Angel

Angel - Vampire Dad/Hero/Super Detective

The following paragraph is in my other reviews, but I believe it bears repeating. This six Disk DVD Set is extraordinary. The Picture and Sound quality are so very good that you feel as though you are watching it in a theater. The closed captioning and Audio come in other languages besides English. It’s jam packed with all sorts of extra bonus specials. The Brilliant creator, Joss Whedon and other staff members are at their very best, just as they were with their work on Buffy (which is also a must own). I not only highly recommend this Season disk set, but the other four seasons as well. Quite a bit of quality work went into the making of all five seasons. They are a necessary buy for any Angel fan! It’s completely impossible to be anything but extremely pleased with this purchase as well as the rest of the series. The writing, acting , directing, etc... are amazing per usual. This is without question once again feature film quality. The fact that all but the first season is filmed in Letter Box gives it that theater feel. In addition, the closed-captioning is less likely to interfere with the picture.

David Boreanaz (Angel) and Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) are brilliant in their performances together as well as the obvious sexual tension between them. They play it to the hilt. I personally would have liked to see them get together, but Joss Whedon as always had other ideas. Yet, another character was added at the end of season two, Amy Acker (Fred). She was rescued by the crew from Pylea, Lorne’s home demon dimension. She joins Angel investigations, starting out a little bit on the crazy side. She grows into a pivotal member of the group. Amy Acker is quite a versatile actor. I must give extra credit to the incomparable Julie Benz (Darla, Vampire Extraordinaire). She was introduced at the end of Season One, brought back by Wolfram and Hart as Human. She does an exceptional job in playing the wickedly pissed off pregnant vampire and then redeeming herself in Episode 9 "Lullaby", by taking her own life so that her son may live. I’m aware that quite a few fans didn’t like her until Lullaby, but I always thought she was incredible and was very sorry to see her go as a on and off regular. However, not to worry fans she will reappear now and again. As in many cases in the Joss Whedon universe the dead end up working again and sometimes more. I not only highly recommend this Season disk set, but the other four seasons as well. Any true Angel fan must complete their set with this one. It’s a keeper folks. Purchase this before it gets sold out and you miss your chance to continue your collection. ORDER IMMEDIATELY AND DON’T FORGET TO BUY SEASONS ONE, TWO, FOUR AND FIVE WHILE YOUR AT IT.

Fantastic season

This marked the first year "Angel" was separated from its parent show now that they were on different networks. It rose to the occasion. That’s one of the greatest strenghts of this season and season four, there were minimum references to BTVS as the show and its own mythology stood on its own. It featured an epic storyline and great performances from the three core characters; Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley. It may be Angel’s show, but Cordelia and Wesley are nearly as important to the show as he is. Both of these two characters did quite a bit of evolving this season. Compare them both to their days on BTVS, and you can hardly believe they are the same characters they are now. Another of the best things this season is the budding romance between Angel and Cordelia. It was very touching and very believable. Some people didn’t get it, they said how can Angel and Cordelia become lovers after being just friends for so long. That’s why it’s so believable. People that are friends first and become lovers later are the relationships that last in the long haul. Then there was the unfair resistance from the small but loud faction of fans who couldn’t accept the fact that Angel and Buffy were history and didn’t want Angel to be with anyone else. Going back and watching these episodes now is really sad after Cordelia died in the 100th episode, the full potential of the C/A romance will never be realized. As for the villains this season; the main villain is Holtz on a quest for vengeance against Angel. He’s a bit of a bore. But this is more than compensated for by the presence of two other villains; evil lawyer Lilah Morgan who has been around since season 1 and really gets to shine this season, and a new villain, the wickedly funny demon Sahjhan. This guy cracks me up. The biggest weaknesses in the main cast are Gunn and Fred. Gunn is about the most boring one dimensional character in the Whedonverse. Fred is uber annoying. I didn’t mind her when I orginally viewed these episodes one week at a time, but when you watch the episodes on DVD back to back, you realize how really annoying she is. It’s clear these two characters had limited potential, which is why Joss Whedon had to make radical character shifts on them both in season five. Whenever Fred and/or Gunn are on screen by themselves, hit fast forward. Their presence is why I give this season four stars instead of five. Must mention a couple of underrated good episodes: Carpe Noctem-Angel gets his body switched with an evil old man who runs around causing a bit of chaos in Angel’s body while Angel is trapped in a retirement home, and A New World-Angel must deal with the return of his son Connor who utterly hates him. Watch for Deborah Zoe as the blue haired sorceress Mistress Myrna. That’s a one shot character who should have gotten more appearances. The extras are good, this is the only Angel DVD set where we get deleted scenes. The three commentaries are all good, but for 22 episodes, more than three would be nice. This is great tv, highly recommended.