(no subject)

[frelling_tralk]

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]

Comments

[penderies.livejournal.com]

I never got as attached to Angel as I did to Buffy. I loved season one, parts of two, three, four and five, but it's not a show I can watch again and again like Buffy. I don't have strong attachments to anyone save Wesley, Spike, Fred and Cordelia. I still adore it, but it just never touched me the way Buffy did.

[sabotabby]

Which is the one where Wes talks to the hamburger? That was probably my favourite moment on any Whedon show, ever.

Anyway, I think the problem with Cordelia is that Joss knows a set number of arcs and personality types for women. She started off as The Bitch (which was a fantastic role, IMO) and once her character arc had surpassed that, he couldn't think of anywhere for her to go. So she got shoehorned into the Ascended/Mother/Saint, which is fairly universally uninteresting as a character trope and didn't fit anything we knew about her, and she somehow went from one of the best characters in the 'verse to someone whose final death didn't matter to me whatsoever.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I feel the same way, I rarely talk about Angel. It was a good show, but I never got all that attached to any of the main characters, I was especially indifferent to Angel's character which didn't really help with my emotional investment! Cordelia was my favourite of the Ats regulars, but then obviously her character was lost during season 3

I think that I was most drawn in to the villainous characters on Ats actually, Lilah was always fun

[verdande-mi.livejournal.com]

I liked Angel more than Buffy (I do not think I have seen all of Buffy). I was never fanish (before my fandom days) or that into this show, but I truly enjoyed it and I am doing a re-watch at the moment, well it's been some time again since my last episode, I should get on that :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Heh that was Loyalty from season 3. There were definitely some really strong episodes that year, Lullaby is another that could have arguably been included in the top ten, but it also always seemed like a very uneven season to me. It was great when it was hitting the high points of the arc, but then you'd get weird filler like Dad, Provider, Couplet, Double Or Nothing etc etc in between those episodes

And hmm maybe. I mean I'm speculating about if BTS drama had that much of an effect on some of the choices made in season 3, just because the way they pushed her as a Saint that had hit the end of the road was awfully rushed towards the end of the season (lol remember when she ~purged~ Conner of the hate in his heart), but there was also the fact that shoehorning her in as Angel's love interest seemed to cause quite a drastic change to her character even before that? She was always the blunt and tactless friend who wasn't afraid to stand up to Angel and tell him what she thought of him, but once the romance was introduced it started taking a weird turn with Cordelia suddenly being ALL about Angel, none of her other relationships (like Wesley) seemed to matter to to her any more. "Angel is the only person I care about". That said some pretty weird stuff about the writers views, but then I was never a fan of the writing of the relationships on Ats

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that AtS just never really did it for me. I know it was "darker" and that should have made it a lock for me, but other than Angel (and later, Spike), I never really was invested in the rest of the characters, which made it a lot harder to stay interested. Especially since I've never been a Cordelia fan and she became central.


Gabrielle

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm the opposite in that I was way more emotionally attached to the characters on Buffy, but Angel did have its moments. Season 2 was probably the season that affected me the most, I loved all of the stuff with Darla, W&H, darker Angel, Drusilla etc. It was just a shame that, once Angel was back with the gang again, they didn't seem to know where to take the season from there, but the first half of the year had some seriously epic moments

How far along on you on your rewatch? :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way, I never cared about any of them the way that I cared about the characters on Buffy, I was the rare viewer that didn't care that much for Wesley's arc even. Intellectually I can appreciate that it was well-done, but I always found darker Wesley too cold to really be drawn in by his struggles Idk. I did like Cordelia more than you did though, but then the writing for her character ended up all over the place halfway through the series

[lynnenne]

For me the best seasons are 2 and 5. Season 5 is really where the central metaphor of the show found its feet and took hold (that adulthood is rife with selling out and compromise), and it's a crime that it was cancelled after that - especially since the ratings went UP by about 20 percent.

I do love Season 2, though, for the whole Darla and Drusilla arc.

I'm working on a meta about what made Angel groundbreaking at the time. Nearly every article I've read recently completely misses the mark.

[liliaeth]

I liked Wesley till s3, aka when he turned into broodboy jr. Before that, I loved him and his frienship with Gunn, but then they tried to make him all dark and dramatic and he started to bore me. I don't know why, usually I like storylines like that, but the way AD played it just didn't work for me.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

To me, it was clearly Season 5, because of Spike (I was always more of a fan of BtVS than of Angel) and also because of Illyria.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Honestly yeah I feel the same way, I usually love the darker and morally ambiguous characters, but for me Wesley just seemed really dour and self-righteous. It didn't help that he then gave me creepy vibes in his relationship with Fred, and how he handled his 'father's' return by putting another bullet in him when he was already dead on the ground. He was kind of intense is I guess the nice way of putting it :P

[liliaeth]

It's weird, Dean on spn keeps getting dark as well, yet, the way Jensen plays it, he never loses his humanity, his kindness. Alexis on the other hand just didn't seem to be able to make Wesley go dark, while still making him feel human and relateable.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It's interesting, I wasn't expecting season 5 to emerge as such a clear favourite but, thinking about it, it probably was the most consistently strong season? Especially the back half which just had one great episode after another, while most of the earlier seasons tended to struggle a lot more with generic filler episodes in between the great arc episodes. Season 5 had one or two crappier episodes in the first half, but it also had some really strong steaks with episodes like Lineage, Destiny, and Damage all following one another for one, or Smile Time, A Hole In The World, Shells, Underneath, and Origins as another great run

And Illyria was one of my favourites without a doubt <3

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Seasons 2 and 5 are my favs as well! I loved everything with Dru and Darla in season 2, and then season 5 really saw the show hits its stride when it came to knocking out one consistently excellent episode after another.

I look forward to reading you meta :) I agree that Ats was definitely ahead of its time, especially in how it wasn't afraid to depict its main characters as really flawed and messed-up people

[molly_may]

I haven't rewatched Angel in a really long time, and as a result I don't have any terribly strong opinions about it, but even so I was kind of baffled by all the S3 love in that article. I would take ALL of those S3 episodes off the list, replace them with "Loyalty" because it has a talking hamburger, and add in some S2 eps like "Darla" and "Reunion" and "Home" from S4.

I think Joss is on record as saying S3 is his favorite too, and I just don't get it. There's absolutely nothing about that season that stands out to me, whereas S2 has the Darla arc, and S4, while being a big mess in a lot of ways, puts together a strong/creepy string of episodes with the Jasmine arc, and S5 has a strong central metaphor and a number of enjoyable episodes. S3 I just remember as being a bunch of boring baby blahblah, mumbly Holtz (I know lots of people liked him, but I never found him interesting), and Cordelia's characterization going completely down the drain.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

RIGHT! I don't remember season 3 being popular at all, if anything I remember the message boards of the time hated a lot of what they did that year with Angel becoming a father and everything else, so I was really surprised to see it suggested that season 3 was the universal favourite season. I would keep Forgiving on that list because I really thought that episode was great, but there was soooo much terrible filler in between those arc high points. Dad, Provider, Couplet, Double Or Nothing, The Price! It didn't even start particularly strongly either.

It was definitely a season that would have really benefited from the shorter seasons on cable, even some of the arc episodes were stretched out, Darla's return for one really didn't need all three of those episodes and could have lost the middle part of that three-parter easily

[shapinglight]

Season 3 of AtS actually is my favourite season. I love the Angel/Cordy romance, baby Connor, the Darla episodes, all the stuff with Wesley, Justine and Holtz. I jumped out of my skin when Angel tried to suffocate Wesley with a pillow. Boy, that was dark.

Brilliant, brilliant season, though there are a few episodes that aren't that great, among which I'd personally include Fredless. I like Fred fine, but I don't think that's a great episode.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, on paper it felt like they were going for a real Shakespearean tragedy with Wesley, but the way it was played just made Wesley come across to me as really self-pitying. I know the show did portray him as reaching out to Angel, but I couldn't help always seeing him as really cold and wrapped up in himself, almost like he was aware of the story that he was in and saw himself as this noble man who has been tragically wronged.

For me there was just never never any real warmth to his performance, he became such an insular character. Even his relationships with Lilah and Fred were all about Wesley and what he felt he deserved, whether he could be redeemed or not

[ladyoneill.livejournal.com]

While I loved every single scene of Dark Wes/Lilah in Season 4, I didn't like the whole Cordy possession/Jasmine thing very much, so I'd have to go with Season 5 for tatted up Lindsey and Spike being around. The only season I hardly ever rewatch any of is Season 1. The rest have lots of great eps for various reasons.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I did like when the show dealt with the main arc, Loyalty, Sleep Tight, and Forgiving were incredible, but it just seemed like a really up and down season for me in between those bigger moments

Maybe it didn't help that I wasn't into the Angel/Cordelia romance, it always felt a bit forced to me tbh. I really wasn't sure what to make of Angel thinking of settling down with Cordelia, or becoming a father and juggling work with a crying infant, it was when things for dark that I really enjoyed that year the most

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Aww I think that season 1 is kind of underrated, it had its share of bad episodes, but there were some strong ones mixed up in there too! I did like the whole family vibe they had going on with Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley in the second half of that year, they seemed to lose that family feel a little bit later on IMO

[verdande-mi.livejournal.com]

I have seen up to episode 13 of season 2 and I am really looking forward to getting to Pylea and meeiting Fred again, as I connected more to that storyline rather than Darla and Dursilla and darker Angel. So here, we're opposites again :)

[bm-shipper.livejournal.com]

I am considering watching Buffy/Angel after I'm done with LOST, which can totally take a while, but I heard so many things about them and the ex girlfriend of my brother is raving on and on about it and thinks I'd love it :D

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

You should absolutely watch them, especially Buffy! :D