Angel 30 Days in One Meme
Jan. 30th, 2011 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFound a great post on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
selenak's journal regarding how fans critique television, often blaming one writer and letting the writer they adore to pieces off the proverbial hook. She links to Jane Espenson's recent interview regarding the mistakes she made on Caprica - aas well as references bits from it. Go here: http://selenak.livejournal.com/658319.html
Also fromselenak - an Angel the Series 30 days in One Meme. We'll see if I can do this, since I can't remember a lot of the series - the last time I saw any of it was over four years ago.
So this by memory, I'm cutting the questions I can't answer or leaving them blank for you to fill out.
Watching Being Erica in the background - already saw this episode online - but when realized it was airing on Soapnet again - I chose to just watch it there.
Day 1: Favorite Season
This is hard. Because depending on my mood - it is either Season 4 or Season 5. Season 4 had in my opinion the best character driven arc of the series as a whole. But Season 5 had the best cast and some amazing stand-alone episodes, plus the Angel/Spike relationship. Yet, I'd have to go with 4, because 4 had the best arc. Deep Down beats the first episode of Season 5, Conviction hands down.
As does the wonderful Home - it beats out Not Fade Away every time. Five - while amusing with its inside jokes about the entertainment world's corporate politics, didn't quite work and fell flat a bit in places. In some ways, it felt too neat. And Season 4...took more risks - such as Angel making the devil's bargin to save his son - literally selling his own soul and all his friends to his worst enemy.
Day 2: Favorite Episode
Another difficult one. Made tougher by memory issues. I'll list the candidates: Darla, S2, Dear Boy, S1, Room with a Vw- S1, the episode before Sanctuary - S1 (Faith shows up and tries to take out Angel and Wesley), the one where Angel loses his soul and is put in cage and plays with everyone's heads in S4 which I can't remember the name of and was directed by Scean Astin (I adore that episode to pieces - that actually may be my favorite), Supersymmetry - S4, Smile Time S5, Destiny S5,
and Home S4.
I think I may have to go with the one where Angelus shows up and plays with everyone's heads?
Day 3: Favorite Karaoke at Caritas:
Toss-up between Darla, Lindsey, and We are the Champions song by the gang.
Day 4: Favorite Female Character:
Lilah in S1-4, Illyria in S5.
Day 5: Least Favorite Female Character:
Cordelia. Which yes, was a major problem I had with the series and with fandom (since so many of my friends appear to adore her - something I actually understood, so tried really hard not to discuss the character too much or convey my dislike. I didn't like it when people bashed characters I loved, so I try VERY hard not to bash characters they love and to see what they love in the character and appreciate that.). She did grow on me...finally, and I actually liked her quite a bit periodically - in Room with a View, Several episodes in S2 (until the Pylea arc - where I despised her again) then again in the first five or six episodes of S3 (up to and including Lullaby) only to become unlikable again towards the mid-part of S3 specifically with the episodes Waiting in the Wings, Birthday, and the ones that came after. She was eventually replaced by Harmony - who I despised in S5. Harmony was once again Cordy without the depth or personality, but all the character traits that grate.
Day 6: Favorite Male Character:
Oddly enough - it started out being Glenn Quin's Doyle - who I rather loved and watched the tv series for, he made Cordy likable. Then...slowly, it became Wesley - who I still think has the best arc of the entire series.
Day 7: Least Favorite Male Character:
Oddly? Angel. Which was also problematic at different points with both the series and the fandom (since so many of my friends love the character and the actor who plays him). I liked him at first in the very beginning of S1, then when they introduced the stupid shanshu prophecy, I quickly realized that the character was never going to evolve or change and the actor was incredibly limited - so got bored. (Shanshu = carrot that will never happen but leads the character on an endless heroe's journey quest that is filled with annoying cliche's as seen in every tv series from the Fugitive to the Incredible Hulk). He worked best when he was reacting to other characters or permitted to be really nasty. Such as in Deep Down, Home, the one where he's in a cage and playing with people's heads as Angelus, or in episodes such as Spin the Bottle and any episode with Spike - James Marsters brought out the best in David Boreanze for some reason. The only other actors who could do that were respectively - Julie Benze's Darla, Juliette Landau's Drusilla, and Alexis Denisof. Although I will state Vincent K. did a good job as well. These were also the only actors outside of James Marsters who had any chemistry with David Boreanze at all.
Day 8: Favorite Friendship:
Angel and Spike hands down.
Day 9: Favorite Romance:
Lilah and Wesley, although Angel and Darla is a close second.
Day 10: Least Favorite Season:
Season 3. This was the season that I literally stopped watching the series and started watching Alias instead. I stopped about four episodes after the brilliant Lullaby (which I loved) - the last straw was ...the episode with Groo and Cordelia, I think. Until people on the ATPO fan board begged me to start watching it again and to write meta on it. They even sent me tapes of the episodes I missed. I started up again with Loyalty and got intrigued enough with Wes, Holtz and Justine - that I continued. The Cordelia centric episodes made me want to gag, which was a shame - because the character had actually grown on me this season and I really liked her in the episodes Billy up to and including Lullaby. They destroyed the character with the baby arc and an ill-conceived and poorly built romance with Angel.
Day 11: Least Favorite Romance:
Angel/Cordelia with Fred/Wes a close second. In part due to how it was developed and in part due to the lack of sexual chemistry between the actors.
Day 12: Least Favorite Episode:
Sigh - too many. Candidates: She, I go to Pieces, The Pylea arc, Birthday, Provider, Waiting in the Wings, Harm's Way, You're Welcome, the one about the Werewolf in the Fifth Season.
Day 13: Favorite Wolfram & Hart Lawyer:
Lilah. From the 40s noir outfits to the equally 1940s banter to the fact the show made her three dimensional and at times sympathetic without ever woobyfying her, or ignoring just what she did for a living, I loved the character. - ganked from selenak.
Day 14: Favorite Female Villain:
Not sure Illyria, Darla, Drusilla or Lilah really count. So it's Jasmine. Odd, in Jasmine and Mayor Wilkins - Mutant Enemy manages to do the political villain arc that Whedon attempts to do in Firefly, Dollhouse and the Buffy comics and fails miserably at. I think, because, here - we are allowed inside Jasmine and Wilkin's heads - we get to see the world from their pov and see how they tick, they are the heroes in their own heads. They are layered villains, as opposed to allegorical ones.
Day 15: Favorite Male Villain:
Holland Manners has a good start as he pushes my Mayor Wilkins buttons, but he's overtaken and firmly defeated by... Daniel Holtz. No question. Holtz is a villain whom the show (or the characters) never stops acknowledging has really good reasons to want vengeance. How he eventually accomplishes said vengeance is horrifying, and yet it makes sense, it's entirely logical and has an awful karmic resonance. As opposed to, say, Kemp from Being Human (no, I won't let that comparison go any time soon), he's never depicted as ravingly mad or feeling nothing but hate. The full emotional horror of Holtz' vengeance isn't that he uses Connor against Angel but that he did come to love Connor and uses him anyway. - ganked fromselenak again, she's absolutely right. Holtz was the only thing I liked about S3, Holtz and Justine.
Day 16: Episode You Like That Everyone Else Hates:
As I said in the Buffy meme, there is no "everyone else" in fandom. I mean, season 4 is as far as I know still unpopular but also has a lot of defenders other than me. The Girl in Question from s5 caused ire for mainly two different reasons, a) its placement - the show was nearing its end, and suddenly the dramatic arc is interrupted by an episode of complete fluff, if you except the Wesley and Illyria subplot - and b) the way it makes fun of both the Buffy/Angel and the Buffy/Spike shipperdom. Which is, of course, one reason why I love it. "I signalled her with my eyes" will never stop being funny. "Nuns are your thing. Everyone knows that. Nuns are your thing!" Plus by that time Angel and Spike have their bickering homoerotic buddy act down cold, of course. - ganked fromselenak again because I completely agree and she says it so well.
Day 17: Character You Relate To The Most:
There really isn't one in this series. Which in a large part was my problem with it. I'd say the closest may be Fred, and even that's a long shot. Vaguely Spike in S5 - I relate to the brother relationship he has with Angel on a certain level and with his outsider status.
Day 18: Character Who Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time:
Gunn - who at times felt like a token affirmative action station and was written stereotypically as such. Mutant Enemy failed at minority casting in a huge way, but to be fair so did 99% of the tv shows in the late 1990s and early 00's. This character and the actor portraying him deserved much more.
Day 19: Character You Like That Everyone Else Hates:
Connor, Kate, Gwen, Justine, Fred and Holtz.
Day 20: Best Cordelia-centric Episode:
Room w/a View. - I liked her quite a bit here. And it displayed her strengths and weaknesses to perfection. Espenson really seemed to understand the character.
Day 21: Best Wesley-centric Episode:
Too many to count. So this is hard. I'd say Loyalty - because it brought me back to the show and demonstrated his fatal flaw so well, also...the one about his father in S5 worked quite well.
Also - a fan of Deep Down - which showed the good, the bad, and really ugly.
Day 22: Best Gunn-centric Episode:
Players and possibly First Impressions. There aren't many, unfortunately. I did like him a lot in Supersymmetry and most of S4 - where he actually got some development.
Day 23: Best Fred-centric Episode:
Supersymmetry and The Magic Bullet (rather adore Magic Bullet - it's a great Fred episode) S4 and S5 were Gunn and Fred's best years for character development.
Day 24: Favorite Use of Vampire Game Face:
Puppet!Angel getting into same in Smile Time. Although Spin the Bottle's teen Angel discovering he's a vampire and playing with his game face is a good runner-up. Hilarious.
Day 25: Favorite Angelverse quote: stolen from selenak again: "He learned at the feet of the master of dumb planning" (Cordelia re: Gunn and Angel) competing with "I am not a eunuch." (Guess who about himself) I'm also fond of: "I like your poems." "You like Barry Manilow." (Angel trying to be nice to Spike for a change and Spike not taking it well.)
Day 26: Favorite Team Moment:
Also stolen from selenak, yes, cheating I know: the ending of the teaser from the s5 opener, wherein everyone, including Harmony, reacts to Spike's sudden appearance: "Spike?" "Spike" "Spike!" "Blondie Bear?".
Day 27: Cutest Moment:
Puppet!Angel fighting with Spike in Smile Time.
Day 28: Character You Love To Hate:
Probably Lindsey, was Cordelia at different points, and at in S5...Eve.
Day 29: Episode You Hate That Everyone Else Loves:
Birthday and You're Welcome - neither work for me. Actually the whole visions thing makes Cordy a saint never worked for me. Found both episodes to be grating.
Day 30: What You Think Made Angel So Great:
It took a pre-established trope and played with it in a new way. Instead of being content to be just another noir private dick show - solving a mystery of the week a la Forever Knight, Brimstone, Moonlight, et al, Angel went serial. It became over time an ensemble cast and not just a tale about Angel. It also dared to go in some dark areas, and play with some interesting themes. While flawed in places, I enjoyed the experimentation with form and genre. Also the fact that they were willing to let Angel be an anti-hero, with a true anti-heroe's ending instead of the happy one so many of these shows often go for - made the series memorable and worth a second and third look.
selenak's journal regarding how fans critique television, often blaming one writer and letting the writer they adore to pieces off the proverbial hook. She links to Jane Espenson's recent interview regarding the mistakes she made on Caprica - aas well as references bits from it. Go here: http://selenak.livejournal.com/658319.htmlAlso from
selenak - an Angel the Series 30 days in One Meme. We'll see if I can do this, since I can't remember a lot of the series - the last time I saw any of it was over four years ago.So this by memory, I'm cutting the questions I can't answer or leaving them blank for you to fill out.
Watching Being Erica in the background - already saw this episode online - but when realized it was airing on Soapnet again - I chose to just watch it there.
Day 1: Favorite Season
This is hard. Because depending on my mood - it is either Season 4 or Season 5. Season 4 had in my opinion the best character driven arc of the series as a whole. But Season 5 had the best cast and some amazing stand-alone episodes, plus the Angel/Spike relationship. Yet, I'd have to go with 4, because 4 had the best arc. Deep Down beats the first episode of Season 5, Conviction hands down.
As does the wonderful Home - it beats out Not Fade Away every time. Five - while amusing with its inside jokes about the entertainment world's corporate politics, didn't quite work and fell flat a bit in places. In some ways, it felt too neat. And Season 4...took more risks - such as Angel making the devil's bargin to save his son - literally selling his own soul and all his friends to his worst enemy.
Day 2: Favorite Episode
Another difficult one. Made tougher by memory issues. I'll list the candidates: Darla, S2, Dear Boy, S1, Room with a Vw- S1, the episode before Sanctuary - S1 (Faith shows up and tries to take out Angel and Wesley), the one where Angel loses his soul and is put in cage and plays with everyone's heads in S4 which I can't remember the name of and was directed by Scean Astin (I adore that episode to pieces - that actually may be my favorite), Supersymmetry - S4, Smile Time S5, Destiny S5,
and Home S4.
I think I may have to go with the one where Angelus shows up and plays with everyone's heads?
Day 3: Favorite Karaoke at Caritas:
Toss-up between Darla, Lindsey, and We are the Champions song by the gang.
Day 4: Favorite Female Character:
Lilah in S1-4, Illyria in S5.
Day 5: Least Favorite Female Character:
Cordelia. Which yes, was a major problem I had with the series and with fandom (since so many of my friends appear to adore her - something I actually understood, so tried really hard not to discuss the character too much or convey my dislike. I didn't like it when people bashed characters I loved, so I try VERY hard not to bash characters they love and to see what they love in the character and appreciate that.). She did grow on me...finally, and I actually liked her quite a bit periodically - in Room with a View, Several episodes in S2 (until the Pylea arc - where I despised her again) then again in the first five or six episodes of S3 (up to and including Lullaby) only to become unlikable again towards the mid-part of S3 specifically with the episodes Waiting in the Wings, Birthday, and the ones that came after. She was eventually replaced by Harmony - who I despised in S5. Harmony was once again Cordy without the depth or personality, but all the character traits that grate.
Day 6: Favorite Male Character:
Oddly enough - it started out being Glenn Quin's Doyle - who I rather loved and watched the tv series for, he made Cordy likable. Then...slowly, it became Wesley - who I still think has the best arc of the entire series.
Day 7: Least Favorite Male Character:
Oddly? Angel. Which was also problematic at different points with both the series and the fandom (since so many of my friends love the character and the actor who plays him). I liked him at first in the very beginning of S1, then when they introduced the stupid shanshu prophecy, I quickly realized that the character was never going to evolve or change and the actor was incredibly limited - so got bored. (Shanshu = carrot that will never happen but leads the character on an endless heroe's journey quest that is filled with annoying cliche's as seen in every tv series from the Fugitive to the Incredible Hulk). He worked best when he was reacting to other characters or permitted to be really nasty. Such as in Deep Down, Home, the one where he's in a cage and playing with people's heads as Angelus, or in episodes such as Spin the Bottle and any episode with Spike - James Marsters brought out the best in David Boreanze for some reason. The only other actors who could do that were respectively - Julie Benze's Darla, Juliette Landau's Drusilla, and Alexis Denisof. Although I will state Vincent K. did a good job as well. These were also the only actors outside of James Marsters who had any chemistry with David Boreanze at all.
Day 8: Favorite Friendship:
Angel and Spike hands down.
Day 9: Favorite Romance:
Lilah and Wesley, although Angel and Darla is a close second.
Day 10: Least Favorite Season:
Season 3. This was the season that I literally stopped watching the series and started watching Alias instead. I stopped about four episodes after the brilliant Lullaby (which I loved) - the last straw was ...the episode with Groo and Cordelia, I think. Until people on the ATPO fan board begged me to start watching it again and to write meta on it. They even sent me tapes of the episodes I missed. I started up again with Loyalty and got intrigued enough with Wes, Holtz and Justine - that I continued. The Cordelia centric episodes made me want to gag, which was a shame - because the character had actually grown on me this season and I really liked her in the episodes Billy up to and including Lullaby. They destroyed the character with the baby arc and an ill-conceived and poorly built romance with Angel.
Day 11: Least Favorite Romance:
Angel/Cordelia with Fred/Wes a close second. In part due to how it was developed and in part due to the lack of sexual chemistry between the actors.
Day 12: Least Favorite Episode:
Sigh - too many. Candidates: She, I go to Pieces, The Pylea arc, Birthday, Provider, Waiting in the Wings, Harm's Way, You're Welcome, the one about the Werewolf in the Fifth Season.
Day 13: Favorite Wolfram & Hart Lawyer:
Lilah. From the 40s noir outfits to the equally 1940s banter to the fact the show made her three dimensional and at times sympathetic without ever woobyfying her, or ignoring just what she did for a living, I loved the character. - ganked from selenak.
Day 14: Favorite Female Villain:
Not sure Illyria, Darla, Drusilla or Lilah really count. So it's Jasmine. Odd, in Jasmine and Mayor Wilkins - Mutant Enemy manages to do the political villain arc that Whedon attempts to do in Firefly, Dollhouse and the Buffy comics and fails miserably at. I think, because, here - we are allowed inside Jasmine and Wilkin's heads - we get to see the world from their pov and see how they tick, they are the heroes in their own heads. They are layered villains, as opposed to allegorical ones.
Day 15: Favorite Male Villain:
Holland Manners has a good start as he pushes my Mayor Wilkins buttons, but he's overtaken and firmly defeated by... Daniel Holtz. No question. Holtz is a villain whom the show (or the characters) never stops acknowledging has really good reasons to want vengeance. How he eventually accomplishes said vengeance is horrifying, and yet it makes sense, it's entirely logical and has an awful karmic resonance. As opposed to, say, Kemp from Being Human (no, I won't let that comparison go any time soon), he's never depicted as ravingly mad or feeling nothing but hate. The full emotional horror of Holtz' vengeance isn't that he uses Connor against Angel but that he did come to love Connor and uses him anyway. - ganked from
selenak again, she's absolutely right. Holtz was the only thing I liked about S3, Holtz and Justine.Day 16: Episode You Like That Everyone Else Hates:
As I said in the Buffy meme, there is no "everyone else" in fandom. I mean, season 4 is as far as I know still unpopular but also has a lot of defenders other than me. The Girl in Question from s5 caused ire for mainly two different reasons, a) its placement - the show was nearing its end, and suddenly the dramatic arc is interrupted by an episode of complete fluff, if you except the Wesley and Illyria subplot - and b) the way it makes fun of both the Buffy/Angel and the Buffy/Spike shipperdom. Which is, of course, one reason why I love it. "I signalled her with my eyes" will never stop being funny. "Nuns are your thing. Everyone knows that. Nuns are your thing!" Plus by that time Angel and Spike have their bickering homoerotic buddy act down cold, of course. - ganked from
selenak again because I completely agree and she says it so well.Day 17: Character You Relate To The Most:
There really isn't one in this series. Which in a large part was my problem with it. I'd say the closest may be Fred, and even that's a long shot. Vaguely Spike in S5 - I relate to the brother relationship he has with Angel on a certain level and with his outsider status.
Day 18: Character Who Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time:
Gunn - who at times felt like a token affirmative action station and was written stereotypically as such. Mutant Enemy failed at minority casting in a huge way, but to be fair so did 99% of the tv shows in the late 1990s and early 00's. This character and the actor portraying him deserved much more.
Day 19: Character You Like That Everyone Else Hates:
Connor, Kate, Gwen, Justine, Fred and Holtz.
Day 20: Best Cordelia-centric Episode:
Room w/a View. - I liked her quite a bit here. And it displayed her strengths and weaknesses to perfection. Espenson really seemed to understand the character.
Day 21: Best Wesley-centric Episode:
Too many to count. So this is hard. I'd say Loyalty - because it brought me back to the show and demonstrated his fatal flaw so well, also...the one about his father in S5 worked quite well.
Also - a fan of Deep Down - which showed the good, the bad, and really ugly.
Day 22: Best Gunn-centric Episode:
Players and possibly First Impressions. There aren't many, unfortunately. I did like him a lot in Supersymmetry and most of S4 - where he actually got some development.
Day 23: Best Fred-centric Episode:
Supersymmetry and The Magic Bullet (rather adore Magic Bullet - it's a great Fred episode) S4 and S5 were Gunn and Fred's best years for character development.
Day 24: Favorite Use of Vampire Game Face:
Puppet!Angel getting into same in Smile Time. Although Spin the Bottle's teen Angel discovering he's a vampire and playing with his game face is a good runner-up. Hilarious.
Day 25: Favorite Angelverse quote: stolen from selenak again: "He learned at the feet of the master of dumb planning" (Cordelia re: Gunn and Angel) competing with "I am not a eunuch." (Guess who about himself) I'm also fond of: "I like your poems." "You like Barry Manilow." (Angel trying to be nice to Spike for a change and Spike not taking it well.)
Day 26: Favorite Team Moment:
Also stolen from selenak, yes, cheating I know: the ending of the teaser from the s5 opener, wherein everyone, including Harmony, reacts to Spike's sudden appearance: "Spike?" "Spike" "Spike!" "Blondie Bear?".
Day 27: Cutest Moment:
Puppet!Angel fighting with Spike in Smile Time.
Day 28: Character You Love To Hate:
Probably Lindsey, was Cordelia at different points, and at in S5...Eve.
Day 29: Episode You Hate That Everyone Else Loves:
Birthday and You're Welcome - neither work for me. Actually the whole visions thing makes Cordy a saint never worked for me. Found both episodes to be grating.
Day 30: What You Think Made Angel So Great:
It took a pre-established trope and played with it in a new way. Instead of being content to be just another noir private dick show - solving a mystery of the week a la Forever Knight, Brimstone, Moonlight, et al, Angel went serial. It became over time an ensemble cast and not just a tale about Angel. It also dared to go in some dark areas, and play with some interesting themes. While flawed in places, I enjoyed the experimentation with form and genre. Also the fact that they were willing to let Angel be an anti-hero, with a true anti-heroe's ending instead of the happy one so many of these shows often go for - made the series memorable and worth a second and third look.