Review of Angel

[lathany]

Yes - I'm a huge Lyndsey fan. I've never been as impressed with Angel as I was back in the early days when he was still kicking around. Consequently this is a great addition from my viewpoint. And it was nice to see some Drusilla as well.

As for the rest ? Flashbacks - nice. Spike back to normal - necessary. Return and exit of Sirk - probably a good move, he was a bit one dimensional (sarcasm only). Plus after three seasons of non-movement on the whole Shanshu thing it's nice to see season five... well, actually not moving forward either - but they're obviously thinking about it. And the whole Eve + Lyndsey vs New Wolfram and Hart + Senior Partners situation is a welcome twist.

Aside : It's taken me a whole eight episodes to consider this, but, is Eve the original Eve ? I guess if she is then it'll only be apparent at the end of the season.

Bad stuff ? Angel vs Spike. OK they let one of them win (which I wasn't expecting), but I spent most of the fight hoping that they'd finish and get back to the plot. Also Wesley's absence was a shame, but they made good use of it.

Overall, definitely a good one. I'm just hoping that there's some more Lyndsey lined up !

Comments

[triskellian]

Ahah! That means next week's is one we haven't seen yet. Hooray!

I loved the Lindsey ending, too, and I think chances are pretty high that if she's not the original Eve, she's bound to be connected somehow (a line of Eves, like the Slayers? Hmmm...). And Fanged Four Flashbacks = always good (although rarely all four of them, sadly).

So, this is basically one of those comments where I agree with most of what you said (I like Angel-Spike arguments, and there was enough banter during the fight I didn't mind that it went on forever), but I'm commenting in a showing-appreciation sort of way ;-)

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

I rather liked Sirk. It's always nice to when they find such powerful actors to play Wolfram and Hart employees. It's exactly the sort of person I'd expect to work for them!

The flashbacks are good, but I get rather distracted by Angel's Irish accent. It used to be understated and pretty good, but I do feel that it's been a bit more laboured recently.

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

It used to be understated and pretty good

(points and laughs uncontrollably)

To be sure, he's lorst his loocky charrrms... ;-)

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

Aww, it wasn't that bad at the start of Buffy. More an Irish lilt than a full-blown heavy handed attempt at an accent like it is now.

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

Although, on reflection, maybe this is just because I haven't seen the earlier episodes of Buffy in a while...

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I saw this episode. Which doesn't happen often.

I thought the ending was astonishingly dull, although possibly that's just because I have no idea who this tatooed fella is, so it was a question of "gosh, some kind of strictly-by-the-numbers secret allegiance plot" rather than "aaaaaah, so *she's* involved with *him*" or any such approximation to caring.

I liked the fight - it's a shame the fight choreographers aren't good/brave enough to avoid doing most of the combat in close-up, but I like their style. Spike should have won quicker - he missed several opportunities to hit Angel, the worst of which was when he decided to taunt him a bit when he should have kneed him in the face. And never do one kidney punch when you could do three. But aside from that the fight was satisfyingly crunchy, which is rare enough in anything from the US to be worth noting.

hoping that they'd finish and get back to the plot.

But think how much lamer the plot twist would have been if they'd wandered into the room, arm-wrestled for it like gentlemen and then found out it was Mountain Dew in the cup. Having first had a brief wonder how this obviously-valuable and long-prophesied goblet was just sitting around under a spotlight in a broken-down opera house. Shaggy dog stories don't work unless they're at least 5 minutes long, and any time spent not fighting was time they might have realised that the situation in front of them was too stupid even to be an episode plot.

The scene with Sirk was terrible: "you haven't read the prophecy, you've read a translation of the prophecy. It isn't the same thing at all. So what I'll do is, I'll read some sections out in translation and allow you to draw your own conclusions without providing any other information at all about the original text". FFS. And what exactly does "this can only be translated approximately: the fat lady will sing no more" mean? Which of those words is an approximate translation? Lady? Sing? Or if it's a translation of an idiomatic phrase and the original has nothing to do with fat ladies, then why the hell does it have anything to do with opera? Or is Angel just so proud of the fact that he made a rational deduction that he can't be arsed to wonder how come this prophecy that he's not even sure he believes in gave him just the clues he needed to find the MacGuffin?

That said, maybe this is all because Sirk knows that Angel and Spike are imbeciles, and is arrogant enough to risk them realising that he's talking bullshit solely for the sake of ridiculing them, rather than because the scriptwriters wanted to get it done and head to the pub. Maybe.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

although possibly that's just because I have no idea who this tatooed fella is

That's exactly why. I'll tell you who he is: the only person since Oz to actually manage any passable acting in the Buffyverse. And his character's personal plot wasn't bad either. He arguably singlehandedly rescued Angel from being canned 2 series ago.

and long-prophesied goblet was just sitting around under a spotlight in a broken-down opera house

Whilst I agree, I must sadly point out that genuine artifacts do tend to be found under such circumstances in the Buffyverse.

Also, I'm disappointed that you failed to remark on the several points in the fight where one of them was close enough to snatch a drink from the cup before the other could prevent it but chose to fight on instead.

Maybe.

But then again...

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

the only person since Oz to actually manage any passable acting in the Buffyverse

So the ending is good because it provides us with an excuse not to switch Angel off and watch something less crap, rather than any intrinsic properties of the scene? ;-)

one of them was close enough to snatch a drink from the cup before the other could prevent it

I did observe that, but decided to let it slide on two grounds:

1) Perhaps they were extremely concerned about the (unknown) consequences of spilling the cup before drinking. In that case, they'd each have to make sure that the other one was down and out before even touching it.

2) Each really wanted to beat the other to a messy pulp.

For instance clearly Spike could have gone for the cup instead of jumping down the steps in a menacing fashion and trying to spear Angel with his metal pole, but he might not have known that. And clearly he had his heart set on nailing Angel to the woodwork.

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

I think they established quite well that the fight wasn't so much about wanting to drink from the cup, as it was about one-upmanship.

As such, pushing the other person out of the way to make a mad dash and take a sip from the cup isn't nearly so fulfilling as beating the other nearly unconscious and then *strolling* across the floor to take a triumphant sip.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Agreed - if nothing else, Spike got there before Angel and then waited for him in the foyer.

In fact, that reminds me of the thing that annoyed me about the flashback sequence - they were really clumsily placed.

On the way there, when Angel accused Spike of stealing his car, Spike said something like "possession is nine tenths of the law. You taught me that". What he should have done was make a direct reference to what Angel later said to him the flashback: "we can take whatever we want, but we can't own anything". The reason he didn't is that we hadn't seen that flashback segment yet so it would have made no sense to the viewer. Yich.

[chrisvenus]

Also, I'm disappointed that you failed to remark on the several points in the fight where one of them was close enough to snatch a drink from the cup before the other could prevent it but chose to fight on instead.

Though in all fairness that does make some sense because half the idea of the fight was not for the goblet but because they'd wanted to kick seven shades of sh*t out of each other for about 200 years (or whatever).

[chrisvenus]

"you haven't read the prophecy, you've read a translation of the prophecy. It isn't the same thing at all. So what I'll do is, I'll read some sections out in translation and allow you to draw your own conclusions without providing any other information at all about the original text"

And here was me thinking you were going to take the piss out of the fact that he said "No, you've only read the translation which doesn't count. Luckily more of it has been translated recently"