Angel

Joss Whedon’s season-opening episodes are generally among his weakest, but this was a happy exception. Eminently quotable dialogue and fascinating gray-area scenarios that’s like taking "The Practice" and running it through the horror genre grinder. My personal jury is still out on Gunn’s transformation into a lawyer. On the other hand, it was fun to see the old Cordelia reincarnated as Harmony : Much of her dialogue and all of her attitude could have been first season Cordy, right down to the turn-on-a-dime, "Oh, my poor friend, woe is me...oh well. Where were we ?" And we’re going to have to wait a week to see which leaked rumor is true : That Spike is now a human and the first male slayer to boot, or that Spike is non-corporeal, i.e., a ghost. Plot hole that bothered me : How did Wesley know Spike ? They’ve never met. Plot hole that stopped bothering me : How the hell did they get the amulet from the bottom of the Sunnydale pit so they could mail it back to Angel ? I realized that Willow could probably just wave her hand in some retrieval spell and the amulet would be in her hand. And thank God Angel got rid of that personal SWAT team : Any tactical group conducting a gunfight with a vampire during broad daylight that doesn’t think to shoot out the windows so sunlight would come cascading in, severely handicapping Angel, deserves what they get.