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Last week I finished watching Angel, the spin off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Overall I didn’t like the series nearly as much as Buffy. It was darker, and had more action. These are traits that made Star Trek Deep Space Nine such a nice change from Star Trek the Next Generation, but they did not work positively for Angel in my mind. Missing from Angel was the whit and humor present in Buffy.

Spoilers Follow
I’d been told that seasons 4 and 5 of angel (the final two) were the best. I completely disagree. The best season of Angel was season 2, especially the story arch at the end in the alternate, daemon dimension. In season 3 the show seemingly jumped the shark because Angel had a son and he grew up overnight, that was nothing. In season 4 they had Cordelia sleep with him, having held him in diapers a mere handful of episodes beforehand. They continued to burn up the capitol in Cordelia’s character throughout the rest of season 4, never actually explaining how everything was happening. They eventually claimed that everything that happened since season 1 was a setup for the evil that occurred in season 4. That is hogwash and I don’t buy it, the writers were just being lazy. Season five was just plain awful, they were constantly looking over their own shoulders and the finale was crap; they cut to credits right before the biggest battle that ever took place in the Buffyverse.

Angle did have some saving grave due to the fact that it had many surprising guest stars. Of course, Buffy, Willow, Spike, Faith, and Andrew? made appearances from time to time on the show. He’res my thoughts on some of the others:

• Josh Holloway – The first vampire killed by Angel, Josh is better known as Sawyer from Lost.
• Daniel Dae Kim – Also from lost, Jin, had a 12 episode stint as a lawyer for the evil lawfirm wolfram & heart before being turned into a zombie.
• Adam Baldwin – Known as Jayne from Firefly, Showed up for 5 episodes at the end as strong-ass bad guy. He delivered what I consider to be the best line in the whole show. Angel sets him up, “people who don’t care about anything will never understand the people who do.” Marcus Hamilton responds, “Yeah, but we won’t care.” It is so straight out of firefly’s script, it was perfect. Also, it is in the middle of a fight sequence.
• Gina Torres – Zoe, also from Firefly was the bad guy from the awful season four.
• Sarah Thompson – Hasn’t been in anything of note since Angel, but before she was in the craptacular movie Cruel Intentions 2. But she totally wins the the hotly contested prize as the hottest girl in the show. Runners up include Alexa Davalos, who’s x-men’s rogue like character had no business being in the show at all and Stephanie Romanov, who’s character was a well rounded villain who died at the right time, before joining the good fight.
• Amy Acker – Also a runner up on the hottest list, she’s slated to be in Dollhouse, the new Joss show everyone is salivating over. Of course, being in 70/111 episodes and the main title credits hardly counts as being a guest star so I’ll end the list here.

Anyways, now I have to choose my next show. I’m accepting input, the choices are:

• Dead Like Me
• Doctor Who (the new stuff)
• Heroes
• Star Trek: Voyager
• Xena: Warrior Princess
• 3rd Rock from the Sun
• Battlestar Galactica
• The West Wing

After about six months I’ve finally fished all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am not saying that with exasperation, more pride. There is a big fat check mark next to that spot on the pop culture checklist for me now. I’m already using my Buffy fanship it to solidify two friendships! I also understand why it is such an enduring show. It has likable characters and an upbeat humor about it while also not lacking in the suspense (as Anya would say). It is not dark like a horror movie, which would surely have been the death of it.

As a postmortem I must admit that my favorite character was Anya, the former vengeance daemon who dated Zander. She was crude, direct, vengeful, greedy, and had an irrational fear of bunnies which they kept with until the end. I don’t think that I would find a real person with these qualities very enjoyable, but she was so much fun in the show. Willow maybe a close second. I much appreciate her story of a quiet girl really coming into her own, but that story was weakened significantly by the doubts she developed in the last season. So much for the strong Willow, back to the cowardly weak one from before it seemed.

I think that I will give Angel a try next. I wasn’t ever a huge fan of the show, but if I’m ever going to watch it, now is the time. Before, I leave the buffyverse behind for one of The West Wing, Dr. Who, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek Voyager, or Xena, which are all somewhere on my to watch list.

I am completely spell bound by the story that ends the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I still have two episodes left, yet I’ve watch the last 3 unable or unwilling to take my attention away. The plots have converged wonderfully, even the remnants of the awful fourth season have found a way to do their part. They have shown that they are willing to go beyond the killing of the Star Trek red shirt analogs; they are willing to go beyond the episodic and harm long time characters. This is normally, not something I like, but it being done so well. It is successfully adding to the suspense.

I was not disappointed. It is so surprising to see a show have its best plot after it has previously gone down hill. Television quality is rarely bimodal.
And now for some details that make things so great. First, the best thing is that the only mention of Riley is in passing when detailing the litany of bad things that have occurred. This is how it should be, his one and a half season stint should have only lasted one episode. Spike’s transformation to trusted ally is complete. Buffy has been amazing at returning old characters back to the show in new roles, and this is possibly the best one yet. Although, I do love Anya, so. This above all else is what makes the show so solid, it feels like a real, whole world. Willow’s powers have grown so much; it is exciting to see what she can do. The addition of Buffy’s sister at the start of the season, what seemed like a jump the shark (although i hear the term is Nuking the fridge now) was later explained in a less than satisfactory manner, but has become so central that it must have been done. Best of all, there was actually an episode that setup the possibility for that kind of thing to happen. And, there was a episode before that one, on which it stood. Let know one say that they didn’t build their basis up well. Best of all, Buffy and the scooby gang might just loose this time! I’m hooked, I’m off to watch the rest of the season.

I’m back to my usual habit of spending all summer watching all of a particular TV show in order. Actually, it is not really just a summertime thing. I started it the summer I lived alone in Columbus for an internship and I always had a show I was watching all of until I finished How I Met Your Mother, in February. I didn’t pick up another show after that. I guess I actually had things going on for the last five months and didn’t need a show.

Anyways, I recently started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I tired to watch all of it with a girl in college, but we got through about 2 episodes before that fell through. This time I’ve managed to finish off nearly 34 episodes in two and a half weeks. There are some problems with blogging about a show that went off the air 5 years ago. Mostly that anything interesting, like cameos by people who went on to do other things are well documented on imdb and pretty much anyone else who might care about the major plot points already knows them. With that in mind there are still some things that surprised me.

I’ve seen the show before, enough to know that I’m going to most readily identify with Willow. That is at least until she comes into her own in the latter seasons. What surprised me more was how I identified with Jiles, the library/watcher and the relationship story line with another teacher, Jenny Calendar. In fact, I was sort of surprised to see that kind of thing at all. It is somewhat unorthodox for a parental figure in a teen drama to have such an important relationship so early in the show. But they did it well, and made it much more important that it seemed; a hallmark of good story telling.

Although, I know know why I was unaware of the story line. *Spoiler Alert* She dies in episode 217, the first real character that they kill, who stays dead at least. I generally hate shows that kill of real characters. I suppose that is because I like character development driven shows, and it seems silly to waste the capital built into an already beloved character. But one goes into a show like this with an open mind.