell everyone else’s memories are of.
And all the characters, despite being in radically new digs, don’t seem to be going anywhere. Wes has basically had 0 character development. Fred almost none. Gunn a bit, with his lawyer thing, but… it’s had almost no effect on him as a person, isn’t going anywhere as of yet.
And look. It’s season 5. By now, Angel should be over brooding and not opening up to his friends over nothing much more than gee, there’s some evil and hard stuff in the world (hello, did we not do enough of this, to poor effect, with Buffy, and on Angel at least three times already in arcs when Angel became disjointed from his friends?). Haven’t they caught on to this yet. It’s fucking BORING.
Give me a “meh” too. This was basically a re-hash of the “Oh shit, I’m a werewolf now” episode that Buffy handled so much better - because they took their time with it. We knew and liked Oz before he acquired his disease. He was Oz, who happened to be a werewolf, not a werewolf named Oz. Seth Green had an entire season or two to develop as a character and to come to grips (or not) with his disease. Angel tried to portray all that in one single episode and it fell completely flat. We didn’t know were-girl from Eve (whom I don’t care for either and am glad she hasn’t appeared in subsequent episodes after the Season Premier, however it is troubling how they haven’t said a word about her either because it once again illustrates the complete lack of continuity) and so we didn’t really care about her.
Their strategy of trying to attract the Smallville audience by having the episodes be more self-contained is killing the character development of the show.
And I’m getting a bit tired of the writers using CHILDREN as a quick means of gaining sympathy. They did it last week and they did it again this week.
Having Marsters resort to being a minor character is a bad idea. He serves no purpose being there. Honestly, much as I like Wes and Gunn, I think if Spike stays they need to let on or both of them go. Wes used to be the brains of the outfit while Gunn was the streetsmart brawn, and now with all the resources of W&H at their disposal, both characters are redundant. Of course, Spike could play the tortured souled vampire now but can you kill of a title character and have the show continue as Angel?
I hope Angel finds its way back to excellence soon.
That is very annoying. It feels like they’re cheating, by pandering to the lowest common denominator - the preservation of the life of a child, instead of creating tension from plot or character.
It also feels like they’ve upped the amount of gore this year, possibly out of motives of sensationalism.
semi-spoiler for next week:
I’ve seen picks and it’s totally disgusting in its gory and graphic detail.
One thing that attreacted me to the Buffyverse from the start was that good end evil weren’t as clear cut, black’n’white as in most movies and tv shows. An evil character might make sense and share truths, as the major did back in season 3. A good character can make terribly bad decisions, which turn out to lead to evil, as when Wes kidnapped Connor.
And we get a god from the good side, Jasmine, whose concept of good and bad doesn’t really fit our pre-conceived notions.
Angel was always a little darker and more ambigous with these two edged problems. There is always the evil inside Angel, and the good inside the bad guys. I think it culminated in something very complex last season and that te writers now are trying to build it into the fabric, by having the good guys work in an evil place. But I’m sorry, it doesn’t work for me.
What happened to helping the helpless? The show’s (and Angel’s) mission statement has turned into killing the evil guys, which really isn’t helping the helpless.
I think y’all are worried a bit too much at this point. There’s only been 3 episodes. ME has never, ever set up a season arc in the first 3 episodes. Except they kinda tried to S7, and look how wellthat turned out for them. I wouldn’t start with the doom and gloom perdictions until the end of November sweeps (when they traditionally set up the arc for the season…) It’s just really too early to tell what’s going on and what they’re going to do with character development.
For me, it’s not that I’m worried–I’m bored and disappointed.
And what are these three eps then–throwaways? Why bother to watch? Why not just tune in during sweeps?
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - “Angel” creator Joss Whedon says he’d like to bring Charisma Carpenter back to the show sometime this season, even if it’s just to achieve an end to her character’s story.
Carpenter left the show at the end of last season, with her character, Cordelia Chase, lying in a coma after giving birth to an evil being that nearly took over the world. Cordy has remained off-screen and has barely been mentioned in the opening episodes of this season.
Nonetheless, “We definitely want to see Charisma again,” Whedon tells the AP. “She has an important part to play this season to bring some closure.” If things work out, there’s a chance viewers could see Cordelia around the midway point of the season.
So… any bets on who Spike is going to fall in love with? Looks like they may be laying the groundwork for a Fred Fixation… and he has to be in love with SOMEone… being in love is crucial to who Spike is. He’s just not himself unless he’s in love with somebody.
