More on Angel

This started off as a response to Dave-o-rama's comment about my previous drunken ramble regarding season 5 of Angel, but I just kept going on and on and on. So, since this is my blog, instead of a humble comment, you get a disjointed, opinionated post about a couple of series that ended years ago and on which my thoughts have absolutely no bearing.

But anyway, I agree with Dave that Smile Time was totally awesome. Puppet Angel is one of my favorite things ever on this earth. However, I hated The Girl in Question. Spike and Angel's Italian adventure was too zany, madcap, Looney Tunes for my taste. Then, on the other end of the spectrum there was way too much angsty Wesley and Fred's poor parents. That said, the CEO of the Rome W&H office was hilarious, as was Andrew.

I did like Illyria way better than Fred, and I wish we had seen more of that character than just her walking around looking bewildered and slightly pissed off. Harmony was definitely a lot of fun, and I agree that Harm's Way was a good one. The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco was on it's way to being good, but I think it didn't get all the way there - not quite campy enough and not quite clever enough.

And actually, I did love Spike when he was first on Buffy. I adored bat-shit crazy Drusilla, too. One of my favorite episodes of Buffy ever was Fool for Love, where Buffy gets Spike to tell her how he killed 2 past Slayers. He is one bad-ass sexy beast in that one. Once he fell in love, had a chip, didn't have a chip, got a soul, blah, blah, blah, then I started to hate him.

I'm surprised to be saying this, but I really missed Cordelia in season 5. The whole Cordelia-as-a-higher-power storyline was a little too cheesy and earnest in my opinion, but I don't think any other character filled the hole she left in the group.

Overall, I guess I enjoyed watching Whedon's confident, funny, kick-ass characters, and I feel like both Buffy and Angel devolved into whiny, hand-wringing group-therapy sessions close to the end. I know that's harsh, but with both series I really felt let down after investing [an unreasonable amount of] time and emotional energy in them.