Nick Martin

"Kissing Toast"...or Kakistos as it's supposed to be called.


I'm glad Sessa likes the Pylea arc. Not enough fans of it.

Nick Martin

As for Lindsey's singing- the actor, Christian Kane has his own band.

The song he performed was written by ANGEL co-creator David Greenwalt, and appears in its complete form on the ANGEL soundtrack album.

Slayer2005

Me too.

Everyone I know LOVES the Pylea arc though (one my favorite characters comes from this arc). It really sets everything up for the future.

tf50515

I've always enjoyed the Pylea arc, When I introduced one of my roommates to the show and he saw these episodes he said he really enjoyed the arc too. I think the reason I liked it so much was because how different in tone and look (Gotta love the locations and sets they used) it was from most of the season.

Zee

I love that you love Pylea! And that we can finally talk about Lorne! He really is an incredible character. I think the reason that a lot of people don't like the Pylea arc is that it "strays from the main storyline too much" or that there's no real "big bad" involved. However, those three episodes permanently change the shape of Angel's universe...you'll see what I mean. Without Pylea...well, so many things would just never happen.

Sessa, can't wait to hear what you think of the finale and Season 2 overall...and prepare yourself, you're about to get into the really heavy duty stuff.

Sessa17

Season 2 is a wrap. . .

"There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb" - As I predicted Lorne is not dead. Like I said before, this was pretty obvious b/c he was such a huge part of this season, I just couldn't buy that they would kill him like that, plus it was just way too out of character for Angel/Buffy as a whole. These shows would never kill such a likeable character in such a gruesome way. But this is not a complaint, Lorne is great & I'm glad he isn't dead. I'm really glad this season wrapped up with this "Army of Darkness"-like adventure. Yeah, it is a little out of the blue, but I thought it was a lot of fun. Cord becoming a princess & in some nice outfits, Angel finding a girl that reminds me a lot of River from Firefly only cuter & I really like how Wes & Gunn keep getting paired togther & in a way becoming the two closest friends on the show. I thought the ending was a little week, aside from Fred coming over it doesn't really set anything up for next season & Angel is at its best when you kind of forget that the show was ever a Buffy spin-off, so Willow at the end didn't really thrill me. The season has been mostly one long arc, & then a cool & very different 3 part adventure, so Willow popping up at the end was a bit of a downer, I was expecting them to walk in & find the place totally changed & under W&H's control.

Gil Jawetz

Don't forget, Willow popping up would have aired immediately after Buffy died at the end of S5, so it would have had a different impact. Plus, it's supposed to be a "bring you back to earth" moment after the fun they're having talking about Pylea.

Speaking of which, I'm also glad you dig Pylea. It's a great twist that shows the show can really think on its feet and move from story to story with great ease. A skill that would come in handy in future seasons. You also got to meet one of the show's weirdest characters: The Gruselog (or whatever he's called). Good stuff.

Loafer

Lorne is by far my favorite "Angel"-created character.

Back when these were airing, I found myself far more relieved that Lorne was alive than I was saddened by Buffy's death.

So what do you think so far? How does it compare to "Buffy" for you?

Also, what did you think of Reprise/Epiphany and the end of the whole Darla arc?

I hope you keep this thread going. I may not say all that much but its great to read your thoughts.

lisadoris

I'm glad I wasn't the only person who liked the Pylea arc. I was a little standoffish at first because Fred annoyed me but she eventually grew on me. And I have to go along with all the Lorne love. He was easily my favorite character on the show for quite some time. The rest of my Angel related questions come from S4 so carry on (I still haven't watched S5).

Gil Jawetz

Watch S5, fercryinoutloud! It's great!

tf50515

Sessa, before you start watching disc 1 of Season 3 you should know that 2 of the episodes on the disc ( "That Vision Thing" & "That Old Gang of Mine" ) are not in their correct order, they're switched, because of when they aired originally. These are the only episodes that aren't in the right order though.

Disc 1 of Season 3 should be viewed in this order:
#1 - "Heartthrob"
#2 - "That Old Gang of Mine" (#3 on DVD)
#3 - "That Vision Thing" (#2 on DVD)
#4 - "Carpe Noctem"

lisadoris

It's in the netflix queue just waiting to be shipped. Since I have to box up all my DVDs tonight I can't wait until they arrive so I'll have something to watch.

Sessa17

As a whole I really liked it a lot. Yeah, there were a couple of eps that could hang right up there w/ the worst of Buffy for me, but every season of every show has a stinker or two. I was warned about the Pylea arc going into it by the Buffy crowd in my store, & anyone who has a problem w/ that arc I certainly understand, it was a bit awkwardly placed at the end of the season, your watching this whole season, still smack in the middle of W&H, the climax of Lesley's story, just coming out of dark Angel & then all of the sudden it's Alice In Wonderland. But it worked for me & made me like the show even more. I thought it was a fun way to introduce a new character in Fred (I'm pretty sure she joins the show), it was subtle, she wasn't really the focus of that story & going into another dimension & bringing a new character back is more fun that the typical new character, so it ended on a good note, obviously you all know how much I dug Lindsey, that I like Lorne who was a huge part of this season, I love Darla & hope to see more of her. Gunn grew on me & I like that he & Wes kind of bonded over the season.

There were those stand alones that I didn't like at all, I was bummed that Kate didn't die & that she is still around in general, I didn't really like Angel going all dark & brooding again, he could have done everything he did without pushing his gang aside. I thought the rap up of the Darla story was weak, in fact I can't even remember as I type this how it ended & where Darla & Dru are now? Did it just end learning that Angel can now have frivilous sex? I'll remember but right now I can't, which shows that it was a little week to me & I kind of feel like there is some W&H stuff just dangling, but it may be answered. Of coarse I'm pissed if that is the last of Lindsey. And one stupid thing that bothered me during the Pylea arc (you knew there had to be something), was that in a dimension where the human race is nothing more than cattle & food, all the demons spoke perfect English yet they wrote in another language.


I definitely like it more than Buffy. Yeah, Buffy still has 2 characters that I like WAY more than anyone on Angel, & I doubt I'll like anyone on Angel more than Giles or Xander, but the more I think about it, that is really the only thing I like more about Buffy. Here is why I like Angel more.

- There is no character that annoys me & makes me want to fast foward whenever they are on screen (at least so far, although Dru did annoy the hell out of me). That really makes a difference. I like everyone on Angel, although in different degrees, but the show never drags for me if the focus is on one character more than another. Kate sucks, but it's just b/c she is a bad actress & I never bought her as a cop, she isn't annoying like Willow or Tara were for me.

- I think Angel is a much more engaging lead than Buffy. Yeah, SMG is hot, but the character of Angel is so much more likeable. With Buffy, from the first ep to the very last, she always took herself so seriously. The show nor the character would never poke fun of herself, the character of Buffy was always hung up on what everyone else thought, she is very trendy & also self-centered, yeah she sacrificed herself & risked her life for others, but I always felt like she wanted everything to revolve around her, like her problems especially her personal problems, were always more important than anyone elses. She also constantly had tons of lame lines, whicih I know was kind of her schtick, but they annoyed me. Angel like I've said, despite his good looks, he is kind of a big dork & insecure in a lot of ways, which was never shown on Buffy, so its nice watching the character grow in that direction. He is not trendy or selfish at all, his clothes & the black is just what he likes & he gets made fun of for it, & again I know Buffy would die for any of her friends, but Angel just seems more noble & caring to me for some reason. He has a burden all to himself just as large as Buffy's that isolates him from others, but Buffy until the very end used this as an excuse & was cold in a way b/c of it, whereas Angel doesn't use this as an excuse or whine about it the way Buffy did. He wants the help of his friends (despite that one story arc), & just seems more warm & caring than Buffy does as a lead to a series.

- The show isn't so preachy & obvious with the messages & heavy handed in your face metaphors. And boy I'm almost scared to post this but it doesn't feel as much like a chick show as Buffy did. Although I really wish Angel didn't have such a fruity name. It sounds like even more of a chick show than Buffy I would probably like Angel even more if he had a cooler name.

- I admit this isn't totally fair to say right now, but Angel also doesn't seem so lost for ideas & clueless w/ its characters as Buffy doesn. Now Buffy didn't really get to that point with me until S4, & this is only A2, but from what everyone season about A5, I don't think Angel will get that way. It seems like the writers have directions & stories that they want to tell w/ these characters where my single biggest complaint w/ Buffy was that the writers got to a point where they ran out of ideas & just never knew where to take the characters.

- I could be way wrong on this, but the supporting cast in Angel also feels WAY more prominent & like they get a lot more screen time. Buffy was pretty much the focus of every single episode for 7 years except for a maybe 4-5 eps off hand. again, that is just how it felt to me, I admit I may be off. Only 2 seasons into Angel & really the Pylea arc didn't revolve around him or focus on him, Cord has had some eps about her, Wes had one where he was the center, plus all the W&H stuff, I think the stories & cast from ep to ep are much more evenly dispersed & I kind of like that.

Baron Of Hell

I agree about the character screen time. On Angel everybody gets focused on throughout the seasons. But on Buffy the slayer is almost always the focus except on a few rare episodes like when Giles turns into a demon or when all the females go after Xander.



The extra development of characters on Angel makes you care about them more and gives more meaning to their existence on the show. Cordy could never be as big on Buffy as she was on Angel.

garmonbozia

I agree. I am quite surprised he does as many people predicted that he would not. I loved the Pylea arc because it was so unique.

Doughboy

I'm not a big fan of the Pylea episodes. I always hated how the Season 2 arc was just abandoned(and yes, I know the offscreen reasons why this happened). Of course, when Seasons 3 and 4 aired, suddenly I was thrilled that the writers were forced to go in a different direction in the last third of Season 2. It left open so many more possibilities that they took advantage of in the following years.

And if nothing else, the Pylea arc gave us Numfar's infamous dances of joy, honor, and shame(although we never did see this one ).

garmonbozia

the main reasons I always preferred Angel over Buffy is because Angel is a much darker and much more adult show. I also found the humor on Angel to much dryer and more wry than on Buffy, so I enjoyed it more....not that I didn't enojoy the humor on Buffy as well, but the humor on Angel was just edgier for me.

Gil Jawetz

Just thinking about all the crazy crap still to come makes my head spin!

Nick Martin

Sessa, your thoughts on why you like ANGEL more than Buffy made me like you and this thread a whole lot more. Your opinions are very close to mine. I've said before how much I don't like the Buffy character herself, and your reasons regarding how much the show focussed on her, and how she took herself too seriously, etc...It's nice to know someone gets that.

Loafer

I pretty much agree on everything (except the name thing). It was the supporting cast that made "Buffy" for me. Buffy herself, I really didn't care for either way. Until "Sanctuary" in season one of "Angel", anyway. After that I really began to dislike her. Arrogant, whiny, and dull, is how Buffy was to me by the end. It's part of the reason I dislike the last season so much; too much focus on Buffy and the potentials, nowhere near enough on the others.

With "Angel", I just get the distinct impression that while Joss was away doing "Firefly" or whatever, the team running the show were far, faaaaar more competent than Noxon and co.

I doubt this'll be a very popular opinion, but the characterization on "Angel" left "Buffy" standing, as far as I'm concerned. After the fourth and fifth seasons of Buffy, there came a point where the character development sort of grounded to a halt. Every character became just a character, if that makes sense. I don't quite know how to articulate this, but the best I can can come with is this: Xander Harris became "Xander Harris(TM)". Same for "Willow Rosenberg(TM)". It came to a point where they just seemed to stop naturally evolving and the only real character growth came in fits and spurts whenever the plot necessitated. Like Willow the sudden demi-god-junkie and Xander the Wise. "Maybe that's your power? To see things?" Where the hell did that come from? Apart from that speech to Dawn and his conversation with Buffy before Riley leaves, anyway. Looking at the first three-to-four-and-a-half-seasons, you can see that is where Xander is headed, but it just stopped somewhere along the line, and only focused on when another character had been written into a corner. As far as I'm concerned, both the characters and the actors were short-changed by a team who often didn't know where they were going or what to do next.

"Angel", by contrast, is just fantastic storytelling. Obviously I can't go into too much detail, but the time it finished, I found myself thinking that even if Minear, Bell and co. didn't know what they were doing, it sure as hell didn't show. Beautiful, sweeping character arcs and a story that was always moving forward, constantly growing richer and evolving.

By the time you're halfway through the third season, just remember that at the same time on "Buffy" Willow was going to a f&@#ing "magic dealer" and getting high and Xander was shrugging off innocent blood on his hands with an inept "whoops."

EDITED TO ADD - Despite my (numerous) criticisms of the latter years of "Buffy", the scene where Xander talks down Dark Willow was one of my favorites of the series.

Nick Martin

Thank you!!! Man, it's wonderful to know people don't like Buffy herself...Hearing about her from others, seeing clips of the show, etc, is what made me avoid that show for so long, and when she showed up (for the second time in the episode "Sanctuary"), Angel's remarks to her, telling her to go home, well that was a very high point for me. What can I say? I hate her. Bitch should have stayed dead at the end of season 5, I always say. The rest of the characters were great, though I agree (again) with how badly things went in latter seasons. The whole 'Dark Willow' thing was just pathetic.

Nick Martin

Tim Minear, Shawn Ryan, Jeffery Bell, Mere Smith, and the rest of the writers never got the recognition they deserved compared to the Buffy writers...I refused to watch that show 'Point Pleasant' because Marti Noxon was involved, and I can't say that I regret it.

All this love for ANGEL....It's wonderful.

Loafer

Heh. I had such a huge, shit-eating grin on my face in that last scene. Too bad they ruined it in the next "Buffy" episode where Angel shows up to apologise.

I don't mind the story itself, my real problem is the hamfisted way they got there. Drugs're bayd, m'kay?

Oh, and Sessa, I agree with the Drusilla hate, but for different reasons. She's so cringe-worthy it's painful to watch. The woman's got one of the worst supposed "cockney" accents I've ever heard. I swear, she's up there with Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Which is weird, because I think I read somewhere that her dad's English.

areacode212

I always hated how Angel came all the way over to Sunnydale to clear that up, while Buffy gets away with some half-assed apology. Damn it. I still liked Buffy for most of the run of her show (it was characters like Willow & Xander that I started to loathe).

Yep, a lot of fans share that view. It seemed to me like the Angel team had a clearer vision of where they wanted the show to go. Or at least their vision was better than Joss/Marti's on BtVS. As for the characters, I never, ever stopped liking Angel's gang of freaks, whereas I was sick of nearly all the Scoobies by the time Season 5 of Buffy rolled around.

They're all doing OK for themselves, though. Bell is on Alias, Ryan created The Shield, Minear is crossing his fingers for The Inside. It's nice to know that the Angel writers are all out there in TV land spreading the goodness.

JasonF

Actually her dad is Martin Landau, who was born in Brooklyn. Interestingly enough, when Juliet Landau was 10, her parents moved to England so they could film Space:1999, so from age 10 to age 18, she lived in England.