frelling_tralk | (no subject)

10 episodes of Angel that show how it was more than Buffy redux”

Episodes listed are To Shanshu In L.A from season 1, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been from season 2, Fredless, Birthday, Waiting In The Wings, AND Forgiving from season 3, Soulless from season 4, and finally Smile Time, A Hole In The World, and Not Fade Away from season 5.

To me that that list is seriously failing when it comes to season 2, what about episodes like Darla and Reunion?!? Home from season 4 also deserves a mention IMO, as well as You're Welcome from season 5. Fredless is a cute episode and all, but is it really comparable to the best episodes of the series?

The writer of the article talks about season 3 clearly being the overall best season, "As with Buffy, fans of Angel argue over which is the best season. Is it the second, which properly begins the larger story and gives it scope? The fifth, which wraps up that story with some hard but inspiring lessons? Or the third, which… okay, there shouldn’t really be any contest here. It’s the third. Most of Whedon’s top-shelf writers were heavily involved in season three (including Greenwalt, Minear, Noxon, and Fury), as the plotting became more complex and sophisticated, with the characters making crucial decisions that didn’t always pan out. Most importantly, the third season properly introduces Fred, who soon becomes the clever, sunny, quirky fan favourite

I don't remember season 3 being a particular fan favourite, but then I was thinking about it and I'm not sure that Angel does have universally (well more or less) agreed "best seasons" like Buffy does? Some people really love season 4 and the heavy serialisation there, while some absolutely hate it for what it does to Cordelia's character. Some really love the darker moments of season 3 with Holtz and Wesley, but then I saw a lot of dislike for "Soap Opera elements" at the time when season 3 was first airing, the Angel/Cordelia romance, dorky Angel, and the birth of Conner were by no means universally popular. With Buffy it's generally pretty easy to point to seasons 2, 3, and 5 as the clear favourites, but every Angel season seems to get a LOT of debate between love or hate from what I've seen.

To go off on a tangent for a moment, it seems like most of the hate for season 4 is because of Cordelia's character being lost that year, but I'd argue that already started happening in season 3. The first half of season 3 was great for portraying a more mature Cordelia, but the more they pushed the Angel/Cordelia romance, the more they started writing Cordelia as a Saint and Mother figure for Conner which just didn't work IMO and rang really false. Again at the time I remember a ton of controversy at how Cordelia was being written, especially all the fan jokes on the season 3 finale when she's carried off to the Heavens with twinkly lights, so it's interesting that season 4 takes all the blame for "ruining her character". Technically season 4 was not Cordelia any more, so there's actually more of a justification for the writing of her that year, in comparison to the saintly blonde that Double Or Nothing introduced to us. I remember speculation at the time was that it was down to David Greenwalt getting too carried away with seeing Cordelia as perfect, but I'm wondering now if it was more about fast-tracking Cordelia character arc to becoming a higher being, and thus wrapping up her journey? I remember at the end of season 4 that Joss said something to that effect of having nowhere else to take Cordelia's character at that point

It seemed that Joss allowed behind the scenes drama to affect the writing for Cordelia in quite negative ways unfortunately. I've noticed that posters on

ohnotheydidnt get super-defensive if you imply that the treatment of Charisma was about anything other than Joss firing her for getting pregnant, but I would argue there were a lot of weird vibes in season 3 as well, there was definitely speculation at the time as to whether the Ascension was a way of writing Cordelia out. It's just a shame that Joss allowed whatever BTS drama there was to make its way onto the writing of the character

And this entry is starting to get really O/T, so maybe I should stop there :P But here's a poll anyway for favourite Angel season!

[Poll #2017986]

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And to defend Joss for a moment, I'm not sure how fair it is that the popular story these days is that Joss just turned around and fired Charisma out of sheer spite for getting pregnant. The story I heard back in the day was that the WB had cut the budget quite drastically for season 5, at the same time as ordering Joss to bring Spike on to the show to attract former Buffy viewers, so I guess that it seemed like the obvious solution was to not renew Charisma's contract, Joss did talk about not knowing where she would fit in the revamped version of the show at W&H after everything with Jasmine. They made a big deal at the time of assuring fans that Spike wasn't the reason that Cordelia was being let go, but let's face it, if James wasn't getting the second largest paycheck next to David then it would have been going to Charisma. Not James's fault at all, but that money had to come from somewhere, it was more likely than not a business decision and the WB prioritising getting more Buffy viewers over bringing back an actress that had been part of a very unpopular arc

I mean yeah a part of it was probably frustration at having accommodate Charisma's pregnancy, it sounds like Joss handled things very crappily in not contacting Charisma personally to tell her that they wouldn't be renewing her contract, but I do have serious doubts that it was as clear-cut as Charisma being fired for daring to fall pregnant. Nor as Charisma ever claimed that to be the case, she's talked about the tension on set with Joss that her pregnancy caused with the rewrites to the season, and then it seems like fans who already had issues with Joss's work not living up to his feminist credentials have taken that narrative and ran with it as = Joss fired an actress over her pregnancy

And to defend Joss for a moment, I'm not sure how fair it is that the popular story these days is that Joss just turned around and fired Charisma out of sheer spite for getting pregnant. […] it seems like fans who already had issues with Joss's work not living up to its feminist credentials have taken that narrative and ran with it as = Joss fired an actress over her pregnancy

LOL, I think you might even be giving fandom too much credit, because like I said above, I highly doubt that the real, root reason people have a problem with Joss is because they feel disappointed in his work not living up to its feminist credentials. Like. I highly doubt it, for a plethora of reasons. Such as the fact that I've yet to see a single person putting forward the (very valid, in and of itself) critique that the Whedonverse falls extremely short in its representation of women of color, who's noticed what an unusual and valuable presence Priya Tsetsang is on TV as a whole. Or the fact that I've yet to see a single person point out that fandom getting up in arms about the attempted rape in Seeing Red says a lot about how impervious fandom was to the dubcon in Spuffy prior to that point.

Like, I'm fairly certain that all the OUTRAGE!!! over Joss and Charisma is just a spuriously ~righteous outlet for people to vent their spleen over the story just not going the way they wanted. Which isn't to say there might not be abundant grounds to criticize Joss in his handling of the situation--I just don't know enough about what actually went down to comment--I just think fandom is, as it almost always is, full of shit, TBQH.

Heh there's probably a lot of that as well! Honestly I'm basing a lot of my assumptions on the general tone at

ohnotheydidnt where users *really* dislike Joss being praised in any way, or spoken of as any kind of feminist, and so by association they have gleefully leaped on how dirty he did Charisma Carpenter, and how that just proves what they have been saying about the failings in his work