I think I came into it with low expectations so I was pleasantly surprised. I’d heard that it was all dark, so I actually found quite a lot of humour etc etc.
I’ve seen the odd Angel episode, but never got into it - the main reason being that, on the evidence of Buffy, David what’s-his-name can’t act for toffee. Should I be converted?
I am also aware of ‘Season 8’, but I can’t get into comics since I turned 16 (no offence meant to anyone who does). However if I were to read them I would be eternally grateful for the spoilers people have provided.
Good to hear that SMG and Joss seem to have made up.
I liked some bits of season 7, but I can’t think of stand out episodes. It’s all one big mush in my mind. I’d have to go and actually look at the episode list, unlike other seasons. I did like the Spike redemption bits and the return of Giles, and the likewise redemption of Willow (especially where she turns into Warren)! I actually didn’t mind Kennedy on her own merits. I only disliked her as a reminder of the death of Tara, but Tara’s death was probably worth it for the impetus of Dark Willow. The First Evil’s ability to appear as dead people was a neat plot device for letting Joss bring back some actors we’ve missed. I thought the de-powering of the ubervamp was dumb. The first one is nigh invincible but the rest are sword fodder. I liked the slayer axe tie-in to the Fray comic.
Two things bothered me in light of season six:
Buffy starts training her potential army, which other than the occasional lame moments where they try to put some kind of conflict about her being bitchy and having to justify her role, was cool. Which makes me think the whole Buffy working at double meat palace in season six was silly. If she really wasn’t going to continue school, she should have started a self defense for women business. That would have been the optimal job for her, and with the dangers in Sunnydale she would have had plenty of customers. Not to mention the absurdity that the Watcher’s Council should be paying her and isn’t for some reason.
Season six makes a big deal out of Willow starting to use magic frivilously, which leads to her corruption. A lot of this is because she dabbles in black magic. But season 7 makes it clear that there also exists white magic. Rather than snarking on her about her use of black magic, why didn’t Giles just steer her towards proficiency in the whiter magic?
As I said in the OP I totally agree with this. However it does have a lot of stand out moments.
Yes! The Willow / Warren bit was one of those moments. Heart wrenching.
There seems to be some Kennedy hate going around, which I don’t get (she was cute!), but maybe you are right about it being a reaction to her not being Tara. Personally I was never a big Tara fan - too much of a doormat.
Absolutely, and also having Buffy herself appear as the First was a great idea.
This was one of my biggest gripes. Buffy had a really hard time killing the first one, which meant that the reveal of there being a whole bloody army of them was kind of scary. But then they drop like flies.
As I said, I don’t do comics, but this is interesting. Another of my gripes was that the ending was a bit of a deus ex machina. The axe appears from nowhere, as does the amulet that Angel brings for Spike. If they are explained more elsewhere (comics or Angel the series) that’s good, but there sudden appearance was a bit odd in the context of the series itself.
Also, whoever designed the axe itself (I mean the prop) was a moron. It looks like some sort of teenage ninja fantasy
PM, I do recommend following up with Angel. The supporting cast is excellent, no matter what you think of the lead. The Cordelia and Wesley arcs are some of the best television around. The amulet is also explained.
It took me a long time to get into Buffy because, really, I wasn’t 16 either. What could I possibly get from a show about a blonde vampire slayer in high school? Seeing odd Buffy episodes didn’t help. But a vacation at home while a TV network was showing 4 reruns a day, in order, hooked me.
David Boreanaz learned to act for Angel. Humor is more interesting than brooding–although he had plenty to brood about, too. Besides–there was Wesley. That silly Watcher from Buffy developed into an amazing character. And those very eeevil lawyers were fun to watch…
*Angel: Look, Lorne, I-I- I have things. I’m busy. I’m brooding. Lorne (sees a television on): You’re watching hockey! Angel: Yeah, but my team is losing. *
[fanwank]Well, you’re assuming that they’re all equal in strength and so on. If there’s a natural variation, wouldn’t the First have brought the very baddest Ubervamp out first, if only one could come through the portal?[/fanwank]
I’m going to guess that **Goblinboy **and jackdavinci watched it when it aired, and Petrobey Mavromihalis has been treating himself to a Buffy marathon on DVD. Am I right?
The reason I ask is that I noticed, for the first time ever in a television show, how much the pacing changes when you watch episodes back-to-back-to-back (or with shorter than a week breaks.) When it aired and each episode was a week or more away from its neighbors, I thought it was slow, ponderous, bloated and they spent way too much time speechifying about the coming of the Big Big Bad, when all I wanted was for them to get on with it and kick some ass, already! Later, when I watched it on DVD, it was breathtakingly quick-paced, and felt almost too rushed, like it was one single 22 hour episode, not a series with an arc. Weird. And not something I’ve noticed with other television shows on DVD.
You got a teenager, bub?
No, seriously, he did, eventually, when she broke down and he was able to pack her off to England to study with “The Coven”. They were white and good and love the earth and women power while she was over there (;)) and they were able to heal Willow and ultimately make her stronger yet more socially acceptable.
It was kind of like getting your heroin abusing kid into rehab and onto methadone, if we want to abuse Joss’ drug metaphor. He’s got to hit rock bottom first before the help will be of any use at all.
Wesley’s arc is incredible, but Cordelia’s is the exact opposite. I don’t really like any permutation of her character, really, but her being a Higher Power, and being the den mother before that was just absurd. I absolutely despise the evolution of her character from Season Three on.
Different strokes, and all that. Charisma’s pregnancy screwed up what was planned, but I thought they handled the rest of it quite well. Especially, as WhyNot notes, when seen back to back to back to…
I had a lot of issues with season 7, but I disagree that there were no standout episodes. Conversations with Dead People and Selfless were awesome.
I think that was a joke. If I remember correctly, he mentioned that there were rumors of the girl with the black bob being SMG, and “confirmed” them with phrasing something akin to “well of course she took time out of her life to wear a disguise for 7 seconds of screentime in my little internet movie”.
Not quite a marathon, but that’s basically correct for me. We don’t have a TV so we watch series on my laptop. I watched the first few series of Buffy when it aired. Then I got my girlfriend into it when I bought series 3 on VHS in a charity store. We hired series 4 back in the UK, and since we’ve been abroad have bought and worked through series 5-7. I want to own all of them, so we’ll probably start at the beginning soon.
I think you are on to something. We probably watched an episode a night and it seemed well paced. It did feel like more of a complete work than lots of episodes.
Wesley was another reason I have steered clear, but I’d also heard he changes considerably. Hell, it’s the only Whedon series I’ve not got into yet, I suspect it will have to be next.
Speaking of which I’d like to stay in this thread so - No spoilers for Angel please
Ta
I’ve caught the odd episode, but don’t know any of the series arcs at all. Feel free to persuade me to watch it, but don’t ruin it!
One more thing about series 7. It took me a while to warm to the Slayerettes, although I really did in the end (probably in the last episode to be fair). My one, major, early problem with them was the one with the fake cockney accent. It was worse than appalling and took both of us completely “out of it”. Look, Spike was bad enough, and it took me time to learn to love him and see through the mockney. But only one weird accent per a show please! Fortunately I think she bit the dust.
I had to look these up to remember which they were, but you’re right, both are excellent. I think stuff like Hush, The Body and Once More With Feeling stand out more though, if only because the ones you mentiuon fit into the overall story more.
Wesley’s character arc over the course of Angel is amazing. You probably won’t *like *him any better than you do right now for much of it, but it’s fascinating and inevitable and perfect.
I just want to chime in to say that Angel is a great show. Buffy may have had a more really stand out episodes, like Hush, but I thought Angel was the more consistently excellent show. I actually hate Angel when he was on Buffy. It seemed like his only role was to hang around Buffy making lovey/angsty faces before disappearing into the night, but he really comes into his own as a character on his own show. Personally, I liked the Cordelia arc. She started off as the bratty high school kid, and then she grew up. I thought it worked. And Wesley is one of TV’s greatest characters, as far as I’m concerned.
Focus on Wesley. In a fair and just world, the show would have been called *Wesley *for most of its run.
Just show her two pictures, and ask her to imagine a show which could take a man from thisto thisbelievably and so gracefully and gradually that you hardly notice it happening. *Angel *is that show.
(This is an even better picture for the “after” of Wesley, but it’s a mite spoilery; even the name of the file is a minor spoiler, if you’re a real stickler, so I’ll box it and break it): http:/ /goldendahlia.com/images/WesleyFaith.jpg
I expect she’ll just say that they gave him a leather jacket and told him not to shave for a couple of days!
I suspect you’re viewing those pics through what happened to the character, rather than just the cosmetic transformation. With only the latter to go on it doesn’t add up to much.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m intrigued. But to understand what you are saying I suspect I’ll have to watch the show. Which is as it should be.
It’s interesting when I think about it, actually. Almost all the characters annoyed me early on, including Buffy and especially Spike, but they grew on me big time. With some of them that process didn’t get to its end. Cordelia was beginning to become interesting before she left, but Angel and Wesley were just annoying. It might be fun to be wooed by them. (Although using this argument with the girlfriend is really not going to work!)
Indeed. I just recently rewatched Seasons Three, Four, and Five over the course of two weeks, and that is what turned me around on the show. That said, it actually turned me even more against Cordelia. To me, the show ran off the tracks at the end of *Forgiving *and only rights itself again at the end of Season Four.
I agree with this totally. I don’t really like Wesley as a person by the end of the series, but the character is incredibly complex, and the evolution from the prissy stuffed shirt to the sociopathic action hero is completely believable.
