The Other Obligatory Thread: Buffy and Spin-offs

You Have Been Warned.

DG: re Angel on C4 — the daft 6.oo scheduling was surely more evidence of media-foax on crack, tho, no? They had to cut abt 25 minutes from the hour to make it Appropriate!

(Mind you, Futurama shows at 1.oo in the afternoon, and that's non-stop cartoon nobbing some weeks...)

Last Wednesday just totally reminded me of why I love Buffy and Angel so much. The Buffy episode was one halfway through season 5, the episode of the funeral of someone significant (I'll say no more). Though Dawn is getting a tad annoying, the final scene with her and Buffy was so moving, and so revealing of the complexities of Buffy's character (funny how she used to be so simple) that I felt like cheering if not for the fact that I was close to tears.

And after leaving Buffy feeling totally emotionally flattened, Angel was so effortlessly, consistently amusing (the one, BTW, where Harmony visits Cordelia) that I was again astonished at the sort of breadth these two shows have. I feel like these shows complete me. And bah! to those who complain about the last two seasons. There's less Faith, which is a CRIME, but the shows just seem to go onwards and upwards.

Went out for a meal w/ some Duffy loving friends last night, and they were moaning 'cos apparently the end of Season 5 was meant to be some super-duper big crossover w/Angel that had to be scrapped 'cos the two series are now owned by separate companies, or something. They were using words like 'compromised', 'letdown', 'copout' etc. etc. I ate my meal quietly, without passing comment, secretly hoping that this might be the beginning of the end...

I will brook no disagreeement on this.

but on the other hand i see that box set 6.1 is out next week. hmm. can i justify the £30??? and when will 6.2 be on the shelves????

(oh and if anyone in london has angel series 1 on video and wants to let me borrow it i'd be v grateful; i can lend angel series 2/buffy seires 4 in return...)

I loved it. Some of it made no sense (an emergency call to Cordelia to fight the demons?), but right from the Homicide-style boards, I enjoyed it hugely. Forcing Angel into karaoke was beautiful, it focussed on redemption (if Angel has an interesting aspect, that's it), the way the Tribunal appeared was terrific (fight scene was banal, though), and I started looking at Angel's relationship with the urban-guerilla demon-fighters as something not unlike the under- underworld in Andrew Vachss's novels.

I still don't like it as much as Buffy, by a long way, but it's much better than I recalled.

I don't think this is a bad thing, incidentally, but it makes for a very odd season. Then again, all seasons of Buffy are odd.

Actually it is on 3 times today because they are having the last two episodes of season 5 on FX and a rerun of one from Season 6 on UPN. I know, I know, very sad that I know all this. But I am not watching any of them, I'm far too busy today, that's all I can say in my defense.

Season 6 = a mixed bag. Some really great episodes, but many a great big pile of meh. The finale made up for a lot, imo. What will happen to Spoike and Willow the big question going into season 7.

mark s: please explain!

This season is just pure barelling plot, which is making the episodes themselves textually clunky but still pretty compelling.

Josh, you know Riley was lying about Iowa: Walsh had important plans to chain him naked to an Initiative wall for holiday testing.

I'm rewatching the whole Glory arc, which I think is fantastic.

spike's current accent was adopted as an affectation after he was bit. I think that gives angel plenty of license for his to have changed in whatever way makes tv-sense.

BTW, that ep SUCKED. Very disappointing.

Half reformed in between Buffy and his reappearance on Angel (became more of a superhero, though still an occasionally bumbling one), then under Angel's tutelage he gained confidence, brawn and an ability to think for himself. The big clincher though was when Angel went weird and fired Wesley and Cordelia, so that Wesley became head of what was formerly Angel Investigations. Which he still is, I think. Responsibility does odd things to people (look at Buffy!).

I would like to know what the principal's deal is. Is he EEEEVIL, or just a sleeper/tool of the First, or an undercover Watcher, or what?

How many other black characters have there been actually? Riley's friend? I think the original principal was black but he was a) nice, and b) killed before he could become evil.

Oh yeah and didn't Kendra end up on Dawson's Creek? That was odd.

!!!

I also like that in these newer episodes (seasons 6 and 7), the whole show just seems consumed with depressive lethargy.

They're showing Season 4 again over here...if Oz is hip to The Velvet Underground (at one point in today's episode he was inspecting Giles' record collection and geeked out- in his own catatonic way, of course- over Loaded), how come his band sounds like Nickelback? And how the hell do Eater (whose t-shirt he has worn in earlier seasons) fit in with this?

Substitute 'write about music' for 'save the world' and that's been me at some of my darker moments over the past couple of years. It's been an interesting adjustment...

I love Buffy so much that I am deeply saddened by most of Season 7 (I actually loved season 6). I don't think the writers intentionally made them out to be shadows of their former selves but rather the writers and maybe actors can't get it up anymore. Buffy is this cold cold bitch now and SMG can only act with her patented "argry arms" (tm TWOP).

Sweet!