Not a spoiler, but the episode that follows "Awakening" was directed by Sean Astin (Lord Of The Rings). It was something briefly advertised when the episode was originally broadcast.

Oh man, I get chills just thinking about that! Sessa:

Awesome. Just AWESOME.



Doc

Sessa I'm curious, what did you think of "Awakening" prior to realizing it was a fantasy? (OR anyone else's "Awakening" reminiscence, of course)

When you realized, was it a "holy shit!" moment or a "Well, that makes more sense..." moment?
I was spoiled, unfortunately, so it's hard for me to judge, but I've always thought that it would be a very different ep when watched not knowing the end. Knowing, you can see (and enjoy) all the hints and tells that seem obvious, but apparently a lot of people were fooled....

Oddly, to my mind, not one of the most rewatchable of eps, but some really brilliant writing.

Like I said I was totally fooled up until the final fight, although I did find Wes being a little to buddy buddy with everyone a little odd. It wasn't until Connor came back to help Angel that I was like, "hey, he wouldn't come back & be best buds with Angel like that" something isn't right, & then the beast not exploding, that seemed weird, &, but I thought it was a dream, I didn't think it was what it was. So yeah, it was a really good episode.

It's just tragic. It's the total fantasy of how Angel, tortured soul of the ages, wishes so badly that things could be. Every aspect of it is how he can only dream it. And every aspect couldn't be more wrong. The disappointment at being pulled back out is pretty hardcore. Great storytelling.

I knew from internet spoilers that Angelus would be returning in Season 4. Plus the WB showed the very last shot of the episode in the promos, even going so far as to say "Angelus returns". So there was never any doubt Angel would lose his soul in Awakening.

Where the episode fooled me was how and when he'd turn into Angelus. I got sucked in by what was happening that it never occured to me the whole thing was a dream. And when the big reveal happened at the end, all I could think was the gang had truly hit a low point. The sun blotted out, the Beast on the loose, Angel Investigations in turmoil, and now Angelus was back. Could things possibly get any worse?

Meanwhile on Buffy, there were a bunch of slayers-in-training, an Ubervamp, and Giles wasn't touching anyone.

Yet another reason why I think ANGEL is vastly superior in every possible way...

Yeah, Angel midseason actually made things more interesting. Buffy got severely less interesting. Buffy spun in circles while Angel was hitting a creative high point. Weird how that happens.

How is that weird?

Different writers, different series. The two shows are independent of each other.
Why can't people just accept that?

more like better writers, better characters, better series.....

They take place in the same universe and are spearheaded by the same creative person(s). It'd be like watching The Andy Griffith Show turn mediocre while Gomer Pyle soared creatively. It's just a weird idea considering they were both hatched from the same egg.

I personally think Buffy suffered when Joss scaled his attention back. The Angel team were fresh enough to keep things ramped up without his constant supervision.

Whatever. I've always been vocal about my bias against Buffy.

I can't stand that people can talk endlessly about Buffy (as a series) without mentioning ANGEL (as a series), but it almost never turns out to be the other way around.

It seems the 'spin-off' shall be forever shackled to its predessor.

Well, personally, I don't even think Buffy can be compared to Angel, the latter is just so superior in every possible way to Buffy. I think the only reason people could possibly claim Buffy to be better, is b/c it came first. Angel has actually made go back to almost hating Buffy again, yeah I loved Xander & Giles, but I still think the show sucks. Sloppy storytelling, often back acting, aimless writing with little to no direction for its characters & an overall lack of focus, I know that pisses a lot of people off here, I'm sorry.

Anyway, got one more in last night. . .

"Soulless" - A decent ep, clearly their homage to Silence of the Lambs. I'm sure I'm the only one, but I just don't find Angelus to be nearly as evil as they make him out to be, maybe its b/c Boreanaz doesn't play Angelus over the top enough, I wish he would put more into it, maybe its the fact that Boreanaz just cannot alter his voice in any way. I also didn't like how increasingly pregnant Cord was the only person able to stand up to Angelus. Wes was good as usual, I was pretty surprised with the move he made on Fred, seemed pretty awkward to do it then. The second they showed the safe it was obvious the soul would be stolen. How did the Sean Astin thing come about, was he just a fan of the show?

The reason I like Angelus is that he's not too far over the top. They're both the same character just different sides of the same coin. I actually think Boreanaz play Angelus better then Angel.

Thank you!

Finally, I find someone who sees this issue the same way I do.

I also believe that because it came first, Buffy will remain 'the best' in many people's opinions- which really makes no sense. The reason I use the analogy of "Cheers" and "Frasier" (even though I never really watched the former, I know enough about it to make this comparison) is because while one show grew out of the other, they are entirely different shows.

Regarding Sean Astin's directing-

He shadowed ANGEL co-creator David Greenwalt and Exec Tim Minear for a while during the end of season 3, because Astin was interested in directing episodic television, and was Greenwalt's friend. Greenwalt wanted him to get a feel of how things work there. Astin also observed on shows like CSI and The West Wing, but always remained impressed by what the ANGEL production could do with a fraction of the money those other shows had.

This is all based on an interview he did with the Official Buffy magazine- which, until it got its own magazine, also covered behind the scenes of ANGEL.

I need to remind myself to comment on this after you've seen the next couple of episodes.

I was disappointed that the onscreen message from Joss Whedon before the final credits rolled on the last episode of Angel season 5 was not on the dvd. Does anyone else remember this from when it originally aired?

It was something along the lines of 'thanks to all the fans who've been watching these last 5 years' or something like that.......

First-time poster, just discovered this and the Buffy thread the other day and have been spending all this time catching up to it.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the network, not Joss, who put that message in there? And didn't I read somewhere that Joss and/or some of the creative crew were kind of pissed off about it because they thought it hypocritical?

Also, I want to add my opinion that I did not like Boreanaz' performance at all in "Soulless." I've seen the episode twice now, and from the beginning of the first time I saw it, I thought it was just a hackneyed, bad Hannibal Lecter impression. My opinion only grew stronger on second viewing.

Overall, I though DB's performance in the series as a whole was exceptional -- especially remarkable considering how little acting experience he has had. I thought he was great as Angelus in Buffy S2, and I loved his performance as the pissed-off, disillusioned Angel of Angel S2. But he badly missed this time, IMO.

The 'thank you' message was indeed from the WB, and I hated seeing it.
It was too little, too late.

I recall when I taped the episode, I chose to blank that message out by rewinding the tape and putting something else over it. The WB usually does that sort of 'thanks' for its long running series final episodes- Dawson's Creek, Buffy, etc.

The WB screwed Angel over for a show they ended up not airing at all. Stupid WB. I think Fox is the only network with more stupidity by volume.

I agree 100%. One thing I thought hurt Angelus character was that we were supposed to be shocked by the things he's done and not the things he was doing. Like in s2 for instance - should I wet my bed because Angelus killed Willow's goldfish? C'mon that's lame. I get the psychological aspect of that and all, but it's still pretty blah. We didn't even really see Angelus feed on too many people. Outside of Ms. Calendar, he was pretty tamed going by buffyverse villains standards. I guess they did this because he was going to become good again and they didn't want to take him too far over the line.

My favorite anti-Angel was disgruntled Angel in s2 of Angel (whew). Boreanaz really pulled that brooding business off.

I don't agree with you here, boredsilly. As far as the goldfish, I thought it was a nice acting out of his whimsy, as Giles called it. But that's nitpicking, not worth arguing over.

But I was definitely shocked by a few of the things he was doing: The Jenny Calendar killing and then leaving her body in Giles' bed like that was pretty shocking. And the scene where he stood outside the window with a grin on his face while Willow and Buffy were taking the phone call was pure evil.

Could it be they didn't want to make him toooo evil since he is the star of the show and say, he kills 20 people, it would have been hard for him to go back to the character of Angel as a Hero and sympathize with him?

I think for a long time David B. had been wanting to play Angelus again for a while and the fans wanted him back for a time as well so they brought him back for a short time. I think it was an excuse for the reasons mentioned above and to

That's it exactly.