Geez, they garnished you?
Oct. 16th, 2003 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI almost feel like I don’t have to write anything about Angel last night, since both ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anniesj and tiashome pretty much captured a lot of what I thought of the ep. ;-) The big difference for me was that it was nice to see John Billingsley (the scientist) on one of my fannish shows — I know he’s in Enterprise, but I just could never get into that show. He was my friend’s housemate when he lived here in Seattle and had a small fringe theatre company; I used to go to their house for dinner or parties and listen to him expound on the theatrical life. He never had a shortage of opinions, but he was always entertaining in how he presented them. Plus, he wasn’t a bad cook! My friend used to do the John watch — first for shows that he’d got roles on that were filmed in Seattle, and then later after he’d moved to California. I was thrilled when he showed up on a short-lived show called, I think... The Others? or something, about a group of people with paranormal abilities, and it’s been fun since then seeing him on commercials and programs. He actually sings better than that, if I remember correctly.
Standalone episodes always made me happy on Buffy and on shows like X-Files. The monster of the week ones were often a welcome relief from intense story arcs, and after two full seasons of one long story arc on Angel, having standalone eps is a nice change of pace. This was pretty weak, though, overall, but at least they’re trying. It looks like, as well, judging from the teaser for next week, that this was a chance to give two new writers a tryout, provide something less serious and intense as they lead up to a much stronger episode, which is pretty typical for television. You have to put the best part of your effort somewhere. Though, I wish that whatever is causing the bad dialog recording on the new set would get fixed now, because this terrible looping is really starting to annoy me. It wasn’t as bad as last week, but it’s still pretty bad.
As much as they seem to have been willing to tie back to the Buffyverse, it was odd that there was no mention of anyone’s previous experience with a werewolf, with Oz. It seemed like a strange omission, especially for Angel. Nonetheless, the rest of the story didn’t interest me all that much, I guess because werewolf stories have never done much for me. Though, admittedly, neither had vampire stories until the Buffyverse came along. A lot of the ground has already been covered — the discovery, the fear, etc. It might have been more interesting if they’d done more to contrast Angel’s willingness to help this woman with his unwillingness to help Spike, or his issues with W&H’s involvement in procuring the werewolf. I’ve seen people complain that Angel was distressingly casual about giving the scientist over to the evil bad guy, but Angel has a history of that sort of thing that extends far beyond locking the W&H lawyers in a room with vampires. He’s always been willing to do a bad turn to an evil opponent, or to mete out ironic justice to people. He usually tries to take the hero’s route, true, but his pattern has never been to shy away from doing something not particularly nice. So while that felt typical to me, the way he let the bad guy go wasn’t, and the way they gave a tossed-off wrap-up of “he didn’t go free” felt like it was too easily dismissed. I hope they’ll work on their denouements a little more.
One thing I did like was the way Lorne laid it on the line for Angel about his antisocial behavior. I always thought Dawn was kind of the audience’s voice, their eyes, in season 7 of Buffy, and it looks like this will end up being Lorne’s function here — for those of us who are thinking Angelcakes is not understanding what he needs to do for his team, Lorne comes out and says what we’re stewing about. Angel’s always had this inability to understand where the people closest to him are coming from; he has blinders on when it comes to the things that are currently concerning him and how his focus affects those around him. Having Lorne remind him of just where he’s going is important, plus I just liked what Lorne had to say, period. He’s right in that Angel is digging his heels in and being angry in places that aren’t productive. Gunn did not deserve to be spoken to like that; neither does anyone else, including Spike.
Which segues into the little montage at the end. As cheesy as it was, it seemed like a necessary part of the season building, and a bookend for the ep itself. So far, they’ve spent their time on more pressing situations. They haven’t had time to regroup, to be social, for a very, very long time, and because Angel is so dense about what others need from him, he didn’t understand that this social time was going to be crucial in how they adapt to their new environment. At the beginning of the ep, they’re together but apart, suspicious of each other, jealous (I love Wes being cranky about Knox), looking for ulterior motives (and poor Wes — everyone gets something cool, and he just gets... a pen!). By the end, they’re goofing with each other, spending time privately the way they needed to. Angel can backpedal all he wants about not inviting them before because he was getting used to the big penthouse pad, but if he wants the team to pull together, he can’t make it some fortress of solitude, he can’t be separate from the group, and so the interlude works to try to set a tone for future eps (even if it was cheesy).
Angel’s antipathy to Spike, though, makes no real sense to me at this point. Last week, we got into the jealousy and anger at the heart of their relationship, but by the end, there was a hint that Angel wanted to find some way to help him. Now Angel’s hostility to Spike has become generic, there seems no real reason for it, no real focus to it. Which puts Spike in the buffoon, comic-relief role, something I admit I hate. It was boring in Buffy season 4; it’s boring now. Even if the “Angel killed it with a pen,” line is funny, it made me cringe because it’s yet another put-down of stupid Spike, and that’s been done before. I’d hoped that by this time, after Chosen, the character might finally get the dignity that ME has denied him all these years, but no. I did love the old-Spike confabulating, though — just as I got all upset over the introduction and retconning of Spike and Wes (because, selfishly, I wanted to write something predicated on them not really knowing each other), the twist of him lying was fun. Though, for me, as a Spike fan, teetering dangerously close to the stupid-Spike routine once again.
I’ve never felt like ME really distinguished what the soul is supposed to mean for Spike, in contrast to what it meant for Angel, particularly since Spike now seems not to have the issues with empathy and concern that Angel does. I’m hoping that this buffoon role isn’t going to detract from exploring that issue; it’s one of the most dramatic situations they could create, but I’m worried it will be shoved aside. Maybe next week.
And that leads into the teasers. The teaser for Unleashed really pissed me off. The crap about the next new love for Angel, blah blah — where was this? Two conversations and “a look” do not love make. Maybe I’m a priss and old fashioned (well, actually, I am), but sympathy and help are not the same as big love. I found the disinformation really annoying, and it makes me wonder about next week’s teaser (STOP READING NOW if you don’t want to know). They showed a brief clip of that super-fast, jittery-head movement thing that creeps me out so much — that whole Jacob’s Ladder thing just upsets me more than any other kind of visual image. Heebie jeebies doesn’t begin to describe it. This could be potentially very, very disturbing for me, but more importantly, there’s a kind of torture I enjoy, and a kind I don’t enjoy, and that teaser made me wonder, based on the way they’ve treated Spike so far, whether it’s going to stray into the bad torture. Unnecessary, designed to humiliate or degrade, to punish for no reason, etc... I’m a little nervous, particularly with the disturbing imagery and nudity warning. Which, I confess, after this week’s bald-faced lie teaser, makes me think that it’s not a warning, but a lure. “Oh, look, Spike fans — James is naked again.” And I feel kinda sorry for James, but that’s another thing altogether. If their teasers are this dishonest (all teasers are fabrications to some degree, but both UPN’s for Buffy and these new ones for Angel are worse), I’m going to be very jittery until next week’s ep.
anniesj and tiashome pretty much captured a lot of what I thought of the ep. ;-) The big difference for me was that it was nice to see John Billingsley (the scientist) on one of my fannish shows — I know he’s in Enterprise, but I just could never get into that show. He was my friend’s housemate when he lived here in Seattle and had a small fringe theatre company; I used to go to their house for dinner or parties and listen to him expound on the theatrical life. He never had a shortage of opinions, but he was always entertaining in how he presented them. Plus, he wasn’t a bad cook! My friend used to do the John watch — first for shows that he’d got roles on that were filmed in Seattle, and then later after he’d moved to California. I was thrilled when he showed up on a short-lived show called, I think... The Others? or something, about a group of people with paranormal abilities, and it’s been fun since then seeing him on commercials and programs. He actually sings better than that, if I remember correctly. Standalone episodes always made me happy on Buffy and on shows like X-Files. The monster of the week ones were often a welcome relief from intense story arcs, and after two full seasons of one long story arc on Angel, having standalone eps is a nice change of pace. This was pretty weak, though, overall, but at least they’re trying. It looks like, as well, judging from the teaser for next week, that this was a chance to give two new writers a tryout, provide something less serious and intense as they lead up to a much stronger episode, which is pretty typical for television. You have to put the best part of your effort somewhere. Though, I wish that whatever is causing the bad dialog recording on the new set would get fixed now, because this terrible looping is really starting to annoy me. It wasn’t as bad as last week, but it’s still pretty bad.
As much as they seem to have been willing to tie back to the Buffyverse, it was odd that there was no mention of anyone’s previous experience with a werewolf, with Oz. It seemed like a strange omission, especially for Angel. Nonetheless, the rest of the story didn’t interest me all that much, I guess because werewolf stories have never done much for me. Though, admittedly, neither had vampire stories until the Buffyverse came along. A lot of the ground has already been covered — the discovery, the fear, etc. It might have been more interesting if they’d done more to contrast Angel’s willingness to help this woman with his unwillingness to help Spike, or his issues with W&H’s involvement in procuring the werewolf. I’ve seen people complain that Angel was distressingly casual about giving the scientist over to the evil bad guy, but Angel has a history of that sort of thing that extends far beyond locking the W&H lawyers in a room with vampires. He’s always been willing to do a bad turn to an evil opponent, or to mete out ironic justice to people. He usually tries to take the hero’s route, true, but his pattern has never been to shy away from doing something not particularly nice. So while that felt typical to me, the way he let the bad guy go wasn’t, and the way they gave a tossed-off wrap-up of “he didn’t go free” felt like it was too easily dismissed. I hope they’ll work on their denouements a little more.
One thing I did like was the way Lorne laid it on the line for Angel about his antisocial behavior. I always thought Dawn was kind of the audience’s voice, their eyes, in season 7 of Buffy, and it looks like this will end up being Lorne’s function here — for those of us who are thinking Angelcakes is not understanding what he needs to do for his team, Lorne comes out and says what we’re stewing about. Angel’s always had this inability to understand where the people closest to him are coming from; he has blinders on when it comes to the things that are currently concerning him and how his focus affects those around him. Having Lorne remind him of just where he’s going is important, plus I just liked what Lorne had to say, period. He’s right in that Angel is digging his heels in and being angry in places that aren’t productive. Gunn did not deserve to be spoken to like that; neither does anyone else, including Spike.
Which segues into the little montage at the end. As cheesy as it was, it seemed like a necessary part of the season building, and a bookend for the ep itself. So far, they’ve spent their time on more pressing situations. They haven’t had time to regroup, to be social, for a very, very long time, and because Angel is so dense about what others need from him, he didn’t understand that this social time was going to be crucial in how they adapt to their new environment. At the beginning of the ep, they’re together but apart, suspicious of each other, jealous (I love Wes being cranky about Knox), looking for ulterior motives (and poor Wes — everyone gets something cool, and he just gets... a pen!). By the end, they’re goofing with each other, spending time privately the way they needed to. Angel can backpedal all he wants about not inviting them before because he was getting used to the big penthouse pad, but if he wants the team to pull together, he can’t make it some fortress of solitude, he can’t be separate from the group, and so the interlude works to try to set a tone for future eps (even if it was cheesy).
Angel’s antipathy to Spike, though, makes no real sense to me at this point. Last week, we got into the jealousy and anger at the heart of their relationship, but by the end, there was a hint that Angel wanted to find some way to help him. Now Angel’s hostility to Spike has become generic, there seems no real reason for it, no real focus to it. Which puts Spike in the buffoon, comic-relief role, something I admit I hate. It was boring in Buffy season 4; it’s boring now. Even if the “Angel killed it with a pen,” line is funny, it made me cringe because it’s yet another put-down of stupid Spike, and that’s been done before. I’d hoped that by this time, after Chosen, the character might finally get the dignity that ME has denied him all these years, but no. I did love the old-Spike confabulating, though — just as I got all upset over the introduction and retconning of Spike and Wes (because, selfishly, I wanted to write something predicated on them not really knowing each other), the twist of him lying was fun. Though, for me, as a Spike fan, teetering dangerously close to the stupid-Spike routine once again.
I’ve never felt like ME really distinguished what the soul is supposed to mean for Spike, in contrast to what it meant for Angel, particularly since Spike now seems not to have the issues with empathy and concern that Angel does. I’m hoping that this buffoon role isn’t going to detract from exploring that issue; it’s one of the most dramatic situations they could create, but I’m worried it will be shoved aside. Maybe next week.
And that leads into the teasers. The teaser for Unleashed really pissed me off. The crap about the next new love for Angel, blah blah — where was this? Two conversations and “a look” do not love make. Maybe I’m a priss and old fashioned (well, actually, I am), but sympathy and help are not the same as big love. I found the disinformation really annoying, and it makes me wonder about next week’s teaser (STOP READING NOW if you don’t want to know). They showed a brief clip of that super-fast, jittery-head movement thing that creeps me out so much — that whole Jacob’s Ladder thing just upsets me more than any other kind of visual image. Heebie jeebies doesn’t begin to describe it. This could be potentially very, very disturbing for me, but more importantly, there’s a kind of torture I enjoy, and a kind I don’t enjoy, and that teaser made me wonder, based on the way they’ve treated Spike so far, whether it’s going to stray into the bad torture. Unnecessary, designed to humiliate or degrade, to punish for no reason, etc... I’m a little nervous, particularly with the disturbing imagery and nudity warning. Which, I confess, after this week’s bald-faced lie teaser, makes me think that it’s not a warning, but a lure. “Oh, look, Spike fans — James is naked again.” And I feel kinda sorry for James, but that’s another thing altogether. If their teasers are this dishonest (all teasers are fabrications to some degree, but both UPN’s for Buffy and these new ones for Angel are worse), I’m going to be very jittery until next week’s ep.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 01:23 pm (UTC)Even if the “Angel killed it with a pen,” line is funny, it made me cringe because it’s yet another put-down of stupid Spike, and that’s been done before.
I had very nearly the same reaction. I laughed at the joke, then thought "Never, ever have a joke like that again". I don't think Spike is perfect, or "better" than Angel (well, except for the part of me that does think he's better than Angel), but I do think he's earned the right to a little dignity, and to not be the butt of "stupid Spike" jokes.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 01:39 pm (UTC)What did you think of the Spike & Fred interaction? I liked how she saw through his lie and how he became more "solid" as she talked to him at the end. Poor guy needs a friend and he's always gotten along better with women.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 02:27 pm (UTC)As a person who's always had far better friendships with members of the opposite sex than with my own, I understand people like Spike, I think -- that he's not always necessarily drawn to a woman because of sexual interest, but because he seems to value women in general, understands them, is comfortable with them. That's kind of a rarity in any guy, let alone a vampire! And Spike's also very clued in to who can do what he wants best -- he's both sensitive and opportunistic, so he'd recognize right away in Fred the qualities he can trust and feel good about, but also what he can manipulate. I actually like that. ;-)
Friendship is exactly what I think he's got going there, because he understands something in her, as well as she in him. She gets his bullshit, but it doesn't stop her from wanting to help. I really look forward to seeing how that progresses. In a selfish way, too, because I've just finished writing a whole bunch of Fred & Spike friendship stuff, so I want to have backup.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 02:35 pm (UTC)I look forward to your Spike & Fred friendship fics!
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 05:06 pm (UTC)"It looks like, as well, judging from the teaser for next week, that this was a chance to give two new writers a tryout, provide something less serious and intense as they lead up to a much stronger episode, which is pretty typical for television."
The Siamese Twins, as they've been dubbed, are pretty well established AtS writers. Elizabeth Craft Sarah Fain wrote:
4x05
Supersymmetry
4x11
Soulless
4x14
Release (w/ Steven S. DeKnight)
4x16
Players (w/ Jeffrey Bell)
4x18
Shiny Happy People
They're known for Good Fred, which we had in spades this time out.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 07:17 pm (UTC)Thanks for filling me in, though. I guess I'll have to start reading up on the Angel writers a bit more.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 08:09 pm (UTC)Now that the requisite do-what-the-WB-wants is out of the way and they have the full order for 22, I have high hopes.
Bell, DeKnight, The Siamese Twins, Whedon (okay, mixed blessing, he is, but still), Fury, Ultimate Drew Goddard, and Ben "Min's Seekrit Platonic Boyfriend for YEARS Even Though We've Never Met" Edlund.
I'll miss Minear, and, to a lesser degree, Mer Smith, but the talent pool at ME right now is just packed.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 12:33 pm (UTC)My hands are already rubbing with glee.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 08:42 pm (UTC)Lots of Seattle actors are doing pretty well in LA right now.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-16 09:31 pm (UTC)I'm really glad that people are succeeding... but at the same time, I think, boy, I never did anything with MY life! Arg.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 12:42 am (UTC)