here are some Angel things about Angel!
Or, more accurately, some Wesley things about Angel. My brainpower is very list-oriented this week, lol. So after the BtVS list yesterday this feels natural!
I have a much more complicated relationship with Angel: the Series than I do with BtVS. While on BtVS, Angel had only ever gotten my attention as Angelus, and if I put too much thought into him otherwise he kinda squicked me, and before I went looking for fandom I didn't know anything else about the spinoff. So I wasn't going to bother, except after watching all of BtVS within a couple of months I was itching for a fix and didn't want to ruin it for myself by doing too many rewatches too soon. You know? So I just kind of put it in for bantery background noise. Then episode 10 happened and, given that Wesley had already won my heart with his dogged tenacity in the face of terrible burdens like having to talk sense into the Scoobies JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL, I was IN IT TO WIN IT. (Sorry Doyle! BYE DOYLE.)
So on the "love it!" side, I was already in the stage of life AtS is about, rather than adolescence a la BtVS, so I related more easily to a lot of that, and of course it's a much more pessimistic worldview and that speaks to me. And it has some truly spectacular arcs. BUT, it's a fridge-fest, and aesthetically uneven. Worst of all, the whole show rests on MANPAIN, and not just any manpain, but the worst kind of manpain: the manpain of a character you dislike! And so there was little incentive to hang in there during the weaker narrative patches, particularly given that the show's preferred method of dealing with those weak patches seemed to be pounding away at the angst in the hopes you'd be too miserable to notice that it was weak. I did give up for months at a time, more than once. And yet, the parts of it I enjoy, I've gone back to at least as many times as my favorite arcs of BtVS, maybe even more. SO I DON'T KNOW IT'S COMPLICATED?!
Most re-watched:
Season 1: In the Dark, Parting Gifts, Five by Five, Sanctuary
Season 2: Dear Boy, Guise Will Be Guise, Darla, Reunion, Redefinition, The Thin Dead Line, Disharmony, Dead End
Season 3: Heartthrob, Offspring, Quickening, Lullaby. BASICALLY ALL THE DARLA.
Season 4: Deep Down, The House Always Wins, Supersymmetry, Spin the Bottle, Apocalypse Nowish (lol), Habeas Corpses (lol), Soulless, Calvary, Salvage, Release, Orpheus
Season 5: Destiny, Smile Time, The Girl in Question. (Angel getting whacked around! Angel getting turned into a muppet! Wesley getting his heart ripped out and stomped on! I HAVE SOME ISSUES APPARENTLY.)
Top 10% of episodes, rather than top 10:
11. Not Fade Away. I ...can't bring myself not to list it, because I can't deny that it's a great episode of the show, or that it's very true to the message of the show? Unfortunately that message is "the One of the Biggest Whitest Dick can and will suck everyone in sight into his stupid suicide mission and people will totally fall over themselves to kiss his ass for whatever stupid rationalizations he flings out" which I think is a pretty terrible message! even if it's probably true of the world at large. And it took me a long, long time to get over that enough to revisit the show at all.
10. Loyalty
9. The Magic Bullet
8. Salvage
7. Lineage (I CAN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT DON'T MAKE ME TALK ABOUT IT lol guys let's talk about it)
6. Spin the Bottle
5. Five by Five (see what I did there?)
4. Soulless
3. Darla
2. Smile Time
1. Dear Boy is the episode that got me to sit up and take notice of the show as a whole. I've probably watched that scene in the convent dozens of times over the years. God doesn't want you! But I still do.
Favorite characters, excluding the ones that qualified for the BtVS list (which conveniently eliminates a couple of tough choices):
5. Lorney-tunes! <3
4. Gunn
3. Fred
2. Darla
1. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, who spoiled me for all fictional men forever and ever amen!
(If I were going to do a top ten the other five would be Lilah, Lindsey, Harmony, Jasmine, and Illyria God-King of the Primordium)
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/299508.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.
I have a much more complicated relationship with Angel: the Series than I do with BtVS. While on BtVS, Angel had only ever gotten my attention as Angelus, and if I put too much thought into him otherwise he kinda squicked me, and before I went looking for fandom I didn't know anything else about the spinoff. So I wasn't going to bother, except after watching all of BtVS within a couple of months I was itching for a fix and didn't want to ruin it for myself by doing too many rewatches too soon. You know? So I just kind of put it in for bantery background noise. Then episode 10 happened and, given that Wesley had already won my heart with his dogged tenacity in the face of terrible burdens like having to talk sense into the Scoobies JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL, I was IN IT TO WIN IT. (Sorry Doyle! BYE DOYLE.)
So on the "love it!" side, I was already in the stage of life AtS is about, rather than adolescence a la BtVS, so I related more easily to a lot of that, and of course it's a much more pessimistic worldview and that speaks to me. And it has some truly spectacular arcs. BUT, it's a fridge-fest, and aesthetically uneven. Worst of all, the whole show rests on MANPAIN, and not just any manpain, but the worst kind of manpain: the manpain of a character you dislike! And so there was little incentive to hang in there during the weaker narrative patches, particularly given that the show's preferred method of dealing with those weak patches seemed to be pounding away at the angst in the hopes you'd be too miserable to notice that it was weak. I did give up for months at a time, more than once. And yet, the parts of it I enjoy, I've gone back to at least as many times as my favorite arcs of BtVS, maybe even more. SO I DON'T KNOW IT'S COMPLICATED?!
Most re-watched:
Season 1: In the Dark, Parting Gifts, Five by Five, Sanctuary
Season 2: Dear Boy, Guise Will Be Guise, Darla, Reunion, Redefinition, The Thin Dead Line, Disharmony, Dead End
Season 3: Heartthrob, Offspring, Quickening, Lullaby. BASICALLY ALL THE DARLA.
Season 4: Deep Down, The House Always Wins, Supersymmetry, Spin the Bottle, Apocalypse Nowish (lol), Habeas Corpses (lol), Soulless, Calvary, Salvage, Release, Orpheus
Season 5: Destiny, Smile Time, The Girl in Question. (Angel getting whacked around! Angel getting turned into a muppet! Wesley getting his heart ripped out and stomped on! I HAVE SOME ISSUES APPARENTLY.)
Top 10% of episodes, rather than top 10:
11. Not Fade Away. I ...can't bring myself not to list it, because I can't deny that it's a great episode of the show, or that it's very true to the message of the show? Unfortunately that message is "the One of the Biggest Whitest Dick can and will suck everyone in sight into his stupid suicide mission and people will totally fall over themselves to kiss his ass for whatever stupid rationalizations he flings out" which I think is a pretty terrible message! even if it's probably true of the world at large. And it took me a long, long time to get over that enough to revisit the show at all.
10. Loyalty
9. The Magic Bullet
8. Salvage
7. Lineage (I CAN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT DON'T MAKE ME TALK ABOUT IT lol guys let's talk about it)
6. Spin the Bottle
5. Five by Five (see what I did there?)
4. Soulless
3. Darla
2. Smile Time
1. Dear Boy is the episode that got me to sit up and take notice of the show as a whole. I've probably watched that scene in the convent dozens of times over the years. God doesn't want you! But I still do.
Favorite characters, excluding the ones that qualified for the BtVS list (which conveniently eliminates a couple of tough choices):
5. Lorney-tunes! <3
4. Gunn
3. Fred
2. Darla
1. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, who spoiled me for all fictional men forever and ever amen!
(If I were going to do a top ten the other five would be Lilah, Lindsey, Harmony, Jasmine, and Illyria God-King of the Primordium)
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/299508.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.