Angel 5.19 Time Bomb

[thebratqueen]

You know, as a rule I'm not big on Ben Edlund's writing. Which I realize is blasphemy given The Tick but the boy goes for funny over characterization or story and on my list of writing pet peeves that's way up there.

I mention that because writing wise the ep was scattered, and I think the blame for that lies partially with Ben. There were a few moments there when you could see him writing a funny line into the script that, if it wasn't for the directing and the acting, would've really jarred the tone of the scene. I don't mind the usual comedy of Angel a la a character like Sahjhan, but with Ben it's like you can see a caption on the screen saying "Jokey line" in much the same way that you could also see "This is the message" on the screen during all the bits when they talked about things not being the same, having to adapt, blah di blah.

It's not subtle, is my point, and neither is Ben. Which actually works beautifully with the broad comedy of Smile Time or even Life of the Party, but in an episode like this we needed a tighter leash, and the directing and acting could only do so much.

Still, we had good bits. For starters I must give props to a time related episode that didn't, as most genre TV shows do with time eps, cheat by essentially only filming 20 min of story and then repeating it over and over while only tweaking 5 minutes of it so everybody could basically take off that week. Plus I liked how quickly it got to the point. We didn't get huge tons of "What's going on? Do you know what's going on? Is Glory related to Ben?" but rather a bit of mystery with Illyria, then zoom right into it. And while most things did not have subtle touches, there were a few things that did, like Lorne having noticed the pattern of Wesley's insanity and then talking about it with Gunn. Little things to remind us that these guys are still vaguely a team, for all that the world's going to crap around them.

It's not a great ep but it's a good ep. Solid B+, maybe with some extra credit. Little too fast in some places, little too much time wasted on the B plot of David's wife selling their child to demons, but for an episode 19, which is usually the "Amp up the prelude to the final arc" ep it's not bad.

Msc comments:

So everything's been sort-of, kind-of happening in real time, huh? (See: Gunn's comment that he was there two weeks)

I liked Spike's comment to Illyria about smell. Considering that smell is the sense most tied into memory, for me this created a nice, subtle touch of one of the many reasons why Spike and Angel, creatures of strong smelling ability, would adapt to the idea of Illyria faster than Wes, Gunn, and Lorne have (though obviously Wes and Gunn have special circumstances on top of that).

Didn't like Spike's non-sequiturs as he bantered with Illyria though. The boy can do good combacks. Why wasn't he? Esp from a writer whose strength is comedy?

Props to Alexis for a good insane Wes combined with the catatonic Wes. I don't mean to harsh - well, kinda - but I gotta draw lines between that and Amy. Don't get me wrong, Amy's improved since s3 but in the harder moments of Illyria's pain she sounded like Amy and not her character, and she slipped in the voice a few other times as well. Yeah, sure, we can fanwank that and say that Illyria's illness was making "Fred" shine through, but considering that at no time did obsesso-boy Wesley ever comment on it (and you know he would) I doubt that was meant to be canon. So my point is that it's a sign of Alexis's acting skills that he could bounce back and forth between the extremes and not break character.

Speaking of obsesso-boy Wesley... Wes/that book = OTP. Theirloveissofullofpapercuts.

Seriously. He was molesting it. I don't mind, just so long as the book consents.

Also speaking of Wes and books, I liked the body language Alexis used when having Wes read. It was the squinty/slouchy thing which made me think of that Burgess Meredith episode of the Twilight Zone (you know the one - nuclear war, old guy gets left alone with his beloved books and sadly no working Lenscrafters). It made me think of a Wesley decades from now, body mostly ravaged from battle, but mind as keen as ever, if only his eyes didn't fail him.

Or, you know, if only he didn't die a few hours later when Illyria kills him. Either/or ;)

David's wife did a nice job. So did David when acting around her. There was only one moment when I noticed him slipping just a tiny bit, and it was during the pseudo-comedy of trying to cover up the phone and that's usually when David has the hardest time keeping character anyway. So props to him for that. (And hey, Alexis and Aly were so clearly giving off "I want to smooch you" vibes duirng Wesley and Willow's scenes last year, so I can't hold it against 'em)

Not bad on the FX this week. I guess they could afford them, what with the Nextel and Verizon product placements. ("Can you hear me now on this very obvious walkie-talkie tone?")

Hi Harmony. Bye Harmony.

Very nice touch with the demon in the prison dimension stabbing itself. I liked that as closure for that whole fairy tale thing (I'm talking about real fairy tales, not the Disney versions).

Lorne speaks for all of us when he says he likes Hamilton more than Eve. And Hamilton remains gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide.

I'm surprised that the AK-47 of Plot Device didn't have a Fred shout-out attached to it. eg "Ironically enough Fred was working on this not long before she died" or some such. (Or was it meant to be the gun we see in "Home"? I didn't have time to pop my DVD in to double-check. Major props if it's the same gun that was used in the lab during Knox and Fred's scenes in Home though.)

Speaking of weapons, where's the stone Angel used to fight Illyria in "Shells"? You'd think as useful as it was they'd have duct taped it to someone's body just to keep it safe and handy. Christ, it's like the Dagon Sphere over in Buffy s5. "Yay, we've got this really useful weapon against the enemy! Let's shove it into the basement and never mention it again!"

Why does Illyria talk so much? No, really, why? She doesn't like humans, so what purpose does it serve her to chatter at them? And while I grant that she helped with character development in this ep, she's done it in pretty much every ep so far. We don't care, shut up already.

You know, I always wonder what diehard het people think whenever they refer to Illyria with masculine terms. Like do they get that the demon itself was gender neutral, and that Wes understands that, or do they just go with what the body looks like and ignore the rest? 'cause I have to admit my slasher heart is 3 years old and highly amused by subtle canonical backup that Wes could care less about what specific pronouns his partners go by.

Boy, Angel's PMSing big time, huh? I could say more on this but I won't 'cause hello to my spoiler whore status. I'll just say that if I could make good LJ icons I'd be really tempted to make one of Angel with a caption of "Old King Log". I'll say no more. Those of you who know your literature - or your Masterpiece Theatre - will know what I mean ;) On a more this episode related note, I was interested to see that Wes has no problem lying to Angel. Makes for interesting developments in their relationship, esp in light of not only Wes realizing that Angel doesn't deserve all of Wesley's trust, but also in light of Wes being fully aware what kind of pain his lying to Angel can cause. Good stuff.

And, finally - dude if "Angel's the king in an insane construct" isn't a BIG FAT FREAKING SHOUT-OUT TO ME I just don't know what is. ;)

[thwack] out to you!