![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jetpack_monkeyOkay, I was going to go into this big thing about Dylan Thomas (who, incidentally, is the origin of my penname, Dylan Adams) and his poem "Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night" and how it related to "Not Fade Away." I was planning it out in my head while I was watching it. But, oh no. Not only did ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
qkellie beat me to it - and with ICONS - but also a handful of other analyses of the ep.
Am I just that unoriginal?
I'm not going to talk about the end of the Buffyverse - that particular weight won't hit me until next Angel night when we pop in a Six Feet Under DVD instead of flipping to the WB (which, I can promise you, I will not be turning to ever again).
I will talk about why Angel has meant so much for me, not only as a creative program, but also as a talking point, a reference to my own life.
A lot of you know, I didn't get into the whole Buffy thing until Once More with Feeling. And I was pretty, ah, obsessed. I mean, here was a show full of humor and zing, and vampires and demons, and real drama and hot foilks of all genders (I hadn't come into my sexuality yet, but I did find myself awfully taken with Anthony Stewart Head for reasons I couldn't/wouldn't fathom).
Well, one of the aspects of obsession was Angel. I think my first episode might have been Carpe Noctem (I had to download everything off the 'net because we didn't have the WB or UPN in Iowa City), but on further recollection, I think it was Fredless.
I didn't take to the series immediately. Downloading was a long and annoying process, and I would have rather had new Buffy than this other show which was kind of dark, but didn't have the same kind of concentrated seasonal arcs... It didn't fit a pattern, and I had some trouble with it initially. Plus, I couldn't tell what it was getting at. Buffy was so very much about Girl Power and saving the day and it was very much in a black/white, right/wrong space... It made it easier to wrap your head around it when it delved into the more philosophical areas of the universe. It was a big, bold show with a very universal spirit to it.
Angel... was tougher. I couldn't figure out why. I mean, overall, the actual plot arcs tended to last a few episodes, with lots and lots of standalones... But you couldn't watch just one, like with Buffy, where you could easily pick up pretty much anywhere and get a sense of the story... Coming into third season was tough as hell.
It was a brilliant concept - almost Buffy to 11, in a way. They built enough momentum early in the series, with the character relationships and antagonisms and switches to the dark side and back and forth, that by Season Three, the show was working on pure character momentum.
Once you got the rhythm, the backstory, and all of that... It was possibly the best show on television.
It wasn't that it was smarter than other shows. It just wasn't smug about its intelligence. It just assumed that whoever was watching would get the reference, would've heard that paticular song. It wasn't because it was intelligent (and it was) - it was because it just blithely assumed that the viewer was.
It's not that it was funnier than other shows. "Buffy" had more yuks an ep, generally speaking. But "Angel"'s wry cracks and sidelong mutterings worked to break up what was a very, very dark show. The writers (usually) had an impeccable sense of balance on the matter - during Angel's dark revenger period in S2, there was usually a B plot involving Wes, Cordy, and Gunn getting into wacky hi-jinks on their own (I particularly recall the gigantic beast from "Blood Money" who doesn't so much *breathe* fire as uh, well... expell it).
The fight scenes usually meant something - each connected punch would speak of the character's place in the battle, place in their current arc, etc. There was a dramatic resonance to the brawling that Buffy missed a lot of the time - but that was really the difference between the shows. Buffy fought because she had to, because it was her destiny. Angel fought because it was the right thing to do.
And that was the crux of the series - Angel understood the odds, understood the enormity of the task - and he took it a bit at a time. One battle to the next, one day after another. It was never over, literally. As a vampire, he could live until the sun overtook the Earth, and his work was to fight whatever evil was on the planet. David Greenwalt and Joss tried to throw him a bone in 1x22 with the Shanshu, but quickly rescinded its importance - it was the point. There wasn't a point. There was only the cause.
It's interesting to note that Angel's path got pretty damn murky every time he tried do more than work from one apocalypse to the next. When he redefined himself in a war against the Senior Partners, when he decided to compromise himself by taking over Woflram & Hart... These were the periods where things were darkest, when the battle seemed the most lost...
Angel was, for me, a parable for getting through the lost years of your life. Usually its the twentysomethings. There you are, out in the wide world, with nothing protecting you, watched by figures who can't interfere for fear of undoing the meaning of your journey, who can only give you tidbits of information that never make sense until exactly the right moment (and sometimes not even then). You're surrounded by trouble at all sides and solving one thing just leads to another thing. The world can get cold, the world can get harsh - on the periphery of everything, you feel these giant ideological battles going on that you can't ever hope to really understand, much less change. But you fight. You go to the next day, and the next. And you start to find that its not a destination that you're headed towards... it's the journey you're on.
Angel's ostensible battle may be for atonement, but I've always seen it as one of just growing up, growing into himself. He makes some serious errors along the way, not always with the best intentions, and he can't always make things go back to what they were, because the world around him doesn't. His relationships shift and change, he loses allies, he gains enemies. Friends become adversaries become friends again. The world shifts, it changes. Angel is not the stalwart hero - but he's the human center (ironically). His life and his adventures may be nothing like our own - but the message is the same: "If nothing you do matters, then all that matters is what you do."
Angel: Existential Superhero. And who would've thought that in a universe so replete with a mythology of higher beings and battles on levels no person could conceive - the most poignant battles that Angel fights occur because it's what he believes is right. Not because he's acting as a puppet to PTB, SP, CNN, or SBC. He's stopping the apocalypse because, yeah, tomorrow might be another one, but he'll stop that one too.
And the thing is - it might seem like the fight is insurmountable, but his quest has inspired others with far less to atone for. Wesley, who went from inept to dangerous. Gunn, who went from a strict "I'm good, they evil, they dead" perspective to one of the more intriguing shades of grey and back to a more balanced mixture of brawn and mystic brains. Faith, in her few appearances on the show, began as a psychotic killer and ended as an almost mellow philosophical do-gooder. But most importantly was Cordelia Chase, who started her journey as a stuck-up snob and became the very heart of the show - strong, sassy, the voice of reason, and the most dedicated fighter of evil on the team. Angel and Doyle started her down the road, but she made it on her own (until that whole, uh, evil squicky pregnant thing in S4, but hey, "You're Welcome" rocked it out in a Chasian fashion). Bringing in a stable of characters ranging from goofy to emotionally unstable to shallow, and then transforming them all into warriors against evil and strife - that is the most potent weapon Angel could have in his neverending struggle, and I don't think, as a character, he really appreciated its value.
I didn't mention Doyle because his time was too brief - and Connor mainly served as something for the MoG to trip over every week ("Oh, we're fighting evil, but drat it, Connor's confused again so we have to deal with that, too. Blast."). Fred... Fred was less a warrior on the show, and more like Joss's weird attempt to give us a regular face to the typically here-and-gone-again helpless. I liked the character well enough, but I never really understood the point. It was almost as if she sat around for 2.5 seasons just to rake in Audience Sympathy chips and cash them in at an appropriately timed Dire Moment.
Which would lead into my whole "Joss, please get a fucking therapist" rant about Season 5.jennyo has a nice theory about why Lindsey was there (which somewhat falls apart when you add in the information that at no time was Stephanie Romanov even approached to continue the role of Lilah for another season - as she stated in interviews at the Chicago Buffy Con recently). And yeah, I get the million times over you stated both subtly and obviously that The Man is bad and that playing by Their Rules will diminish you. It's not new information, and a lot of episodes restated obvious information and didn't treat the viewer with the same intelligence previously exhibited. But, you know, it doesn't matter.
The final two episodes were rushed a bit (Circle of the Black Thorn? Where? Who? What?), but it all came down to the very last moment. Four heroes in an alleyway facing monsters they can't defeat, but charging ahead anyway. Once more into the breach (I personally would have filmed that last shot differently, but that's neither here nor there).
In a single cut to an executive producer credit, the show summed up everything. It's not the fight that counts - it's that you fought. It's that you didn't let things stay the same and slide into entropy. It's that you brought everything you were to the fore of this blighted plane called the world, and you tried - and working like that? You always change something.
It would've been a hellauva Season 6, I can tell you that. But the series ends the way it began - with a heroic gesture in an alleyway.
And that's how it should be.
qkellie beat me to it - and with ICONS - but also a handful of other analyses of the ep.Am I just that unoriginal?
I'm not going to talk about the end of the Buffyverse - that particular weight won't hit me until next Angel night when we pop in a Six Feet Under DVD instead of flipping to the WB (which, I can promise you, I will not be turning to ever again).
I will talk about why Angel has meant so much for me, not only as a creative program, but also as a talking point, a reference to my own life.
A lot of you know, I didn't get into the whole Buffy thing until Once More with Feeling. And I was pretty, ah, obsessed. I mean, here was a show full of humor and zing, and vampires and demons, and real drama and hot foilks of all genders (I hadn't come into my sexuality yet, but I did find myself awfully taken with Anthony Stewart Head for reasons I couldn't/wouldn't fathom).
Well, one of the aspects of obsession was Angel. I think my first episode might have been Carpe Noctem (I had to download everything off the 'net because we didn't have the WB or UPN in Iowa City), but on further recollection, I think it was Fredless.
I didn't take to the series immediately. Downloading was a long and annoying process, and I would have rather had new Buffy than this other show which was kind of dark, but didn't have the same kind of concentrated seasonal arcs... It didn't fit a pattern, and I had some trouble with it initially. Plus, I couldn't tell what it was getting at. Buffy was so very much about Girl Power and saving the day and it was very much in a black/white, right/wrong space... It made it easier to wrap your head around it when it delved into the more philosophical areas of the universe. It was a big, bold show with a very universal spirit to it.
Angel... was tougher. I couldn't figure out why. I mean, overall, the actual plot arcs tended to last a few episodes, with lots and lots of standalones... But you couldn't watch just one, like with Buffy, where you could easily pick up pretty much anywhere and get a sense of the story... Coming into third season was tough as hell.
It was a brilliant concept - almost Buffy to 11, in a way. They built enough momentum early in the series, with the character relationships and antagonisms and switches to the dark side and back and forth, that by Season Three, the show was working on pure character momentum.
Once you got the rhythm, the backstory, and all of that... It was possibly the best show on television.
It wasn't that it was smarter than other shows. It just wasn't smug about its intelligence. It just assumed that whoever was watching would get the reference, would've heard that paticular song. It wasn't because it was intelligent (and it was) - it was because it just blithely assumed that the viewer was.
It's not that it was funnier than other shows. "Buffy" had more yuks an ep, generally speaking. But "Angel"'s wry cracks and sidelong mutterings worked to break up what was a very, very dark show. The writers (usually) had an impeccable sense of balance on the matter - during Angel's dark revenger period in S2, there was usually a B plot involving Wes, Cordy, and Gunn getting into wacky hi-jinks on their own (I particularly recall the gigantic beast from "Blood Money" who doesn't so much *breathe* fire as uh, well... expell it).
The fight scenes usually meant something - each connected punch would speak of the character's place in the battle, place in their current arc, etc. There was a dramatic resonance to the brawling that Buffy missed a lot of the time - but that was really the difference between the shows. Buffy fought because she had to, because it was her destiny. Angel fought because it was the right thing to do.
And that was the crux of the series - Angel understood the odds, understood the enormity of the task - and he took it a bit at a time. One battle to the next, one day after another. It was never over, literally. As a vampire, he could live until the sun overtook the Earth, and his work was to fight whatever evil was on the planet. David Greenwalt and Joss tried to throw him a bone in 1x22 with the Shanshu, but quickly rescinded its importance - it was the point. There wasn't a point. There was only the cause.
It's interesting to note that Angel's path got pretty damn murky every time he tried do more than work from one apocalypse to the next. When he redefined himself in a war against the Senior Partners, when he decided to compromise himself by taking over Woflram & Hart... These were the periods where things were darkest, when the battle seemed the most lost...
Angel was, for me, a parable for getting through the lost years of your life. Usually its the twentysomethings. There you are, out in the wide world, with nothing protecting you, watched by figures who can't interfere for fear of undoing the meaning of your journey, who can only give you tidbits of information that never make sense until exactly the right moment (and sometimes not even then). You're surrounded by trouble at all sides and solving one thing just leads to another thing. The world can get cold, the world can get harsh - on the periphery of everything, you feel these giant ideological battles going on that you can't ever hope to really understand, much less change. But you fight. You go to the next day, and the next. And you start to find that its not a destination that you're headed towards... it's the journey you're on.
Angel's ostensible battle may be for atonement, but I've always seen it as one of just growing up, growing into himself. He makes some serious errors along the way, not always with the best intentions, and he can't always make things go back to what they were, because the world around him doesn't. His relationships shift and change, he loses allies, he gains enemies. Friends become adversaries become friends again. The world shifts, it changes. Angel is not the stalwart hero - but he's the human center (ironically). His life and his adventures may be nothing like our own - but the message is the same: "If nothing you do matters, then all that matters is what you do."
Angel: Existential Superhero. And who would've thought that in a universe so replete with a mythology of higher beings and battles on levels no person could conceive - the most poignant battles that Angel fights occur because it's what he believes is right. Not because he's acting as a puppet to PTB, SP, CNN, or SBC. He's stopping the apocalypse because, yeah, tomorrow might be another one, but he'll stop that one too.
And the thing is - it might seem like the fight is insurmountable, but his quest has inspired others with far less to atone for. Wesley, who went from inept to dangerous. Gunn, who went from a strict "I'm good, they evil, they dead" perspective to one of the more intriguing shades of grey and back to a more balanced mixture of brawn and mystic brains. Faith, in her few appearances on the show, began as a psychotic killer and ended as an almost mellow philosophical do-gooder. But most importantly was Cordelia Chase, who started her journey as a stuck-up snob and became the very heart of the show - strong, sassy, the voice of reason, and the most dedicated fighter of evil on the team. Angel and Doyle started her down the road, but she made it on her own (until that whole, uh, evil squicky pregnant thing in S4, but hey, "You're Welcome" rocked it out in a Chasian fashion). Bringing in a stable of characters ranging from goofy to emotionally unstable to shallow, and then transforming them all into warriors against evil and strife - that is the most potent weapon Angel could have in his neverending struggle, and I don't think, as a character, he really appreciated its value.
I didn't mention Doyle because his time was too brief - and Connor mainly served as something for the MoG to trip over every week ("Oh, we're fighting evil, but drat it, Connor's confused again so we have to deal with that, too. Blast."). Fred... Fred was less a warrior on the show, and more like Joss's weird attempt to give us a regular face to the typically here-and-gone-again helpless. I liked the character well enough, but I never really understood the point. It was almost as if she sat around for 2.5 seasons just to rake in Audience Sympathy chips and cash them in at an appropriately timed Dire Moment.
Which would lead into my whole "Joss, please get a fucking therapist" rant about Season 5.
jennyo has a nice theory about why Lindsey was there (which somewhat falls apart when you add in the information that at no time was Stephanie Romanov even approached to continue the role of Lilah for another season - as she stated in interviews at the Chicago Buffy Con recently). And yeah, I get the million times over you stated both subtly and obviously that The Man is bad and that playing by Their Rules will diminish you. It's not new information, and a lot of episodes restated obvious information and didn't treat the viewer with the same intelligence previously exhibited. But, you know, it doesn't matter.The final two episodes were rushed a bit (Circle of the Black Thorn? Where? Who? What?), but it all came down to the very last moment. Four heroes in an alleyway facing monsters they can't defeat, but charging ahead anyway. Once more into the breach (I personally would have filmed that last shot differently, but that's neither here nor there).
In a single cut to an executive producer credit, the show summed up everything. It's not the fight that counts - it's that you fought. It's that you didn't let things stay the same and slide into entropy. It's that you brought everything you were to the fore of this blighted plane called the world, and you tried - and working like that? You always change something.
It would've been a hellauva Season 6, I can tell you that. But the series ends the way it began - with a heroic gesture in an alleyway.
And that's how it should be.
