Angel season 4 review
Sep. 22nd, 2003 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueen"So when are you going to do your Angel season 4 round-up?" people have asked me, and verily I did say onto them "Eep!" and then hid under the covers.
The Angel Season 3 review (with subsequent Wes-related addendum and heck while I'm at it let's throw in a shout-out to the Alternate version of Angel/Cordy) seems so very long ago now. Especially since it was something I mostly wrote off the cuff based on various ideas that were floating around in my head. Rereading it I'm amused to see what I touched on and moreover what I didn't (Connor, anyone?)
Still and all it was an easy wrap-up to write because most of it was yours truly getting off on a rant about all the things that had gone spectacularly wrong in season 3. Come season 4 we actually don't have too many errors. This leaves me sort of mute and pointing at the screen with multiple reviews of each episode that basically boil down to "See that thing? That they did there? That was perfect."
But I've got some free time on my hands right now so...
S4, in my opinion, will go down in Angel history as being the season that showed what they were all about. Elements that were hinted at from s1-s3 were finally brought to fruition in s4 with little to no bumps in the road.
Yes, certainly, there were some episodes that went against the grain - The House Always Wins being a notable example - but really that's also the norm for Angel. They have a great first episode, a handful of episodes of the gang farting around while getting settled in, then come November sweeps the real storyline begins.
And what a storyline we had to work with. Tight, tight writing by, I found out from a Steve DeKnight interview, a crew that was shortstaffed and pretty much typing their little fingers off. Those who read my reviews all season long will probably remember that I frequently wondered why we had so many episodes with 3 writers listed. The reason is apparently they basically had to keep the entire writing staff working constantly to help meet the demands of scheduling. Considering the constraints they were under they did a bang-up job.
Jeff Bell was our show runner this year and he and Steve DeKnight get the MVP awards for setting the tone and maintaining it. Again barring a few off episodes (Slouching Towards Bethleham I'm looking in your direction) the whole thing just - here I go again - worked.
Here's the thing - Angel the show has always wanted to be the darker, more adult show and I think with this season we saw that in spades. Now before you get your Buffy defenses typed let me just say I'm not saying that makes Angel better. I'm just saying it's different. Buffy always aimed for a younger audience, even when it was on UPN. That meant it handled things in one way and Angel handled them in another. This year you really saw that.
The strength of Angel the show is that nothing is sacred. Something that only gets touched on over on Buffy (with things like Jenny's death or even Tara's) is a thematic point for the series. Don't take the sets for granted. Don't take the characters for granted. Don't take goodness for granted. Don't take the basic premise of the show for granted.
In previous seasons we saw hints of this - the offices blowing up, Angel firing the gang, Wes taking charge, etc. In s4 it was all out. Nothing was sacred. Yeah, sure, you could be reasonably certain that, say, Wes, Gunn and Fred weren't going to all die at once in a horrible accident but beyond that was anything really off limits? Wolfram & Hart? Totally destroyed. Los Angeles? Put into an Apocalypse - and one that we felt, not one that was just vaguely hinted at, if anything, like over in Sunnydale (sorry, but I will say that The Beast did more damage on Angel that was felt than the First Evil ever managed over on Buffy).
Cordy? Evil. And evil with a very welcome shout-out from the writers as to the utter stupidity and implausibility of the bad storylines that came before. No, we don't believe that everything was planned from the start like Skip told us, but we do thank the writers for recognizing the weaknesses and finally getting around to fixing them. Not saying it makes Offspring an easier episode to watch with the sound turned on, but it earns the writers good karma points and that's what matters.
I've got this thing I like to call "American" storytelling. American storytelling - or Hollywood storytelling if you will - is the thing that goes for the easy, feel-good answer that covers the obvious points. You get American storytelling in pretty much most of the movies and TV shows that come out of America. Non-American storytelling does not do that. Instead it goes for emotions that don't often get talked about and plotlines that aren't necessarily easy.
Wesley and Lilah were a non-American relationship. As Wes tells us, it wasn't about holding hands. It was about adult feelings, and closeness that could exist in spite of fundamental differences, and about how sometimes the girl neither wants nor needs to be saved.
Connor was a non-American story. He was a screwed up kid that stayed a screwed up kid. He did things that he thought were good which weren't necessarily so. And in the end, let's face it, he doesn't really get a happy ending. Yeah, sure, he's got the whole new family and no memory of what came before but so what? Connor doesn't have that stuff, this new version of him does. Connor died and, once again showing that nothing on this show is sacred, Angel was the one who had to kill him.
Non-American storytelling. Plus adult storytelling, and not just in the sex scene way. In the way where there is no black and white and everything is relative. The entire Jasmine arc - one that I'll admit spoiler whore me thought was going to suck beyond the telling of it - instead proved to sum the whole thing up in a nutshell. Over on Buffy we had the First Evil who was Very Very Bad No Question. Over on Angel we find out that really we've got no way of telling who's bad or good, or what is bad or good. It's a thing that was hinted at by having a protagonist who is himself a vampire one good smile away from ending the universe, and it was hammered home by having the gang take charge of Wolfram & Hart - an action which really would serve to provide possibly the best closing scene of the series, and may very well do so in my heart if s5 gets destroyed to Hell and back by the WB who finally took notice of the show again.
It reminds me of a theological question: Considering that, in Christian theology, Jesus died to save the world, was Judas's betrayal which led to that death really that bad?
In other words: sometimes actions that seem evil can actually have a point. Likewise some actions that do good aren't necessarily so.
Which was, in fact, the leitmotif for the entire season. Angel had to revert to Angelus in order to help save the day again. Faith, the Rogue Slayer, was the only one who could be trusted to help. Wes went dark and therefore had the necessary connections to find crucial information - and the psychotic impulses to help Faith win her fight. Cordy seemed good but was actually harboring evil. Everybody assumed Cordy was giving birth to true evil but Jasime actually seemed good. The gang thought they were doing good by restoring free will but they got hired by Wolfram & Hart for destroying world peace. The list goes on. Again: nothing was sacred. Nothing could be taken for granted. The show hit the ground running with dark and just kept on going.
[Sidebar: I know that as far as the Jasmine plotline goes some people didn't like how EvilCordy acted to bring about Angelus, yet nothing of what Jasmine later did indicated why. Frankly I'm fine with that, though, because EvilCordy was the one to show how pissed Jasmine was about losing Angelus, and since Angelus wasn't around anymore why would Jasmine waste anytime talking about it? Especially since nobody challenged her and she therefore didn't need to? I realize from a writing standpoint it does come off like a plot hole, but it's one that for me is covered by the limited time and resources we have to work with. YMMV.]
Yarg. I'm speechless again, honestly. I mean yes, granted, Fred-related romances still lacked any plausibility, and Charisma Carpenter set all new records for phoning in a performance the likes of which have not been seen since the Verizon guy started his "Can you hear me now?" schtick, but really in the end those are minor prices to pay for what was a phenominal season. Plus, to be honest, Charisma got fired. What's done is done. Why perform BDSM on that particular ex-equine?
The thing that most sticks with me is that - and hopefully I'll be proven wrong - this will be a hard season to improve on, especially since season 5 is pubically known to be one that is being shaped by forces outside of the amazing staff that created season 4. The Simpsons staff has said that one of the reasons why the show has managed to be successful for so long is because they don't get notes from the studio. In other words they're allowed to do their own thing. S4 of Angel, I think, is as close to a no-note show as we're ever going to see. Dark storylines, big bads that actually have big bad consequences, adult relationships, good and evil not clearly defined, and a fixing of all the crap that came before. S5, on the other hand, only exists because of notes (eg "Make Spike a regular" "Write more one-off episodes instead of arcs") and writing the show to notes has, in the past, created things like the horrible parts of season 3, or the scattershot nature of season 1.
So, much though it pains me to say it, I think we're not going to get anything as good as s4 ever again. Good episodes, certainly. But an entire season? Probably not.
I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but in the meanwhile I'll snuggle up to s4 and be happy for what I've got.
Besides, s4 had multiple shout-outs to me and there ain't nothing wrong with that ;)
As always, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Feel free to poke me with a stick if there's something you'd like to see me go into more detail about. =)
The Angel Season 3 review (with subsequent Wes-related addendum and heck while I'm at it let's throw in a shout-out to the Alternate version of Angel/Cordy) seems so very long ago now. Especially since it was something I mostly wrote off the cuff based on various ideas that were floating around in my head. Rereading it I'm amused to see what I touched on and moreover what I didn't (Connor, anyone?)
Still and all it was an easy wrap-up to write because most of it was yours truly getting off on a rant about all the things that had gone spectacularly wrong in season 3. Come season 4 we actually don't have too many errors. This leaves me sort of mute and pointing at the screen with multiple reviews of each episode that basically boil down to "See that thing? That they did there? That was perfect."
But I've got some free time on my hands right now so...
S4, in my opinion, will go down in Angel history as being the season that showed what they were all about. Elements that were hinted at from s1-s3 were finally brought to fruition in s4 with little to no bumps in the road.
Yes, certainly, there were some episodes that went against the grain - The House Always Wins being a notable example - but really that's also the norm for Angel. They have a great first episode, a handful of episodes of the gang farting around while getting settled in, then come November sweeps the real storyline begins.
And what a storyline we had to work with. Tight, tight writing by, I found out from a Steve DeKnight interview, a crew that was shortstaffed and pretty much typing their little fingers off. Those who read my reviews all season long will probably remember that I frequently wondered why we had so many episodes with 3 writers listed. The reason is apparently they basically had to keep the entire writing staff working constantly to help meet the demands of scheduling. Considering the constraints they were under they did a bang-up job.
Jeff Bell was our show runner this year and he and Steve DeKnight get the MVP awards for setting the tone and maintaining it. Again barring a few off episodes (Slouching Towards Bethleham I'm looking in your direction) the whole thing just - here I go again - worked.
Here's the thing - Angel the show has always wanted to be the darker, more adult show and I think with this season we saw that in spades. Now before you get your Buffy defenses typed let me just say I'm not saying that makes Angel better. I'm just saying it's different. Buffy always aimed for a younger audience, even when it was on UPN. That meant it handled things in one way and Angel handled them in another. This year you really saw that.
The strength of Angel the show is that nothing is sacred. Something that only gets touched on over on Buffy (with things like Jenny's death or even Tara's) is a thematic point for the series. Don't take the sets for granted. Don't take the characters for granted. Don't take goodness for granted. Don't take the basic premise of the show for granted.
In previous seasons we saw hints of this - the offices blowing up, Angel firing the gang, Wes taking charge, etc. In s4 it was all out. Nothing was sacred. Yeah, sure, you could be reasonably certain that, say, Wes, Gunn and Fred weren't going to all die at once in a horrible accident but beyond that was anything really off limits? Wolfram & Hart? Totally destroyed. Los Angeles? Put into an Apocalypse - and one that we felt, not one that was just vaguely hinted at, if anything, like over in Sunnydale (sorry, but I will say that The Beast did more damage on Angel that was felt than the First Evil ever managed over on Buffy).
Cordy? Evil. And evil with a very welcome shout-out from the writers as to the utter stupidity and implausibility of the bad storylines that came before. No, we don't believe that everything was planned from the start like Skip told us, but we do thank the writers for recognizing the weaknesses and finally getting around to fixing them. Not saying it makes Offspring an easier episode to watch with the sound turned on, but it earns the writers good karma points and that's what matters.
I've got this thing I like to call "American" storytelling. American storytelling - or Hollywood storytelling if you will - is the thing that goes for the easy, feel-good answer that covers the obvious points. You get American storytelling in pretty much most of the movies and TV shows that come out of America. Non-American storytelling does not do that. Instead it goes for emotions that don't often get talked about and plotlines that aren't necessarily easy.
Wesley and Lilah were a non-American relationship. As Wes tells us, it wasn't about holding hands. It was about adult feelings, and closeness that could exist in spite of fundamental differences, and about how sometimes the girl neither wants nor needs to be saved.
Connor was a non-American story. He was a screwed up kid that stayed a screwed up kid. He did things that he thought were good which weren't necessarily so. And in the end, let's face it, he doesn't really get a happy ending. Yeah, sure, he's got the whole new family and no memory of what came before but so what? Connor doesn't have that stuff, this new version of him does. Connor died and, once again showing that nothing on this show is sacred, Angel was the one who had to kill him.
Non-American storytelling. Plus adult storytelling, and not just in the sex scene way. In the way where there is no black and white and everything is relative. The entire Jasmine arc - one that I'll admit spoiler whore me thought was going to suck beyond the telling of it - instead proved to sum the whole thing up in a nutshell. Over on Buffy we had the First Evil who was Very Very Bad No Question. Over on Angel we find out that really we've got no way of telling who's bad or good, or what is bad or good. It's a thing that was hinted at by having a protagonist who is himself a vampire one good smile away from ending the universe, and it was hammered home by having the gang take charge of Wolfram & Hart - an action which really would serve to provide possibly the best closing scene of the series, and may very well do so in my heart if s5 gets destroyed to Hell and back by the WB who finally took notice of the show again.
It reminds me of a theological question: Considering that, in Christian theology, Jesus died to save the world, was Judas's betrayal which led to that death really that bad?
In other words: sometimes actions that seem evil can actually have a point. Likewise some actions that do good aren't necessarily so.
Which was, in fact, the leitmotif for the entire season. Angel had to revert to Angelus in order to help save the day again. Faith, the Rogue Slayer, was the only one who could be trusted to help. Wes went dark and therefore had the necessary connections to find crucial information - and the psychotic impulses to help Faith win her fight. Cordy seemed good but was actually harboring evil. Everybody assumed Cordy was giving birth to true evil but Jasime actually seemed good. The gang thought they were doing good by restoring free will but they got hired by Wolfram & Hart for destroying world peace. The list goes on. Again: nothing was sacred. Nothing could be taken for granted. The show hit the ground running with dark and just kept on going.
[Sidebar: I know that as far as the Jasmine plotline goes some people didn't like how EvilCordy acted to bring about Angelus, yet nothing of what Jasmine later did indicated why. Frankly I'm fine with that, though, because EvilCordy was the one to show how pissed Jasmine was about losing Angelus, and since Angelus wasn't around anymore why would Jasmine waste anytime talking about it? Especially since nobody challenged her and she therefore didn't need to? I realize from a writing standpoint it does come off like a plot hole, but it's one that for me is covered by the limited time and resources we have to work with. YMMV.]
Yarg. I'm speechless again, honestly. I mean yes, granted, Fred-related romances still lacked any plausibility, and Charisma Carpenter set all new records for phoning in a performance the likes of which have not been seen since the Verizon guy started his "Can you hear me now?" schtick, but really in the end those are minor prices to pay for what was a phenominal season. Plus, to be honest, Charisma got fired. What's done is done. Why perform BDSM on that particular ex-equine?
The thing that most sticks with me is that - and hopefully I'll be proven wrong - this will be a hard season to improve on, especially since season 5 is pubically known to be one that is being shaped by forces outside of the amazing staff that created season 4. The Simpsons staff has said that one of the reasons why the show has managed to be successful for so long is because they don't get notes from the studio. In other words they're allowed to do their own thing. S4 of Angel, I think, is as close to a no-note show as we're ever going to see. Dark storylines, big bads that actually have big bad consequences, adult relationships, good and evil not clearly defined, and a fixing of all the crap that came before. S5, on the other hand, only exists because of notes (eg "Make Spike a regular" "Write more one-off episodes instead of arcs") and writing the show to notes has, in the past, created things like the horrible parts of season 3, or the scattershot nature of season 1.
So, much though it pains me to say it, I think we're not going to get anything as good as s4 ever again. Good episodes, certainly. But an entire season? Probably not.
I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but in the meanwhile I'll snuggle up to s4 and be happy for what I've got.
Besides, s4 had multiple shout-outs to me and there ain't nothing wrong with that ;)
As always, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Feel free to poke me with a stick if there's something you'd like to see me go into more detail about. =)
