I highly agree, Shockdown. Season 4 of Angel is arguably the best season of any Mutant Enemy show (right up there with the second and third seasons of Buffy).
Over 1250 posts and still never a Wiener of the Day!
In the issues of December 16th, 2000 to November 10th, 2001, we may have given the impression that George W. Bush had been legally and duly elected president of the United States. We now understand that this may have been incorrect, and that the election result is still too close to call. The Economist apologizes for any inconvenience. --- The Economist, 11/17/01
I'd dispute that there was no standout episode this past season, because I can think of one -- "Conversations with Dead People" (the one where Buffy talked with Holden the vampire psych student, the First came to Willow in Cassie's form, and it was revealed that Spike was back killing people). That was a damn good one, and it got me believing in the First as a major villain. And there were several other strong episodes in the early going -- "Selfless" and "Sleeper" jump to mind. But as others have noted, they didn't follow up on their promise. After building the First up into such a menacing force, they didn't do anything with it, and eventually just had to resort to trotting out Caleb to give Buffy something to punch.
"next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
"Trogdor was a man. No, he was a dragon man... or maybe he was just a dragon. But he was still TROGDORRRRR! TROGDORRRRR! Burninating the countryside, Burninating the peasants. Burninating all the people in thier thatched-roof COTTAGES. THATCHED ROOF COTTAGES. AND THE TROGDOR COMES IN THE NIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHHT!"
As for the rest, I was laughing pretty hard at the way Anya went out. That was cool.
I missed about half the season so I'm a little lost on 2 things...
1) When did Sunnydale become a ghost town? Where did everyone go and when did that happen.
2) What's up with Principal Wood? What is he to the group and when did he become a part of them, I seem to have missed that episode.
Cerebus: Barbarian, Prime Minister, Pope, Perfect House Guest.
"Graft is as necessary as throwing up when you drink too much."
Originally posted by CerebusCount Olaf: Strong Bad 'created' Trogdor...
"Trogdor was a man. No, he was a dragon man... or maybe he was just a dragon. But he was still TROGDORRRRR! TROGDORRRRR! Burninating the countryside, Burninating the peasants. Burninating all the people in thier thatched-roof COTTAGES. THATCHED ROOF COTTAGES. AND THE TROGDOR COMES IN THE NIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHHT!"
As for the rest, I was laughing pretty hard at the way Anya went out. That was cool.
I missed about half the season so I'm a little lost on 2 things...
1) When did Sunnydale become a ghost town? Where did everyone go and when did that happen.
2) What's up with Principal Wood? What is he to the group and when did he become a part of them, I seem to have missed that episode.
1) A few weeks back. Even demons left. Buffy had a convo with Clem on the way out.
2) Robin Wood's a son of a Slayer. In fact, the Slayer that Spike killed in New York in a Subway (as shown in a flashback a few seasons ago) He was raised by his mother's watcher. Spike's trenchcoat actually belonged to Woods' mother. Wood always knew Buffy was a Slayer, which is why he hired her to work for the school.
As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?
Originally posted by Shem the PenmanI'd dispute that there was no standout episode this past season, because I can think of one -- "Conversations with Dead People" (the one where Buffy talked with Holden the vampire psych student, the First came to Willow in Cassie's form, and it was revealed that Spike was back killing people). That was a damn good one, and it got me believing in the First as a major villain. And there were several other strong episodes in the early going -- "Selfless" and "Sleeper" jump to mind. But as others have noted, they didn't follow up on their promise. After building the First up into such a menacing force, they didn't do anything with it, and eventually just had to resort to trotting out Caleb to give Buffy something to punch.
I'll agree that "Conversations With Dead People" & "Selfless" are excellent episodes, particularly the former. And from what I have read, the writer of both episodes, Drew Goddard, will be writing for Angel next season, so that's a plus. I dunno though..those episodes, for me personally, don't have the repeat value that past episodes have had, like "Becoming" or "Once More With Feeling" (and I admit that the musical was such a special event that comparing it to other episodes in terms of repeat viewing value is unfair).
(edited by shockdown on 24.5.03 2302) Power flows to the one who knows how -- desire alone is not enough.
Originally posted by Shem the PenmanI'd dispute that there was no standout episode this past season, because I can think of one -- "Conversations with Dead People" (the one where Buffy talked with Holden the vampire psych student, the First came to Willow in Cassie's form, and it was revealed that Spike was back killing people). That was a damn good one, and it got me believing in the First as a major villain. And there were several other strong episodes in the early going -- "Selfless" and "Sleeper" jump to mind. But as others have noted, they didn't follow up on their promise. After building the First up into such a menacing force, they didn't do anything with it, and eventually just had to resort to trotting out Caleb to give Buffy something to punch.
I'll agree that "Conversations With Dead People" & "Selfless" are excellent episodes, particularly the former. And from what I have read, the writer of both episodes, Drew Goddard, will be writing for Angel next season, so that's a plus. I dunno though..those episodes, for me personally, don't have the repeat value that past episodes have had, like "Becoming" or "Once More With Feeling" (and I admit that the musical was such a special event that comparing it to other episodes in terms of repeat viewing value is unfair). SY
There aren't really any episodes that stood out for me this year, but that isnt necessarily a bad thing because it was consisitently good from week to week unlike last season which had Once More With Feeling and Tabula Rosa, two of my favorite Buffy episodes, but the rest of the season sucked.
I'd agree that Selfless and Conversations with Dead People were the high points of the season. In fact, I was really enjoying the entire season until the episode where the first Slayers in Training showed up. After that, the episode quality just plummeted downhill.
Over 1250 posts and still never a Wiener of the Day!
In the issues of December 16th, 2000 to November 10th, 2001, we may have given the impression that George W. Bush had been legally and duly elected president of the United States. We now understand that this may have been incorrect, and that the election result is still too close to call. The Economist apologizes for any inconvenience. --- The Economist, 11/17/01
I thought this was a fairly strong season for a number of reasons. One of which was the slow build to the First. From the First episode on, the villian march in the first episode was a huge mark out moment, they kept doing little things like is Giles the First? Who is Principal Woods? What is the First and how can we beat it? It was this frenzy of speculation that made this season great to me. Even the end was a nice touch with changing the mythos and making sure certain characters lived.
If I had to pick any episode, I would pick the Anya vs. Buffy episode as the stand-out early in the year. It had a ton of great moments in it plus revealed Willow's message to Buffy from Becoming part 2. That made the entire episode for me. I just think this season was stellar all around.
As for Angel Seaon 4 being the best season ever. No. It had a great beginnig and middle, but Jasmine killed it for me. The last few episodes were kinda boring and the only good to come out of it was removing Conner from the cast. If I had to pick a really great season I'd say Buffy Season 3, a lot of great stand our and story arc episodes with a great ending.
A Fan- Plus, without Season 7 there would be no really good conversations on this board.
God I hated it. I really wish they'd ended Buffy with "The Gift," when it was still clever and somewhat subtle. Since then we've had magic as crack, Spike the rapist, the least scary Big Bad yet (come on, all it does is talk, for crying out loud), a Giles who acts nothing like Giles and a godawful, beat-you-over-the-head girl power theme.
How did Willow's spell work? Why was it necessary when Spike just ended up nuking everybody anyway? Also, white hair=good. Black hair=bad. GOT IT, Whedon.
I thought the Turok-Han were serious badasses? All of a sudden, people like Wood, Xander, Anya and freakin' ANDREW can take them out? Let's have some consistency, please.
What happened to "lots of people are going to die?" Spike and Anya, okay, major characters, all good even though they're my favorites. Nice to see Anya's death get NO EMOTIONAL RESPONSE, however. Amanda: were we ever given a reason to care about her, or any of the Slayerettes (except to hate Kennedy)? No emotional impact. They left WOOD alive. He was pure cannon fodder from the beginning. I would argue for Andrew getting it, too, but it's not necessary. Giles dying would have had mass emotional impact, but they might still do Ripper, I suppose. And they really should have torn through those godawful Slayerettes. They have no character development, so the rational thing to do would be to kill off a shitload of them (all of the nameless ones would have been nice) to get the point across that this is the apocalypse to end all apocalypses.
Also, the level of deus ex machina was fucking intolerable. The axe (no, that is in no way a scythe). The freaking TERRIBLY CHEESY wise old woman in white (Because girls kick butt and men are EVIL. Did anyone else catch that theme this season or was it too subtle?). And, worst of all, the amulet that turned out to be the key to victory, which Angel just happened to drop by to deliver. Riiiight.
I remember when this show was the best-written show on television. Now I'm convinced they hired some WWE writers to ghost for the entire season while Whedon and friends huffed bleach.
Read the screenplay, lots of death. Besides, we started out with 30 and how many were standing at the end? Less than 10. 60% plus isn't a lot? My mistake.
You can never have too many Whedon related threads.
Actually, while it certainly wasn't a scythe, it wasn't an axe either. That was a picture-book definition of a glaive. And I thought that schoolbus looked pretty full at the end also. I don't think we actually saw more than one SIT die in the whole episode.
Originally posted by Tenken347Actually, while it certainly wasn't a scythe, it wasn't an axe either. That was a picture-book definition of a glaive. And I thought that schoolbus looked pretty full at the end also. I don't think we actually saw more than one SIT die in the whole episode.
Actually, a glaive'd have a longer haft, if I'm not mistaken... it looked to me like an extraordinarily goofy decorative headsman's axe, with a big ol' blade to make up for the traditional... lack of accuracy on the chopping block.
And, AngryJohnny... while two-thirds of the SIT's may've croaked it, none of them had any real particular impact. They could've just as easily had them be random people off the streets of Sunnydale... at least then they could have done the "The First is wiping out my hometown!" thing.
Kansas-born and deeply ashamed The last living La Parka Marka
"They that can give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Hmm, I certainly didn't perceive a lot of deaths. If you have to go to a screenplay to figure it out, it must not have been shot very well on film. Of course, the way the whole thing was done, it was very difficult to get a good idea of how many SIT's there were in the first place, much less how many died. Maybe that was by design, because showing deaths on screen costs money.
Still, I only saw two SIT's go down on screen, right when Anya also went down. They then all went to a big bus, which certainly could hold a good 30 people. While they never showed the whole bus, the part they did show had all seats occupied, and the assumption I made was that the bus was full (which jives with only 2 SIT's dying, plus Anya and Spike). Now, later, when they showed Anya's body, it didn't seem like it was the only body there, though it was unclear whether those were human bodies or Ubervamp bodies. Of course, if it was human bodies, that would imply that other SIT's died offscreen.
Clearly 20 SIT's didn't die onscreen. And if they did die, that really didn't come across well, at least to me. It seemed to me that the SIT's became all Slayerfied, which in turn somehow turned the Ubervamps into quite ordinary regular vamps in effect (or even less so, given the successes of Dawn, Xander, and Anya), and they pretty much gave the Vamps a good ol' fashioned ass whoopin', outside of the about 10 seconds of screen time given to a very momentary tide turn when Buffy was stabbed, and the First decided to talk trash. That's how I saw it. Maybe it was suppose to come off as a tight contest, but it looked like a big-time old-fashioned King Kong Bundy squash, complete with the five count, to me.
I agree with Jake's analysis for the most part. I didn't hate it, but the plot really is easy to poke holes in once you start scrutinizing it. Of course, I think that you could argue that any piece of fiction can be picked apart with scrutiny. But I think it would have taken a least a little more with past Buffy seasons. They did use their best ending up with "The Gift".
I thought the popular interpretation was the whether it was literally a scythe or an axe or a glaive or a pasta maker, it was named "the scythe" and that's why they called it such.
I don't think it was the worst episode ever, but given that a) the number of holes found is greater than in prior seasons, and b) this was the last season, and therefore, it should be on par with the best seasons thus far (2 and 3), if not better. It was merely decent, which was enough to leave most fans disappointed.
Originally posted by JakegnosisGod I hated it. I really wish they'd ended Buffy with "The Gift," when it was still clever and somewhat subtle. Since then we've had magic as crack, Spike the rapist, the least scary Big Bad yet (come on, all it does is talk, for crying out loud), a Giles who acts nothing like Giles and a godawful, beat-you-over-the-head girl power theme.
Amen & Amen. And people say Adam was the worst villian. At least he had a definitive plan.
I forgot to mention in my earlier post about the ineffectiveness of the Ubervamps; it's not a good idea to focus two whole episodes on showing how hard they are to kill, then have ordinary human characters like Wood & Giles dust them.
Oh, and only 2 SIT's are shown to die: the Chinese Slayer Chou-Ahn, and Amanda. Too bad, since Amanda was really the only likeable one.
Power flows to the one who knows how -- desire alone is not enough.
Originally posted by AngryJohnnyI'm getting dangerously far into Comic Book Geek territory here, but those couldn't have been Ubervamp bodies, b/c they're dust after dying.
I can see how some would be disappointed, but I just don't understand the number of people waving the smark card and crying "worst episode ever."
D'oh!!! I've only watched probably hundreds of vampires dusted, so it's easy to see why forgot the basic rule that vampires turn to dust after they die.
(Bangs head on desk)I'm so stupid, stupid, stupid...
Originally posted by shockdownonly 2 SIT's are shown to die: the Chinese Slayer Chou-Ahn, and Amanda.
At least 3 or 4 died in the pit. One got knocked over by a group of them, one got pulled down into all of them, etc. etc. We didn't know them, but there was death.
You can never have too many Whedon related threads.
What the heck did Andy Rooney say? Because if it had anything to do with the fact that sideline reporters have been type-cast as pretty females, then I think I agree with him.