Angel

Angel: Season Five

release date February 15, 2005
studio Twentieth Century Fox
discs 6 video Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1
audio Stereo 2.0

TMR Official Review
Movie 10.0
Audio 9.0
Video 9.0
Extras 9.0
Replay 9.0
DVD Score: 9.0
Verdict: Buy
By Tony Faville on February 14, 2005

Angel, the Vampire with a soul. Cursed by gypsies 200 years ago, the bloodiest and most vile Vampire known to mankind now lives in torment over his past life. Given a chance by the Powers That Be to regain his human life through an ancient prophecy, he now helps the helpless fighting Vampires, Demons and Evil throughout L.A.

movie

Angel (David Boreanaz) started as a main character on the hit television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After the second season Angel moved from Sunnydale to Los Angeles and gained his own hit show. During the next 5 years Angel and Buffy had many cross-over episodes but Angel truly stood it’s own ground and became every bit as popular as Buffy. In many ways, despite coming from the same creative minds, Angel was a better show, providing better dialogue, action and villains (to be honest, I preferred Angel over Buffy). At least Angel had a reason to “pout”, or brood as they put it on the show.

During the 5th season, and right around the filming of the 100th episode, the networks made the decision to cancel the series. A media and fan-based blitz went up to try to save the show, hoping for either a network switch or the network to change its mind. Ultimately, everyone lost out and TV lost yet another of its best shows.

Here in the final season Angel and his crew, Wesley Wyndham Price (Alexis Denisoff), Charles Gunn (J. August Richards), Winifred Burkle/Illyria (Amy Acker) and Lorne (Andy Hallett) are joined by another Vampire with a soul, Spike (James Marsters), also from Buffy. This season they are working for and running the Wolfram and Hart law firm, the purveyors of all evil. Difficulties working with your sworn enemy abound, alliances are questioned, evil ass is kicked, even evil puppet ass (including Angel turned into a puppet) and we see the coming of THE Apocalypse. In the end, we are left hanging as to the outcome of most of the heroes and we receive one final memorable quote by Angel, "Well, personally? I kinda want to slay the dragon. Let’s go to work."

Things to Look For
Best Surround
n/a
Best LFE
n/a
Hot Women
Charisma Carpenter
Amy Acker
Jenny Mollen
Mercedes McNab
audio

Presented in a very clean English 2.0 soundtrack, Angel Season Five could have sounded better. Only by doing a complete remix to 5.1 could they have made it sound any better. There are no hisses, pops, fadeouts, anything wrong with the audio mix. There are also Spanish and French audio tracks included which is a nice touch for our friends up North and down South.

video

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, this is how TV should be done. And this DVD is how TV shows should look. Again, Fox did a wonderful job with the video transfer, looking far better than this show ever looked on standard TV. Yes, Angel was broadcast in HD-TV and looked phenomenal, but most purchasers of this DVD will have watched it in standard TV. Being crisp, clean and free of dirt, scratches, grain, anything that would be detrimental to your viewing pleasure. They do not come much better than this.

extra features

There are more than enough special features on this set and they are truly better than your typical fluff. Mostly comprising of commentaries and cast and crew interviews, they are all worth watching and not the slightest bit boring to a fan of the show.

We are treated to audio commentaries on 7 episodes by cast and crew that includes Joss Whedon, David Boreanaz (See SMG, it is OK for a star of a hit show to be involved in the DVD release!), Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Juliet Landau (daughter of Martin Landau and recurring character), Adam Baldwin, Christian Kane and more.

Featurettes include:

Hey Kids! It’s Smile Time! This was an interesting featurette to watch as it centered around one of my favorite episodes. Angel is turned into a puppet and fights to save the children of LA from life-sucking puppet demons. My only complaint is that this episode did not run until later in the season

Angel 100 a look at the wrap party for the 100th episode that was highlighted by the return of the beautiful Charisma Carpenter (with her twins on display).

Angel: Choreography of a Stunt gives us a look at the often seen main stunt man for David Boreanaz as well as a decent enough look at the filming of a stunt that has Angel being thrown out of the window of a tall building. Not a lot of technical detail is given but a couple little tricks of the trade are passed along.

Angel: The Final Season gives us an entertaining look at the final season through interviews with the cast and crew along with several lengthy clips. Well worth the 27 minute run time.

To Live & Die in L.A.: The Best of Angel is a lengthy interview with Joss Whedon interspersed with clips from the shows full duration. This is a compilation of Joss’ favorite episodes. Personally, while I agree with his choices, there are several more that I would have added to the list.

Halos and Horns: Recurring Villainy. At a running time of a little over 9 minutes we get up close and personal with the recurring evil from the series’ run. Included are Drusilla (Juliet Landau), Darla (Julie Benz), Lilah (Stephanie Romanov) and Lindsey (Christian Kane).

Angel Unbound: The Gag Reels. This is a great 6 minute piece that gives us glimpses of dancing Angel, Wesley doing a strip tease reminiscent of a scene from American Pie, flubbed lines, falls, etc. It’s nice to see this type of feature included as well know we all make mistakes in life.

add to ManRoom?

By all means, yes. Angel Season Five was one of the two best seasons of the 5-year run (Season 3 being the other) and is well worth adding to your collection. It goes without saying, if you have never watched Angel, please do yourself a huge favor and start with Season 1. This is a show that revisits its past in dialogue all the time so you do not want to be left wondering what they were talking about. This DVD is a fine tribute to the final season of one of the best shows to have ever been shown on TV.