Christ, shippers. Buffy/Angel was a show about battling demons. The fact that Joss Whedon had to spew his…
Nobody can be happy in a relationship! EVER! rule
Nearly ruined it.
I may catch hell for this, but my current ranking (so far) would be 2, 3, 1.
So far. We’ll see if you feel the same way by the end of watching Season 3.
Nah.
2, 3 versus 3, 2 is one of the friendly debates among Buffy fans. Those of us that prefer season 3 see the merits in season 2 and vice versa. It’s these crazy people that prefer season 6 that make me go :eek:
I actually agree with this assessment completely. S6 has some great episodes, but
Canon Buffy/Spike made me sick to my stomach, seriously. It was SO messed up and unhappy, it made me very uncomfortable. I felt like a voyeur, looking it at someone else’s incredibly dysfunctional relationship.
I think part of the reason is that I’m watching Season 3 with total impatience, anxious to get to Season 4 so I can start Angel.
Just a warning: Season 1 of Angel, like Season 1 of Buffy, is not all that great. It really hits its stride in Season 2, peaking with the astounding Season 4.
(Battle stations…)
IMHO, Angel S1 is far better than Buffy S1. There’s definitely some tinkering around as they figure out what they want to do with the show, but I think they went in with a clearer idea than they did with Buffy (having two characters with three years of development already makes things easier). And also higher production values, which is nice.
I actually never finished watching Angel. I stopped watching in S3 when the plotline went all crazycakes, and also I moved…somewhere, I can’t remember. So I’ve only seen a few random episodes of S4. I should remedy that sometime.
No you shouldn’t. Just go from Season 3 to season 5 and try to follow along. You’ll be happier, trust me. There are things in Season 4 that once seen cannot be un-seen, no matter how much brain bleach you use.
Season 4 was completely and utterly insane, which is what made it so awesome.
Anyway - what things from S4 should be un-seen? Spoilers, obviously.
All of it
Specifically Cordy and Conner rutting.
Although I’m willing to defer to Aesiron on this one.
I guess it was Angel S4 where I stopped watching, then, because I saw that. To my detriment. ugggghhhhhhhhh.
I agree with this, especially since I re-watched S7 on DVD’s and was surprised about how much better it was than I remembered.
S4 had the lamest Big Bad of all and Riley, who wasn’t that bad, but wasn’t that great either. However, there are a lot of great episodes and a “Lost”-type twist ending at the very end.
You should try the fifth season. It and the third season are Angel’s best, in my opinion.
As for Buffy, I think it goes 4, 6, 3, 5, 2, 7, 1
So as you can see, olives, it’s not a universal consensus that seasons 6&7 sucked. The arc of the tone of the show went basically: funny to serious to, in season 6 *seriously *serious, and a lot of people feel like the fun went out of the show at that point. But for me, that’s when the show grew up and became the greatest show in American TV history: all the fun stuff, and prepatory, teenage practice seriousness paid off. When the real serious hit, all the growth that had come before became specifically relevant, and the characters became ever more human.
So, yeah, it gets darker, but it also gets realler. Even where you are, in season 3, imagine some of those serious, grownup moments between Buffy and Angel, or with Willow, or Giles–imagine any of those moments when Buffy learns about disappointment and betrayal (and then of course forgiveness)–imagine *any *of those moments taking place in season 1. It’s an entirely different show even by the end of season 3, and grows up even more by season 6.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Realler? Are you for real? let me count the ways…
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Buffy being pulled out of heaven had some serious dramatic potential. Potential that a hack like Marti Noxon was never able to channel, so instead it felt like Buffy just needed to stop being so mopey.
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Buffy/Spike was rarely believable and the attempted rape was perhaps one of the lamest things I’ve ever seen. Both from a storytelling standpoint and the fact that it didn’t end with six itches of hickory sticking out of Spike’s chest.
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The nerds didn’t become a credible threat until Warren was hanging skinless from a tree… 20 episodes into the season.
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Speaking of the nerds, two magic bullets were two too many.
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Speaking of magic. Magic was never treated as addictive on the show before and the change was jarring. For that matter, it was never treated as addictive again. So the whole thing just smacks (pun intended!) of bad writing. I kept waiting for it to come out that Wrack was doing things to the kids who came in to get hooked on magic (because that’s the only way it makes sense), but it wasn’t to be.
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Giles’ exit was very poorly handled.
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And finally, Xander dumping Anya at the altar is completely out of character for him and the way the show tried to portray him as the bad guy in all this was mind-boggling. They could have played up the whole overwhelmed feeling of being at a wedding with demons and beasties and then the party was crashed by a man your wife-to-be tortured. But no, they played it as a regular “guy gets cold feet” thing and it sucked.
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Actually, killing off Tara sucked too because it was just one more slap in the face to fans that these people can never be happy. Which, again, threw out what made the previous seasons great.
Yeah, see, if I were gonna be rude–as rude as oh say you–I’d describe your spoiler as a big steaming bowl of I don’t get it. But instead I’ll chalk it up to different opinions. Each item on your list worked fine for me within its context, and while some of them were upsetting, they were emotionally valid and affecting.
Couple things you and I see differently:
[ul]
[li]Surface realism and emotional realism do not always run parallel. BTVS is very serious about the important things, and just has fun with the rest of it. But it gets where it’s going on the emotional journey.[/li][li]Some things (the relationship you would’ve ended differently, e.g.) are more emotionally complex than other things, and what’s simplest in a straightforward story-for-story’s sake is not always the most emotionally valid. I don’t live in a world where people don’t occasionally make huge mistakes; neither does Buffy.[/li][/ul]
I don’t want to be pulled in by the gravity of your massive ego, so this is all I’ll say on the subject. You’re calling me rude while I’m pointing out plot holes. One of us is making it personal and the other is pointing out evidence from the show.
I don’t want to ruin this thread for olives.
Missed edit: That specific relationship example you cite is my single strongest evidence for the maturity of the show. We all know people IRL who have made such fucked up decisions–and come through them, ultimately, stronger for it–but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it handles so straightforwardly in a TV series. (With the possible exception, again, of NYPD Blue, and now that I think of it BSG.)