| |
|
Runce: It was Cordelia's visions that prompted them to give Angel his moment of happiness. The beast was just window dressing to make the team desperate enough. She's been manipulating things the whole season, which is actually a pretty simple arc now that it's been revealed. We just don't fully know why yet (in the UK, at least).
Yes, I understand all that. I appreciate that it's the beast-master's show. But what I don't appreciate is why the writers went about the whole thing in such a convoluted fashion. Just seemed a really silly, overcomplicated way of bringing about the conditions Cordy desired. I don't think that's an unfair criticism.
As for inelegant, convoluted bollocks: Spike's given a chip. Spike falls in love with Buffy, who is now he can hurt now that she's back from the dead (ie: chip doesn't work in this situation). Spike undergoes a very vague ritual in order to get his soul back (as if having a soul means that you're a good person, a useless distinction that Angel did away with ages ago). Spike goes mad when he gets his soul. He also has a hypnotic trigger placed in his psyche to make him kill people, which apparently he can do now regardless of the chip. Spike's chip starts malfunctioning, he gets the chip removed. Trigger's still there, though. Exactly when are they going to decide what to do with this character?
The Spike thing: well, the chip stuff's been going on for three and a bit seasons - you'd expect it to be a little convoluted. But, like you're so keen to point out above re the Beast business, there's a simple current underlying all this stuff. The chip was intended as a device to entrench Spike more deeply in the show and the Scoobie gang; what follows is a slow, incremental progression towards total involvement. And post-chip Spike shares a lot in common with early Angel. Angel lost it too, remember? Spike and Angel's goodness is borne of guilt - he still has to decide what kind of man he is, and that's what this season's about. That's why there's still some confusion. He has to make a decision. In hindsight, perhaps the writing team have fillyfallied about for too long, but, for me at least (and I think for a lot of viewers), the thing always felt like an organic process.
The destruction of Wolfram and Hart?
-
-
-
-
-
SPOILERS
-
-
-
-
-
-
Puh-lease. It's already been shown that their influence extends over several dimensions, and that employee contracts extend beyond death. Angel story arcs work via misdirection, this is another red herring. We'll be seeing them again.
Fair enough. You have to be right about this one or David Fury's a right crap bastard. Yeah, I probably spoke too soon.
Angel is more complex than Buffy, it's true. Buffy borrows its narrative structure from computer games: a few puzzles, a character switches sides in what passes for a plot twist, the goody finds the right weapon to kill the end of level boss in the nick of time. Interspersed with monster of the week epiodes which are like the X-Files with postmodern jokes. Angel has no real big bad each season, it instead opts for an overall arc across the whole series.
Whilst I don't deny any of the above, I really think you're making a straw man out of the show. Yes, Buffy does opt for a simpler story structure, but I think that's one of its strengths. The story always comes second to the characters and their interactions and there's PLENTY of meaty stuff there. And it's far from 'simple'. Angel and Buffy are full of fantastically polymorphous individuals The emotional shape-changing is more than just plot-twist stuff, it's an integral part of what both shows are all about: embracing the other, indulging your opposite, redemption…..sex. Both shows are choca with wonderfully twisted couplings and both, regardless of any apparent 'good' vs 'evil' narratives, historically and subtextually inhabit moral/sexual grey areas. Oh, and as for the X-Files comparisons....whatever. Sure, you could compare the surface narrative structure to a gazillion different series/films/etc spewn out by Hollywood over the years, but that's not what I'm interested in.
Subtexts include redemption and overcoming one's past; loyalty, friendship, family; moral relativism (it rarely opts for the easy 'good vs evil,' as events later this season will show); predestination vs free will; the motivations of the gods...
Okay, you're right, I don't dispute that these things are there, but the first four are present in Buffy also and as for the fifth... that’s kind of dealt with above. While Buffy ostensibly appears to be fighting for the right and good, the subtext and the ongoing series' lack of closure continually complicates and recomplicates the character's moral postions. The last two, while they're all when and good and groovy, are probably a bit too abstract and conceptual for the Buffyverse. The series is primarily concerned with relationships and individuals. It's altogether too earthy for that kind of stuff. I don't want Buffy to start pondering whether or not God plays dice. I prefer the Buffy's constant digs at heirarchy and patriarchy to Angel's BIG questions. This is just a taste thing - it doesn't make one deeper or better than the other. It depends where your interests lie.
It's universe is broader in scope, opening up the battlefield across dimensions, throwing in bits and pieces of real world mythology (a few names, techniques, images and motifs amongst the usual made-up stuff). It has better effects and better fight scenes. It's better directed. It's better paced (Season Three had at least three episodes that could have made Buffy season finales). In fact there is no department in which it doesn't outstrip Buffy, IMHO.
Again, most of the above's just a taste thing. I don't want extra dimensions and stuff (TBH, I find tat business a bit too Star Trek-y) I like Sunnydale. I like the way it's completely knowable and controllable. It feels more solid to me. As for pacing...well, see, that's the thing I find so messy about Angel and that's my real beef with it. I like the strong, simple structure of the Buffy plotlines. I like the way it obeys and fucks around with its rules. And, generally, it's pretty fast. Angel, for me, is all over the place. But I'm aware that this might have something to do with being slightly more unfamiliar with the show - have to get back to you on that one....
It's OK to prefer the parent show, Runce. Just make a decent case for your dislike of its faster, deeper, angrier, funnier, darker child.
I don't dislike Angel - I just like shooting my mouth off. It bugs me sometimes, but I still think it's one of the better shows on telly. Faster? You have to make a case for that one - I don't see it. The last Angel episode on Sky reeeeally dragged (and as for the Beast-master's fucking 'voice': urrgh! Sheeeit! And stop with the bloody awful soliloquies De Knight). Funnier? Okay, again that's just a matter of opinion, but I think one of thing's that makes Buffy work so well IS the humour and the whimsical dialogue. And I can't bear 'Whacky Angel'. There's something so….I don't know…'boy's own' about Angel. It's got skill fight scenes! Again with the neck stabbing! It's so beardy! I actually find its core pretty humorless, TBH. Angrier and Darker? Yes, if you need your darkness spoonfed to you. It's shot in a dark room, someone's just been stabbed in the neck and isn't Angel tormented? Whatever. I will always find the Buffy's horror schtick - the Lynchian tension between white-picket fence lifestyles and what-lies-beneath much nastier. Y'know, the blonde cheerleader chick practically breastfeeding a vampire his blood in her cosy all-american bedroom (from the hostage ep a few weeks back). Or First Evil Chloe joking about how she and the real Chloe stayed up all night for a girly chat resulting in the child's suicide. That stuff's far more deviant (and possibly complex) than any of the really obvious, shrink-wrapped horror Angel throws at me.
In the end, there's somthing just a little bit too...boy's own-y about Angel for me to be really into it. It's got skill fights! It's dark! It's beardy! |
|
|
