Well, sorta. Spike has legions of fangirls drooling over his emaciated body. Fangirls = ratings.

The preview for next week's ep. had me when Spike made the comment about "Angel gettin some."

While not great, I found it rather solid. I just hope they get out of the office more often as well, it's dark in there!

Spike is a huge fan favourite and if it is true that angel audience has gone up by 20% then that is great news!

Definitely due a bit to Buffy finishing

I agree the Spike ghost thing is still a bit tedious but i still love Spike

Was marking out when he started to go bad ass on the badguy especially when he transformed from nude back to clothed, very slick

I agree that with the new focus on Spike, some of the other characters have been neglected

I liked the episode.

Spike: cool
No Harmony: cool
A creepy episode: cool
The rock dude from Just Shoot Me: cool

I don't want more of the same. I want something new. And that is what this season has been delivering thus far. And with ratings up, that is a good sign.

I think it's funny that now that Buffy is off of UPN, her name can be mentioned all the time on Angel. We have heard Buffy mentioned more this season on Angel than the previous two years combined.

Buffy was also recently mentioned on the WB's Everwood last week. I guess the writers got a memo from the network that the Buffy ban was lifted.

I'm not saying that Buffy seasons 6&7 were bad. Hell, I watched every single episode so I must have enjoyed them a little. The point was that a lot of the major storylines were very flawed, [Willow's "crack" addiction] and the payoffs came after lots of tedious episodes. I like having arcs, but there is a difference between having a great arc that you can use for 22 episodes, or a 4 episode arc that the writers have stretched to 22 episodes. This is what it feels like has been happening lately with Angel. Spike should be corporeal by now. There is no reason to stretch it out this long. Find a cure, and get him on the streets.

And am I the only one feeling claustrophobic in this W&H building? I know that it is a beautiful set and the crew wants to show it off, but for God's sake can we go outside?

Also, I very much dislike Angel being in the sun so much. Yes I know it's "special" glass, but I don't like it. What's next, they go Blade on us and give him some new W&H developed sunblock so he can walk around, and have none of the deficiencies that vampires are supposed to have?

Either way these are just some things I noticed, but I will keep on watching because I want to see where they are going with this storyline.

I thought it was a pretty good episode... too bad they didn't resolve the Spike is a ghost story though.

I enjoyed the Reaper character... The actor, Simon Templeman, is the voice of Kain in the Legacy of Kain video games. I thought it was pretty cool for the head vampire of Nosgoth to appear in a vampire tv show. I shouted "Kain!" the first time he spoke in the episode.

Sweet I didn't know that was Simon (I've never seen him), but I know Kain]... I love Kain's voice. Damn, must look at the credits closely next time. I would of matched the Name & Voice, and shouted along with U

There are some videos of him and Michael Bell saying their lines in the bonus features for Soul Reaver 2. He does have a pretty distinctive voice though, heh.

Its only been four episodes and I already don't like this new direction. Thats not a good thing. Can someone please explain that pop music playing at the end of last last week's episode? When Angel and the girl were having a "moment." Then the song continue all the way until the credits. What was up with that? I was expecting an ad for a CD to be shown at the end. Where you can buy it from the WB.com. Angel has officially gotten its balls cut and is now a WB show.

Probably a lot has to do with budget cuts. I think they got less money to produce the show this year and thus, we're seeing a lot less in the way of special effects (notice all the enemies so far have been humanoid). Angel himself has only turned into a vampire, what, once?