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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Angel Season 5 (Spoilers)

  
  

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Saint Keggers
15:10 / 26.02.04
I liked the fact they started referencing things from the Buffy demon mythos. First demons,pre-humanity ect... that was nice. And Jasmine wasnt a demon. She was the first evil. More like a force personified.
It would have been interesting if Angel and Spyke run into some of the scoobygang or at least Giles while in england.
 
 
Tamayyurt
15:36 / 26.02.04
And Jasmine wasnt a demon. She was the first evil.

Jasmine wasn't the first evil! That was The First on Buffy. You're getting your shows mixed up. Jasmine was indeed some sort of ancient and powerful demon.
 
 
Tamayyurt
15:37 / 26.02.04
Didn't mean to make the whole post bold just the quote.
 
 
cusm
19:28 / 26.02.04
Ok, that was all mighty dark, wasn't it? I mean, the characters: Wes shoots a guy in the leg just to prove a point, Gunn Kills a guy wiht a coffee pot (he even hesitated just a bit first, cause it was murder, then went ahead), and even Lorne gets all nasty with Eve. I mean, it was like a noticable turning point for everyone. So much grey morality for so long, and now they'll do whatever it takes without remorse to save one of their own. See, this is why the Senior Partners are winning this one.

But damn, nice drama with Fred freaking out as she slowly dies from the parasite within her. And I do look forward to Demon-Fred. That should be a wonderful opportunity for the actress to show what she's got.

And as for Astronauts and Cave Men, the Cave Men unless the Astronauts were trained in martial arts, as one might expect from Air Force or other military ex's. Then my bet is on skill over brawn. But if the astronauts are a bunch of scientists and school teachers, good night Gracy.
 
 
PatrickMM
23:09 / 26.02.04
It certainly won't be Joss' last now that they've been cancelled. Bet on Joss to write & direct at least the season/series finale.


I read in one of the articles on the cancellation that Jeffery Bell is slated to write the season finale, but that may very well have been before they found out the show was cancelled. I really hope Joss writes one more episode, preferably with some Buffy people in it.
 
 
PatrickMM
03:07 / 27.02.04
Here's a report that says Jeff Bell will be writing the last episode, and Whedon won't be writing any of the last five. Hopefully this is misinformed becuase I need some more Whedon before the show ends.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:32 / 27.02.04
Why? It's not like his episodes of Angel stand out more than anyone else's. In season 4 he wrote a highly amusing diversion ('Spin The Bottle') and left the meaty stuff to others, in season 3 his episode ('Waiting In The Wings') was gimmicky, full of corny gags, and hardly a highlight. Don't get me started on 'Conviction'. 'A Hole In The World' sounds like great stuff, but there's no reason why any of the other Angel writers & directors, who've produced such great stuff before, can't give us a great finale (my vote would be for Steven DeKnight to write on the basis of 'Deep Down' alone).

And people, did no-one actually pay any attention to season 4? Jasmine wasn't a demon, and she wasn't the First. She was one of the Powers That Be.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:28 / 27.02.04
'A Power that Was', as she put it. Not necessarily anything to do with the Powers That Have Been throughout Angel's run to date.

I'm a little jaded by the whole "turn the good guy evil" schtick now, too... haven't we had evil versions of every character in Angel now, apart from Wesley?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:49 / 27.02.04
As I understand it though, Jasmine claims she was the *only* Power that took an active interest in humanity's welfare - which means she's pretty much claiming responsibility for everything 'good' that's ever happened in the Whedonverse. We know she's lying though, cuz of Ghost Darla if nothing else (although heh, maybe THAT was the First)... The extent to which she's lying isn't known...
 
 
Harold Washington died for you
12:37 / 29.02.04
They forgot their history and so are doomed to repeat it.
 
 
_Boboss
11:13 / 02.03.04
xposty
in response to monbiot's stirring rhetoric in the guardian today, go here

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?ai5d0162

and save our dave!

i have. all pissery aside, the show might be more balls than most, but there's fuck all else better on, cept smallville maybe
 
 
FinderWolf
13:50 / 04.03.04
Well, golly gee, that episode kicked some serious ass.

We're going to have to say MASSIVE SPOOOOIIIILLEERRSSS for any discussion about this.

Chime in everone, them was some good eatin' last night on ANGEL.
 
 
Bear
14:25 / 04.03.04
It should be waiting for me when I get home... is it good then? Hooray
 
 
cusm
18:25 / 04.03.04
So this whole bit's really just been about giving Fred a powerup? I'm a bit disappointed. But it was mighty cool, none the less. Demon-Fred is right tasty, too.
 
 
Tamayyurt
19:02 / 04.03.04
I looooooved last night's episode. I can't really begin to discuss it cause my brain's still trying to wrap around it. I mean, damn, I was really hating on Evil Fred and then she sees her kingdom in ruins and this insanely powerful and ancient creature just... deflates. Suddenly I kinda feel bad for her.

And when I said that Wes better save Fred... I think he's going to save her by slowly piecing loose electrical threads of memory back together. It might not be totally Fred but it'll be enough.

Damn, I really need to see this again.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:11 / 05.03.04
This is the first time in my knowledge that a major TV series has had a major character die, but be replaced by another entity who now occupies the character's body. It's essentially an all-new character in Fred's body. Sort of like Data or Mr. Spock (or Worf, more specifically) slowly discovering humanity and how to live in the midst of humanity.

How heartbreaking was "...Because I look like her?" and then Wesley desperately chokes out "yes".

It's very Joss - to have evil forces start to find redemption, or least have them not so psyched (or unable to, a la Spike with the chip years back) to cause chaos and destruction and mellow out a bit. Learning to play nice with humans and maybe even do good.

It's amazing that I felt so bad for Illyria (nice Shakespeare reference, Joss) also, considering she had just killed Fred and a mere half hour before, was ready to go all apeshit on humanity. That's a testament to the strong writing and strong performances in this episode, I think.

When Wesley came in (on Gunn) with the shotgun and said "Did you have something to tell me, Gunn?" I was like HOLY SHIT!!! When Wesley stabbed Gunn, I was like HOLY SHIT!!!

Lots of great Spike moments in this ep. also. ("The big conflict is coming...you can feel it." [esp. since the series is fucking cancelled!]) And finally someone (Angel) made reference to the same thing happening with Cordy last season.

Amy Acker's performance is terrific as Illyria. 'Nuff said.

The montage at the end was a little cheesy (it's been so overdone; play sappy music while showing all the characters moping around), but the end bit with Fred driving happily off to California (or the afterlife) really got me.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:14 / 05.03.04
Oh, and one more thing: EAT IT, KNOX!!!
 
 
FinderWolf
14:21 / 05.03.04
>> UPN pass confirmed by Mutant Enemy

Comment: IGN FilmForce Exclusive: Angel Producers Confirm UPN

Decision "Too expensive," says network. March 03, 2004 - In response to a news report at SyFy Portal, sources within Mutant Enemy have confirmed to IGN FilmForce that the UPN network has passed on the option to pick up Angel. No official statement has yet been released from either Mutant Enemy or UPN but from all indications, the series will end with episode 22 of this season. Fans behind the Save Angel movement have asked fans to stop sending messages to UPN, further indicating that the future of the series is dim. Co-Executive Producer Jeffrey Bell told IGN FilmForce last weekend that any decision by UPN would be based on their financial situation. That situation has been in steady decline over the past several years, partially due to an exceptionally high license fee paid by the network to Fox for the rights to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's final seasons.
 
 
Bear
21:00 / 05.03.04
Yeah I liked that, was nice to see the total change in character and I wonder where they will go from this.... some news I just read direct from other sites -

I got this on the http://www.saveangel.org site. It was in the forums: http://www.pixsys.co.uk/angel/forum/. The topic can be found here for anyone who wants to read/see it: http://www.pixsys.co.uk/angel/forum/viewtopic.php?t=205.

Here’s what Rebecca on the saveangel.org forums had to say:

Okay, so I got this off of the City of Angel Forum. I think its not true, but I am going to post it anyway. The person who posted this, posts often, so I know it isn’t spam, I just don’t think its true. So here goes:

"My friend flukie (inside info guy) has informed me that the WB has signed Angel up for a 6th season provided that the rating increase and the pleas to keep angel alive are massing over the 2 million mark so the WB will consider Angel to be its most important asset."

Okay, seriously, I do not know how reliable this is. The guy who wrote it posts often, so I know he is not just spamming the site. Everyone at City of Angel were saying that it was a lot of crap too, but here is what he had to say in response.

"no no joke this is serious my friend know loads of stuff before most people get a wind of it and he’s about 98.6 % accurate on all Angel things."

The WB hasn’t confirmed anything on this yet. Just to let you know. So take it with a grain of salt. I’m not believing anything until it’s been confirmed. I’m not gonna get my hopes up or anything because then I will just be let down even more. Let’s hope this turns out to be true.

Not sure about that to be honest......... And also this (can't have the good without the bad )

’I’D LIKE TO COME BACK’

Gellar talks Buffy again.

March 5, 2004 -- BUFFY wants to be around to say good- bye to Angel.

Sarah Michelle Gellar who played the butt-kicking ghoul killer for years on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" says she’s open to appearing in a final episode of "Angel" if her schedule permits.

"If everything falls into place, and it feels like the right thing at the time for the right people," Gellar told SCI FI Wire, speaking openly about the issue for the first time.

"Angel" the spin-off of "Buffy" follows the adventures of a brooding, but good-natured vampire who fights to protect the world from various super-natural threats. It’s ending its five-season run this spring.

"I go back and forth on the idea, especially because ’Angel’ had such a hard time, in my opinion, always getting out from ’Buffy’s’ shadow . . . And I would hate for it to go out being about Buffy. It’ll all depend on if I’m home in time and what the ideas are."

Gellar had been approached to appear on an earlier episode of "Angel" but says that due to the death of her aunt and her hectic moviemaking schedule, she had to pass.

Reports that she wanted to distance herself from the Buffy character were untrue, she says.

"They had asked me to do ’Angel,’ and it was a very bad time in my personal life," Gellar says.
 
 
"See me for what I am, OK?"
21:24 / 09.03.04
The cancellation of 'Angel' is a serious blow, 'cos it really is my favourite piece of TV. I also love (and I mean love) 'The Sopranos', 'Six Feet Under', 'ER', 'Scrubs' and 'The West Wing', but for my money, nothing has been so consistently brilliant for so long as 'Angel'. (Okay, 'The Sopranos' has. They tie for first.)

Someone...I can't remember who, said something on the thread about most hardcore 'Angel' fans being those who thought it rocked from halfway through season one, and those who thought the last few seasons of 'Buffy' were piss.

I'm different here, folks.

I knew 'Angel' was THE show in the very first episode, and I have it pinned down to the exact moment: Angel reaches the parking garage in Tina's building in full action hero mode. He sees his car, jumps into it and tries to start it...and it's the wrong car. It was that very moment.

And as for 'Buffy', I think that season six has been unfairly judged. I think that in the context of the series, it stands up excellently. It's dark, deeply disturbing, and shows all of our beloved characters very differently - and people don't like it because they liked the fact that they knew the characters. Buffy changed COMPLETELY in season six, and it scared the hell out of people. Season seven was crap. The first half was really good and promising, and then...I don't know. Did ME get bored? Did they all go to sleep for six months? Cos the last 10 episodes were ALL THE SAME. They even parodied this in "Storyteller", obviously mistaking acknowledgement of the problem for solving it. And by "Chosen", they had changed the Big Bad so it was unrecognisable.

Remember "Conversations with Dead People"? Remember The First's boasting to poor tortured Willow? "I'm done with the mortal coil..." How and why did that become "I'm gonna raise an army of Orcs, take over Sunnydale and BECOME CORPOREAL?" What was the bloody point?

'Angel' did it better.
 
 
"See me for what I am, OK?"
21:34 / 09.03.04
Ahem...last post got a little ranty. Sorry.

Anyway: 'A Hole In The World' and 'Shells'.

First up, the astronaut/caveman conversation is a Mutant Enemy in-joke. One of the season four 'Angel' script meetings turned into an hour-long argument about this very issue, complete with anger and shouting. I'm guessing that Joss was directly quoting...

As for the episodes themselves, about a quarter of the way into "Shells", it hit me what was happening. It's actually a really really obvious step for the show if you think about it. They've got possession by Bad Guy demons (Angel and Spike themselves); they've done possession by the so-called Good Guys (Jasmine, who despite her dubious means, had justifiable goals), so what's left?

The answer: possession by something that predates ideas of Good and Evil, something that has absolutely no idea what existence is all about, something that has to learn how to be. There are obvious parallels with Angel's journey here, as well as the main theme of season five - learning to cope with a complete change of situation. Illyria is this on a macroscopic scale.

Also, the 'Angel' mythology was creeping back into "Shells":

Illyria: "The Wolf, Ram and Hart? In my time they were barely above the level of the vampires!"

This ties into the Pylea plot in season two, where the Covenant of Trombli's holy books were the triptych of "Wolf, Ram and Hart". Given what little I know of the last six episodes of the season, I believe that this is building to something. I just don't want to put out spoilers here, just in case.
 
 
cusm
18:26 / 13.03.04
Ya, Fred kicking the senior partner's asses!

One can hope

I do love that its Wesley that's teaching the Lovecraftian Horror about human morality, having slipped about as far to the dark side of it as one can go while still fighting the Good Fight.
 
 
Tamayyurt
12:50 / 15.03.04
Is Angel new this week or are we to look forward to a long string of reruns this month? I didn't see last weeks episode (rerun) so I don't know what they mentioned for this week.
 
 
"See me for what I am, OK?"
14:42 / 16.03.04
Next new episode is mid-April...the 13th I think (yeah, great, the show comes back at the start of my University finals...)
 
 
FinderWolf
15:26 / 16.03.04
We're not getting Angel reruns, we're getting double the Smallville reruns the last two Wed. nights, at least. I think it'll be this way for a while, so no new Angel reruns til the next new episode.
 
 
"See me for what I am, OK?"
18:52 / 16.03.04
Well that's dodgy, since the latest on cancellation is that the WB will be keeping an eye on both new to air eps and reruns for signs of viewing figure improvement.
 
 
FinderWolf
14:35 / 17.03.04
from cinescape.com:

I'm not real clear what he means by taking the pressure off Angel's crew. Meaning he feels like now the lighting and sound and production people won't be so stressed out anymore, instead they'll have no jobs and so they'll be stressing about finding new steady work as opposed to the day-to-day pressures of the set? I know Boreanaz doesn't mean it this way, his statements just come off a bit odd-sounding here. Or does he mean it means he doesn't feel the pressure of being the lead in a major network show anymore?

-------
Giving his first interview since the cancellation of his series ANGEL was announced, star David Boreanaz told the Nine MSN website that he's taking the axing of his show with a smile. Boreanaz told the site that his newfound freedom from network television has removed any of the pressure he may have felt for ANGEL's crew. "As heavy as it may be or as light as it may be, it's not a negative," the dark-haired actor told Nine MSN. "It's a good thing!"

The biggest negative that Boreanaz commented on was the loss of ANGEL for its passionate fanbase. "I felt bad for the fans," he explains. "When the producers took the show and re-tooled it in a way that took it in a different direction, it should have been the responsibility of the network to put a keen interest into it during that time. So I don’t think they handled it in the classiest way. And the fans are the people the network really screwed over."

------
 
 
FinderWolf
14:42 / 17.03.04
This interview expands more on this and makes it clear that Boreanaz isn't being weird, he just means being the lead on the show for 5 years is a lot of pressure and he'll be glad to be free of that pressure, plus free to have more time with his wife and son. Sounds good to me.

TV week interview
 
 
FinderWolf
19:00 / 22.03.04
The campaign to save Angel made CNN!

link
 
 
FinderWolf
18:16 / 23.03.04
David B. says it's over.

from TV Guide online: (a gossip column by Kristy something)

-----------------------

From beebee: Got any good news about Angel?

Oh, how I wish I did. I haven't heard any promising rumblings from the networks. And I ran into David Boreanaz the other night at a charity event at the Beverly Hilton (the Genesis Awards presented by the Humane Society), and he's, well, he's accepting that it's time to move on...

From angllverhe21: What did David say?!

Simmer down now, pup! He was a doll, actually. He was there with wife Jaime Bergman. He's extremely sympathetic for us fans, but truth be told, I haven't seen him looking so happy and rested since the show began. Sleep becomes him! Anyway, here's what he said about the cancellation:

"It's a bittersweet kind of thing. I feel bad for the fans because they have been so supportive throughout the years of the show and characters. But it's a real interesting time for me right now, and I'm really looking forward to new challenges. It's a new transition for me. We're in a really good place, so I feel happy that the show is coming full circle, but I do feel for the fans. The fans are so great. They've been so great to us. But it's time to start a whole new journey."

Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to chat (it was a charity event, and he was being whisked away), but he did let on what's next for him. "You know," he said with a big grin, "right now, Jaime and I are going to take off to a beach. We are going to take a nap--a long nap [Looks at Jaime. Starts chuckling.] And not worry about the alarm clock waking us up."

From smartassblond16: Is Sarah Michelle Gellar coming on Angel?

We asked her precisely that at the end of an interview for Scooby-Doo 2 over the weekend, and she literally said, "I don't know" and got up and moved to the next outlet. Humph. Clearly, she's not at liberty to talk about it--which I'm guessing means she's in.

--------------------------
 
 
Tom Coates
14:42 / 24.03.04
Gellar's reaction to all this is kind of interesting and a bit depressing. I know she's kind of past Buffy and stuff now but I get the feeling that she's being pressured to come back and do this last piece of Angel and that she doesn't really want to do it, but that she feels she ought to because otherwise she'll piss off more of the fans. Maybe I'm just projecting.
 
 
PatrickMM
00:52 / 25.03.04
Tom, I see that as well. In theory, her returning should be for fun, and to just have a chance to relive old times, and the character. Instead, it's become almost an obligation, and if she doesn't return, it will be perceived as a slighting of the fans. Basically, rather than her returning being a positive, it's almost become expected, and as a result, if she doesn't appear, it would be even more of a negative.

That said, I really hope she appears. It's neccessary to bring both Spike and Angel's story to a logical close.
 
 
Tamayyurt
01:34 / 25.03.04
Tom, I see that as well. In theory, her returning should be for fun, and to just have a chance to relive old times, and the character.

Yeah, but can you blame her? She's only been away from the character for a year. Maybe if Angel would've been cancelled after season six or seven she'd be ready to relive those old times... but right now those times aren't that old so there's no nostalgia yet.

Basically, I'd like to see her but not if she's going to be all half assed about it and take away precious screen time from the Angel cast.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:54 / 25.03.04
Apart from anything else, Buffy hasn't really been a part of Angel's life for a long time. She's one aspect of his long-running rivalry with Spike, but not necessarily the most important one. I doubt fans of Angel the show itself are that bothered about seeing her again - I know I'm not...
 
 
Tamayyurt
14:19 / 28.03.04
Buffy's not going to be in Angel's season final... maybe.
 
  

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