We get down to the last of the new episodes before the break until next sweeps. * sigh * Remember when there was something like twenty-eight episodes of a series and they’d just run them straight through, only breaking for Christmas week?
Spoilers follow…
SMALLVILLE: As we appear to witness the last gasp of the “I wonder if Adam is young Bruce Wayne” storyline, Kryptonite plays its weirdest part yet as Clark gets a magic phone call from the future alerting him to Lana’s immediate demise, but leaving him helpless to do anything about it until the final moments (because, y’know, sticking her on the next train out of town would be too easy.) Meantime, we get a startling revelation about Lionel that actually brings a lot of his activities into much clearer focus. It doesn’t transform him into a nice guy or a good guy, but at least he’s a more understandable guy.
I hate to admit that I’m a sucker for these types of stories…the ones where you see a predestined future rushing toward the heroes like a runaway bus, and you wonder how the heck they’re going to get out of the way. I’m still a little fuzzy on the mechanics of the future call, but not so much so that it ruined the episode for me.
Lana is becoming masterful at not asking too many questions, particularly considering that Clark’s explanation for how he managed to be there to save her within a second or two of her call is his weakest in the show’s history. Clark and Pete’s relationship seems on the mend, which is nice, and Lex’s alliance with the Feds could prove especially interesting…if it doesn’t turn out to be moot.
ANGEL: The moment Spike started to rattle off all the ways that Fred could be reconstituted, I knew she wasn’t coming back. They wouldn’t go that much out of their way to establish it as no big deal if it wasn’t going to be a hugely impossible deal. Wesley is becoming so icily cool at annihilating people (stabbing Gunn, for God’s sake?!?) that more than one fan has suggested he take over for Pierce Brosnan in the “Bond” franchise.
But the real standout of the episode is that they manage to take a storyline which threatened to just rehash previous tropes and do the unexpected. Fred is possessed by great evil and has an elaborate end-the-world masterplan? Done with Cordy, done with Willow. She’s an evil goddess desiring to return home? Done with Glory. In a startling twist, however, her end-the-world machinations last exactly forty three minutes as she opens the dimensional gap in one episode’s time (it took Glory almost all of season 5 of BtVS to accomplish that) only to discover that she’s the Queen of a vast crumbling city filled with people decaying into Cremora.
So basically what we’ve got is “Seven of Fred”–an emotionally distant woman in a tight outfit and funky hairdo who has fragmented memories of the woman she was and is trying to comprehend the human race. The fascinating angle is that it appears she’s not intrinsically evil. When Wes tells her she cannot kill (ironic considering the source) she accepts this condition without hesitation. She’s looking to understand and perhaps even adopt a moral code, which is intriguing considering the Fang Gang’s own moral code appears to have gone bye-bye.
I admit to being EXTREMELY torqued that Buffy’s crew (Willow, judging by context) blows off Angel when he calls for help. They didn’t hesitate to take advantage of W&H when they needed help with a Slayer; now Fred’s possessed in a potential End-of-the-World scenario and Buffy et al tell them to go screw? I’m sorry, I don’t care how annoyed they are with whom Ange’s allied. He’s saved Buffy, Willow and the world enough times that he’s due their consideration and help, and it just makes the isolation come across as the contrived “This is how we keep Buffy’s folks out of the mix” scenario that I suspect it is.
WEST WING: Well, I was right about Will Bailey being the guy grilled in the teasers. And hey, how can you go wrong with the Muppets? Answer: You can’t. You can, however, go wrong without the Muppets, and that’s what happens here. There appears to be a ton of stuff happening, and lots of people running around concerned with lots of things, but ultimately I found it utterly uninvolving. There’s a germ of an interesting story there with Ellie being dragged into a political slugfest involving medical research, but it’s buried under flat writing, unengaging acting, and tepid direction.
Best moment was Elmo’s short-circuiting a medical exam by demanding of Abby, “Hey, wait a minute, wasn’t your medical license revoked?!” The total disintegration of the listeners into hysterics makes me wonder if it was an ad lib. If not, kudos to the script. It was one of the only highlights in otherwise uninspired dialoging.
PAD
• 
Well, I don’t think Buffy’s crew directly blew off Angel Co., probably some secretarial flunky.
And how nice that the “Old One” in Fred remembers Wolfran and Hart back when they were lesser demons in her day… Interesting ally.
And what exactly did Gunn sign, I couldn’t tell… probably paperwork barring him from signing anything else.
Woah. New look. I have to admit to liking the old one a little better, to be honest, but it’s still pretty slick.
Angel was pretty good, and though I do like the idea of an elder god becoming a part of Angel’s crew simply because she has no place else to go, I liked Fred way too much to really enjoy seeing it go down that way. Sure, Amy Acker is dead sexy with those contacts, but that doesn’t really justify for me her death. I think a few weeks ago, somebody mentioned that Whedon seems to have something against women, since male characters don’t really die all that much, and when they do the consequences are short-lived and quickly become little more than a footnote. With the permanent deaths of Tara, Anya, Cordy, and a handful of other great characters with scads of potential, what happened to Fred just seems to be something that wouldn’t have happened if her full name was Fredrick Berkel. And she was a he.
Aside from that, I like the ways the characters are dealing with how dark W&H is making them; Angel is trying to come back from it, Gunn made compromises he began to regret almost immediately, and Wesley seems to be embracing it. I wish Fred hadn’t died, because she was dealing with her darkness in a way that put me in mind of the corporation from the Alien movies.
Bladestar: **Well, I don’t think Buffy’s crew directly blew off Angel Co., probably some secretarial flunky.**
Nope. Angel was addressing Giles directly while on the phone. It was no secretary, unless ol’ Ripper got some sort of serious demotion.
Regarding the new look, can the comments link be made to *not* open in a new popup window?
-Ralf
Smallville: What, you didn’t know that Kryptonite was the fuel that Mr. Peabody used in the Way-Bak machine?
Angel: I’m probably just grasping at straws, but I’m still not convinced that Fred’s gone for good. Although the bit Illyria expressing herself through Fred’s memories was torture for Wes, it gave me a sense of hope. Also, it just seemed too convenient that everyone just accepted the Bad-Guys statement that Fred’s soul had been consumed in the process of Illyria’s rebirth. I mean, they’re the Bay-Guys; they could lie. But Wes just immediately accepted that Fred was gone on their say-so. I realize that episodes work under a time constraint, but I still think he bought into it too fast. It’s almost like Wes thinks that Fred’s being consumed is better than some alternative senario he’s cooked up in his mind.
And if you want to get technical, the analysis about all her organs being liquified can’t be right either. Angel’s team isn’t getting entirely accurate date from W&H. I can name some organs that I KNOW weren’t liquified. Her eyes, and her skin. Her eyes seemed to harden instead of liquifying. And get got too see lots of Fred’s skin this episode…and it looked just great to me.
I see your point about the moral code of Angel’s team flying out the window. I think Wes sees it, too. His comments about right and wrong to Illyria, his frank admission that shooting Knox was wrong, his doubts about his being able anything close to a moral example. All these things speak to his wondering what’s happenned to them all.
Final Thought: I was struck by the irony of the speech that Gunn gave to Fred last Season. The one about how, no matter what prophesies said, or what ancient gods had been planning for millions of years, at the end it’s always in the balance and what you do and your choices matter. He was rebutting Skip’s comment about how everything important is pre-destined. Now Gunn’s found out that he was right. Everything came down to his personal decision about wheter to sell out his previous morals to keep the gifts that he had been given. And now he’s got to live with the consequences of that choice.
Hey guys. What’s with the new look???
Anyway, at 22 a season, by my count Angel has 6 out of 110 episodes left after #100 (Cordy), 101 (1943), 102 (Fred and Wesley get together), 103 (Fred dies), and 104 (Fred gets ‘better’).
Meanwhile, Sarah Michelle Gellar has stated in a SCI-FI Channel interview that when originally asked earlier this past season, she couldn’t make an Angel appearance because of a sick aunt.
Now she is not certain she could finish her movie in Japan in time to make the series finale, although Gellar states that she has not been approached by anyone with the show (yet?) and is skittish about the idea to begin with because Angel, the series, spent its whole existence (in her opinion) trying to get out from Buffy’s shadow, and is not sure how the character appearing on the (series?) finale would go over.
So your guess is as good as mine about the ‘final’ fate of the “Fang Gang”.
Meanwhile, Wheddon has gotten the green light to do a ‘Firefly’ movie! 🙂
But since there hasn’t been a new episode since early February, any idea why Fox is jerking Tru Calling around?
BTW: like the new version of ‘Preview Your Message’.
Also, Giles didn’t *exactly* blow them off. He said that Willow was unavailable because she was astral projecting and they couldn’t exactly just call her up.
Granted, Giles and co. aren’t as willing to help as they once were–but if Willow truly was having an out-of-body experience at the time, it isn’t like they could just page her and ask if she was willing to help.
I loved this past Wednesday’s “Angel”, even though I’m not entirely happy with the fate of Fred.
I figure nothing’s going to save “Angel” from the chopping block at this point, but if it must end, I’d love to see the show make the transition to, say, quarterly TV movies or — gasp — the big screen.
The site’s new look is interesting, though I notice names are once again at the bottom of the posts.
As to the shows, I only saw “Angel” and I liked it. It’ll be interesting to see how the suplot of Wes offering to teach “Seven of Fred” (I forget the spelling of the ancient one’s name, and am not going to guess at it) plays out. Could Team Angel ever truly accept this creature, even if it isn’t intrinsically evil and never again does anything to harm anyone? Under different circumstances, perhaps; but I doubt they would so long as it continues to walk around in Fred’s body.
That would be hitting a little too close to home.
Still, it will be interesting to see where this subplot goes.
One thing I like about the “Seven of Fred” subplot, is that the other characters are reacting to the fact that some creature has killed Fred and taken her body– an issue that we can be reasonably certain won’t be forgotten by the next episode. Compare that to Nyssa’s reaction to her father’s murder by the Master, who then took over his body, in “Doctor Who.” She makes a total of two comments on that matter: “you killed my father?” (“Logopolis”) and “That face, I hate it.” (“Castrovalva”); but never says anything more, even though she encounters the Master once more in “Time Flight.” No expressions of anger or sadness; no call for revenge; nothing. Viewers who had missed “Logopolis” and “Castrovalva”, and for that matter “Keeper of Traken” in which Tremas is actually killed, wouldn’t see any hint of a connection between the Master and Nyssa.
I always felt the writers should have done more to explore Nyssa’s feelings, perhaps even have a scene where she had to fully come to terms with the reality of her father’s death and where she had to decide whether she would become a killer herself (of the Master) to avenge him.
On a related note, I have no idea where Peter Haining, in his various books about “Doctor Who” got the idea that Nyssa hoped to restore her father to his former self, because there wasn’t a single line of dialogue to suggest that.
Rick
P.S. Speaking of creatures killing someone and taking their body, it’s too bad Jesse was never mentioned again after Xander dusted him. Granted, he only appeared in two episodes of “Buffy”, but he was someone Joss Whedon had intended us to think would be a regular (re his original plans to have him in the opening credits).
Jesse and Fred are the only cases on either “Buffy” or “Angel” where someone emotionally close to the central characters was killed by something that then continued to use their bodies (albeit very briefly in Jesse’s case, unfortunately). I don’t count Harmony because she was never really close to the gang in “Buffy.” Nor do I count Cordelia, because she was still alive when possessed, last season. Angelus doesn’t count either, because technically speaking, Liam’s soul is possessing him, keeping him in check. And, of course, Liam’s soul was able to be restored on those occasions where Angel became Angelus again.
ANGEL: It’s not shocking that Giles would not trust Angel, as he never really did in the first place. Angel’s connection to the Scoobys was tenous, mostly through Buffy. That was definitely the case during the third season. They regarded him as an ally at best not a friend.
This was what I liked so much about ANGEL: Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley were never fully embraced by the Scoobies, but once they left Sunnydale, they found true friendship with each other. It’s not until Angel met Doyle that he became to move out of “loner-mode.”
I think, though, that if Angel had spoken directly to Willow, she would have helped. She was the closest he had to a friend among the non-Buffy members of the Scooby gang.
As for the notion that Whedon has something against women, that’s just absurd. It’s one of the more annoying online rumors. Angel, Giles, Xander, Oz, Riley, and Spike were all put through their paces (Angel and Spike are “undead” so it’s hard for death to “stick” but they still apparently “died” at some point on the show).
While Cordelia and Fred died on ANGEL, so did Doyle. It’s hard to see evidence of a conspiracy.
I’m really hoping that the big bad this season ends up being the Scoobies. I can see a situation where no one is really evil, but both sides get drawn into a conflict that simply escalates out of control. They’ve established that Buffy & co. have issues with Angel’s involvement with Wolfram and Hart, and Xander’s always been out to get his licks in on Angel whenever possible. If Fred/Illyria begins hanging out with the rest of the group, then it may appear that Angel has joined up with an ancient evil.
On the other side, I’m still trying to figure out how Andrew became “Giles’ best man,” as shown in an earlier episode this season. The Scoobies have never been masters of organization or adhering to a plan, which could cause a huge mixup that gets out of hand. I’d love to see how Spike would involve himself, and how the Scoobies would react.
I don’t read spoilers, so I really have no idea what’s going on next. I’d guess for the Senior Partners to end up being the big bad, but I can hope we’ll get something with more meat to it.
On another note, I’ve got a question for Peter. Have you ever considered writing a Buffy novel or comic? I enjoy your work, and I’d love to see you tackle the characters. I think your humor would really work as well, and your appreciation of the material could really make it something great.
WEST WING: I actually liked the episode of West Wing last week. The whole theme about science and discovery…I dunno, it really worked for me, and it’s always nice to see one of the Bartlet daughters again.
When I first heard the Sesame Street muppets were going to make a guest appearance, I thought, “Oh, geez…this is going to be a jump-the-shark moment if ever there was one.” But you know, it worked for me. Abby’s comments about how the show and the characters had changed, how Kermit was the only “crossover” from the Muppet Show was very fun, and Lily Tomlin’s Debbie Fitterer actually had something interesting to say and do this week, other than saying to the Oval Office guest of the week “The President will see you now.” The revelation of Debbie’s sister’s bout with cervical cancer and tying into Ellie’s research (“Work harder”) was nicely done, plus it’s always good to see a happier President Bartlet joking with his daughters, as opposed to the dour version we’ve seen lately.
I didn’t think it was Will who had targeted Ellie…I got the distinct impression it was the VP, with all the dialogue about the causes important to the VP’s wife and the friendship with the Senator who initiated the whole investigation. Maybe Will faciliated it…I’m not sure. I didn’t pick up on it. Anyone else care to fill in the blanks?
I found the Elmo comment funny, but that wasn’t the funniest moment of the episode for me. For me, the funniest moment was CJ sitting nonchalantly reading on that bench, when Big Bird comes over, sits next to her, and the camera stays on the two as Big Bird looks at CJ, twiddles his fingers, etc. The way they played the whole CJ-Big Bird bit in the episode, with CJ having been equated with Big Bird, and the deadpan look on Big Bird’s face as CJ got up and walked away…priceless.
ANGEL: Jesus skeet-shooting Christ, thank you. Fred has annoyed the hëll out of me nonstop for three seasons now, and Amy Acker is hotter than ever as Illyria.
SMALLVILLE: The funniest review I’ve heard about this episode was from the next morning’s Howard Stern show. Howard’s friend Ralph called in and the two spent 15 minutes debating the veracity of time travel. Nothing’s funnier than two forty-year old yentas screaming at each other about Superboy.
“The phone line fell in the kryptonite, I explained all this to you yesterday!!”
SEAN
You have to give the Smallville crew credit for ending for the hiatus at least with a solid episode. The plotting was very tight and the timing was very quick and didn’t drag as it has in some of the previous episodes. Pete, your comment about putting Lana on a train out of town, wiht an episode like, how do you know that isn’t what brings her face to face with her fate. That’s what makes this kind of episode so good. We know what happens. We watch as step by step the characters seem to seal Lana’s fate. At the same time, the characters don’t even know that they are. That’s as close to dramatic irony as we will see on episodic TV.
Lana’s not questioning Clark was good, but haven’t they overplayed the routine now. In the old days of comics the writers could get away with it forever, because the belief was pre-adolescent boys grew up, stopped reading the comics, and the next crew came in. Just because Lana hasn’t figured it out in the last 25 issues, we can do it again. That doesn’t work now. Lana has to be totally stupid to not have put everything together. And even realize why Clark is so afraid. She felt Adam was spying more on Clark then her. Do you need to be Batman to figure out that something is up?
And Lionel, what a great ending. Now we wait.
PAD: “The moment Spike started to rattle off all the ways that Fred could be reconstituted, I knew she wasn’t coming back.”
Well, when I saw the words “Written and Directed by Joss Whedon” at the beginning of last week’s show, I knew *someone* wasn’t coming back. Joss has more free time than he used to, but he hasn’t been writing routine Angel episodes. (Although I do see he had story co-credit on “Smile Time”.)
— I’m sorry, what were those fake-html markers again? There was a list in the old page format but I can’t find it now.
I was going out that night and taped Angel so I only saw that last scene of Smallville. I’m really sorry I missed it now.
When I read an article about SMG, I understood that the comments about whether she will be on the show, or will it keep Angel in the shadow of Buffy, came from Joss Whedon, not SMG. He hasn’t contacted her yet because he hasn’t decided whether to bring her on.
Comments about the new look: Please put the names on top again. I got very used to being able to just skip the few posters I find to be offensive. Other than that it looks good. Easier for these aging eyes to read without the grey background…
Ghah! Don’t mind the format, BUT THERE’S NO CONTRAST IN THE TEXT! Makes it VERY hard to read!
We can’t post without leaving our email address? I like to discuss and post on the board, but I’m not sure I want some of these people to contact me directly…
**Lana has to be totally stupid to not have put everything together. And even realize why Clark is so afraid. She felt Adam was spying more on Clark then her.**
Or perhaps she has figured it out, respects his privacy, and is willing to wait until he’s ready to trust her with it. I mean, it’s a pretty big deal, realizing the boy you’ve fallen for has more weird powers than all the other kryptonite cases in town put together! (I doubt she’d have figured out the alien angle by now, but if she ever did, that’d just be one more thing to bond them; she’s an orphan, and he’s the ultimate orphan – his entire planet is gone, his entire species is extinct except for him.)
Nobody’s seem to said it yet… but I wonder- might Lionel’s liver disease be a result of long term Kryptonite exposure? ala the comic book post-crisis continuity of Lex getting cancer from wearing a ring set with a Krytonite stone. (for those not in the know… comic book Lex eventually had to amputate his hand but the cancer had spread to the rest of his body and he died, but not before having a younger and hairier clone of himself made, and his brain transplanted into that clone. Fun. This was referenced somewhat in the episode where we saw a glimpse of Lex’s future, in the White House and in a meadow. He had a gloved hand, much like the Lex with an amputated hand.)
Somewhat ironic that Fred broke up with Gunn due to Gunn killing someone, with Fred commenting beforehand about how she loved him because he wouldn’t do something like that (which at the time had me going “Do you know this man at all?”).
Only to hook up with Wesley “Do not be alone with this man and weaponry” Wyndham-Price.
I figured what Gunn was signing was his separation papers and severance package.
As for Smallville, I was very disappointed in all but the final scene with Lionel. By this point, Kryptonite has done some much deus ex machina plot McGuffins that I can’t believe there isn’t a Meteor Rock Research Institute built in the middle of downtown Smallville. And apparently the reset button got hit between episodes on Clark and Pete’s relationship. With the minor nit of you don’t just drop a 16 year old onto the phones at a teen crisis hotline without them going through at least some training.
Karen, it seems you don’t have to put in YOUR actual email in the field. I saw a good tip elsewhere- put in easily identifiable false information in your email. That way, email bots won’t be able to copy your address then use it, but humans can. For example SPAMLESSeddie@thisemail.net.
For this one I said madeupemailforKare@nowheresville.net so you can enter whatever you want. I would suggest trying to makeup something that’s totally absurd that nobody actually has that email, because you wouldn’t want to be responsible for that person getting spam. Heck, maybe we can all agree on a fake email to put in this field like justvisiting@peterdavid.net— that doesn’t exist, right Glenn? Then spammers can just email it to their heart’s content and find out it ain’t there, just like their souls.
eddie
**Peter David: * sigh * Remember when there was something like twenty-eight episodes of a series and they’d just run them straight through, only breaking for Christmas week?**
Luigi Novi: Yes, and thank God it
Wow, new format. Needs a little tweaking, don’t you think?
ANGEL
Just some quick thoughts:
I really don’t like Fred dead.
I mean, I like the new incarnation and I think it is a somewhat interesting turn of events…I just don’t like not having the old Fred around anymore. This would have been a much more interesting development with more time left to explore it. (Ðámņ you, WB!)
Illyria’s power seems like it’s going to come in very handy if we are to believe Spike’s intuition that the perverbial s*** — with Illyria as the tip of the iceberg– is about to hit the fan. I wonder if Spike & Angel learned something else at the Old One’s Burial Hole that they don’t dare tell anyone? (I don’t read spoilers– so I wouldn’t know.)
Good for Wesley… Charles deserved the shank. I always thought Alexis Denisof would be a perfect REED RICHARDS… But with a little weight training I’d buy him as JAMES BOND in a second.
As briefly mentioned above– Angel was talking to Giles when he asked for Scooby help. Giles HATES Angel. Giles has hated Angel for a LONG time. (Heck, I hate Angel for killing Jennie Callendar (sp?)– one of the hottest babes to ever grace the Buffyverse.) Makes sense– especially with the Wolfram & Hart affiliation– that Giles would be LESS than inclined to send Scooby help.
[Maybe in an alternate universe Sarah Michelle Gellar did NOT quit BUFFY for a “promising” career in “Scooby Doo” films… And we would be watching the further European adventures of Whedon’s “Scooby Gang” instead of those glorious cinematic gems… And we would know EXACTLY why Giles turned down Angel’s request.]
I will not say anything about Sarah’s myriad reasons for not reappearing on Angel– other than they don’t ring near 100% genuine. (I read that Sci-Fi article too… It sounded like a series of responses written by a series of publicists.)
Don’t like the new format. Sorry.
Re: Angel
Wow, what an episode. I was also concerned that the possessed Fred would lead to yet another Universal-Armageddon-esque plot. I’m glad that wasn’t the case here (especially since it usually takes the entire season to play out).
Finally, the deal Gunn made for his newfound wisdom is revealed to the others; he essentially sold out to Wolfram and Hart, and Fred ended up paying for it. I doubt the gang will be ready to trust him again anytime soon.
It’s interesting that you should compare the possessed Fred to Seven of Nine, PAD; that IS what she seems like. Only the possessed Fred has got the increasingly cold-blooded Wesley to “help” guide her. Something’s wrong with this picture.
I’m glad to see more cooperation between Angel and Spike occurring. They take the bickering too far sometimes, but they make a great team.
As for the Angel crew being “snubbed” by the Buffy crew, I guess the rumors I’ve heard of Willow and Buffy making future appearances aren’t true after all. I agree with you; it doesn’t make sense that the Buffy crew would refuse to help, considering the situation, and especially considering that similar situations have led to crossovers in the past.
Thanks for the advice Eddie B. I’d make a lousy criminal. It doesn’t even occur to me to lie about my email address! 🙂
Forgot to comment on the website’s new look. Interesting change, but I kinda liked the old one better.
Angel:
Hated when Fred died last week, but liked the ending this week. Illyria is not the Big Bad and may be a new Fang Gang member. Unexpected and intriguing.
New look:
The font is way to light, I now have a headache from reading this forum. The comments seem even lighter than PAD’s initial post!
Totally disagree with PAD on Angel – I think the fact they’ve gone to such lengths to establish that they *can’t* bring back Fred means that in the end they’ll find a way.
I enjoy Smallville overall, but I am also having a bit of trouble suspending my disbelief. DC Comics went through a lot of trouble to rewrite everything with regards to origins. Now with putting in into a different format aiming towrds a different audience, it’s all so easy with “meteor rocks,” amnesia, disbelief, and just plain stupidity. I enjoy watching someone who looks EXACTLY like my first wife on TV every week, but it does make my brain hurt.
For the record, I like the new look and I’ve never been married. Love ya Kristen!
Am I the only one who saw a parallel between Wes and Fred and the whole Decker and Lieutenant Ilia in Star Trek: The motion Picture? Both Decker and Wes lost a loved one and had something come back looking exactly like their loved ones with partial memories of the dead. I expect Wes to be meeting up with Ve’ger at the end of the season with that cool merging light effect.
“Totally disagree with PAD on Angel – I think the fact they’ve gone to such lengths to establish that they *can’t* bring back Fred means that in the end they’ll find a way.
Posted by: Deano at March 7, 2004 09:09 PM “
That’s what *I* was thinking. Any magician can misdirect you to look at his left hand to distract you from what he has in his right. But when they make it obvious that they’re trying to get you to look at the right, they really have something in the left. (I’m not sure even *I* followed that…)
Actually, the thing that stood out to me about this week’s “Angel” hasn’t been mentioned by anybody yet. I apologize in advance because this is classic fanboy over-analysis but sometimes the inner geek needs to run free.
The scene with Harmony and Gunn. When no one else would offer Gunn a sympathetic ear, Harmony did. I seem to remember there was even a line from Harmony about betraying your friends. (Do I just not remember or did the writers leave out the fact that doing something like that was the plot of the first episode of “Angel” that Harmony appeared in?) I find this extremely troubling.
There is a central belief that the entire “Buffy” series was built around: Vampires are evil, soulless creatures who all deserve to be killed on sight. Many times, we saw Buffy killing a vampire who was just crawling out of the grave for the first time and we accept this because, well, see the previously state central belief.
Angel is an exception because he has a soul. Spike becomes an exception, at first, well, seemingly for no better reason than because James Marsters had been made a series regular, but then because he had a soul too. But now we see Harmony refraining from killing humans and offering what sure seems like compassion to Gunn.
Suddenly, Buffy is starting to look like… Well, a racist. Vampires have a culture she doesn’t understand so she “demonizes” these demon-like creatures and cuts them down every time she sees one. But if Harmony, never portrayed as being particularly smart or willful, can learn to control her worst impulses and empathize with someone who’s hurting, doesn’t that mean that vampires should be given a *chance* before they’re dusted?
Now I realize that ME has always played fast and loose with the mythology. More than one poster here has pointed out that Willow was basically given a pass for what would have gotten a guest character killed before the hour is over. Also, I think Harmony is following the same character arc that Cordelia and Spike went through. (Bad guy -> Sympathetic person in pain->Good guy.) Still, I’m a little uncomfortable cheering on a heroine who kills intelligent beings who are, apparently, capable of making choices about their behavior (Not necessarily moral choices. Some might say that Harmony only refrains from the worst aspects of vampiric behavior because she’s afraid of Angel but Buffy could have put that fear into a vampire and she apparently never did.) without any thought given to whether those beings could have been preserved without threat to the human population.
How’s *that* for a rant about something so geeky it would embarass “Kirk vs. Picard”-ers…?
Except, it’s been established that Harmony is a follower. She does what she does because of who she is around.
But if Harmony is a follower who can be trained to not hurt other people, then is the same possibly true of other vampires?
I tend to view it like this: Vampires are like sharks. Imagine if sharks could walk around in the city, killing people without compunction. I would have no problem with a “kill sharks on sight” policy in such a scenario.
Even if it’s possible to train a vampire to not harm people (just as it’s possible to train a tiger not to kill you — though ask Roy Horn about that), that doesn’t mean you alter your otherwise reasonable “kill sharks/tigers/lions on sight” policy.
Given that there are all these new slayers out there, it probably makes sense for Harmony to “compromise” with W&H.
First off, good looking new look. Brava Moveable Type!
On Angel, it’s hard for me to look past the sameness the Fred possession has with a lot of other stuff they’ve done, especially with Cordy last season, who I count in the “female possessed by elder god” category. It just strikes me as a little odd when people start ripping themselves off. Not to mention the fact that I don’t buy the whole “Hey, my world-killing army is gone…can I chill with you guys?” thing they are doing. I hope when we come back from the break that is addressed somehow.
And I really, really, hope that the season ends with them pounding on the Wolf, Ram & Hart. That story is like Grey Poupon…”anything less would be uncivilized.”
And as others have said, the first thing I thought of when Lionel was like “I have a liver disease” I immediately thought “Kryptonite Poisoning.”
“My disease has a first name, it’s K-R-Y-P-T-O-*breath*-N-I-T-E”
As for the rest of Smallville…I mourn for the Adam Knight/Bruce Wayne speculation. It was a good friend in trying times, but it gives us hope that the real Bruce Wayne is still out there…somewhere.
And yes, if Kryptonite can do all this, how the hëll did the planet blow up in the first place? Who knows, maybe someone dropped a powerline there.
They have traded a lot of storytelling points on the “S” reputation. Miracle K, Lana’s short term memory crisis (plural), Clark & Pete’s relationship (when there is one), a lot of it strikes me as lazy & sloppy. But still, the series is better than it has been in the past, so I have faith.
Faith, it’s what’s for dinner…
“Remember when there were 28 episodes to a
season and they’d run them straight thgough,
only breaking for Holidays?”
(Not an accurate quote: sorry,
cut-n-paste doesn’t work here)
I do remember when shows started in early
September and kept the same night and time slot
all year, then provided a summer replacement show
to “hold” their time slot.
I remember when shows
had an opening teaser, a full length theme song,
four numbered and sometimes titled chapters, and
end tag and a closing musical theme.
When the end
credits and closing music ran full screen with NO
voice-over.
When there was no crawls, on screen
animation or promos for other shows on the bottom
of the screen during the show.
When there was no
network ID logo in the corner of the screen.
I remember when pay movie networks like HBO ran
the entire movie uncut and uninterrupted without
superimposed logos or voice-over plugs for the
next movie during the closing credits.
Television will never be that good again.
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The new layout is nice and bright and crisp for
us elderly and hard-of-seeing types.
The grey pages were cooler, though. IMO
Only an occasional visiter here, but I also vote
for “Name at the top” and “bring back the
formatting options.” Assuming those are viable
options and this is a democracy.
just wanted to weigh in on the whole Joss Whedon killing female characters thing. Joss Whedon is about as feminist a public figure as any man I can think of. Buffy is all about female empowerment, as he has often stated, and if I’m not mistaken, he was a feminist studies undergrad at wesleyan, one of the most liberal colleges around (I’m not doublechecking right now, so forgive me if I’m wrong.
BTW,as a first time poster I want to just say to Peter that I loved your X-factors and Hulks back in the day. I don;t think I’ve enjoyed an X comic nearly as much since you did it.
Re: Angel
Remember Charles’ Barry Allen-Jay garrick reference, and the blank stares Angel and Wes gave him? To get that joke is to also be its primary target. As I laughed, I pictured Angel, Wes and Charles looking right into the camera yelling “Geek check!!” Nice.
As for Fred’s fate…I think it’s a great turn of events for the actress that plays Fred. The week before, during Fred’s final hours, it dawned on me that I was watching a display of real acting chops. When she spoke her first words as the demon queen—“This will do”–I was stoked, because I knew she could pull off the one-eighty it takes to convince an audience that the being that looks like Fred is in fact Fred’s killer. Kind of like a Dr. Who regeneration in reverse. The new guy always has to convince you that he’s the same guy who fell to the floor before the big switch, whereas the lady playing Fred has to do the opposite. I think she nailed it. And with the demon taking on a disheartened, vulnerable quality, I’m intrigued to see what she’ll make of the opportunity, acting-wise.
Thacher E. Cleveland: Brava Moveable Type!
How is it moveable?
Also, Peter, the “Recent Comments” feature on the righthand side of the main page is a good idea, but what criteria does it use? The last 24 hours? Is there a way to put the time of the most recent comments there, so people checking back here and see which “recent” ones they haven’t already read?
I am sorry but I need to say this. Lionel’s brain in lex’s body! Wouldnt that be cool!
“Remember when there were 28 episodes to a
season and they’d run them straight thgough,
only breaking for Holidays?”
I remember those days. Wasn’t that when there were only three channels available? (And in my area the ABC station was always snowy)
Age is creeping up on me.
I even remember the Milk Man.
“When there was no network ID logo in the corner of the screen … Television will never be that good again.”
You’d think that, with ever-increasing competition from DVDs, the Internet and other things, networks wouldn’t be going out of their way to annoy potential viewer. Unfortunately such does indeed appear to be the case. And they wonder why viewership is down? OK the product is often awful, too, but that never seemed to be a problem in years past.
Channel 20 / Detroit’s WB is a REALLY BAD offender in that respect.
During Angel they run their logo rather large in the corner of the screen and periodicaly will make the screen space they waste even worse with contest and similar crap over the logo even bigger…
I hate to comment on a show I haven’t seen yet, but I’m in the process of moving my fiance in and I’ve been too busy. But before I get to my comment, I do want to say this: I don’t like the new format here as much as the old one, but I can live with it. Now on to Angel: As much as I love Joss’ shows, both he and his writing staff have ripped off Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Peter David’s work (among others)for years — and they’ve usually done it with a wink & smile. They know their audience and that we LOVE these little borrowings.
Oh well not an insightful or important comment, I know, I just wanted to try out this new “Remember Info” feature & chime in with my friends here at Pad’s Pad. LOL
Smallville: I thought this episode wasn’t that good, and tried to hide it by being overly violent. Why didn’t Adam just call Lana up and say, “Hey, I left something in my room and I need to get it.”? She’s a nice person. She’d help him out. Why did Jonathan walk out into the rain with a gun when he thought something was up with Chloe in the truck? He knew that Lana’s life was in danger. He could have called the cops first. *Lana* could have called the cops. And why is Lionel throwing Lex to the FBI? It seems like an awfully extreme way to hide that he’s dying, especially since it will keep Lex focussed on the lab and what was going on there. He could have given Lex a big project to work on to drive his focus away. And, as someone else said, who puts a teenager on a teen crisis hotline with absolutely no training whatsoever? (Even if said teen is Superboy.)
I knew that Gunn’s deal to get his knowledge back would haunt him, though I don’t know why je didn’t just fess up to it from the get go, or at least, not after he found out.
I mean, how many papers does he file a day? He could’ve easily said one of their clients needed to get something out of customs, and he got it for’em, not knowing what it was, or anything of the sort, and didn’t find out until he beat it out of Knox.
Though Wes stabbing him was a surprise, but at least Angel had some sort of reaction to it.
I’m curious to see how thigns with Gunn will play out, if he’s around for the rest of the season.
I’m also glad they didn’t forget about the Fred/Spike friendship that had developed earlier in the season. It was good seeing him react to Fred being in danger…
And PAD, borrowing Priest’s weblog format, eh?
One of my favorite bits in the “Angel” episode was the comparison between Wesley and Knox. At the beginning of the episode, when Knox was going on about how he loved Fred, it was pretty close to a speech Wesley’d give on the same subject. Coupled with how quickly he joined Illyria after killing Knox, it can’t help but raise the question of whether Wesley was in love with Fred, or the idea of Fred like Knox.
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But if Harmony is a follower who can be trained to not hurt other people, then is the same possibly true of other vampires?
I tend to view it like this: Vampires are like sharks. Imagine if sharks could walk around in the city, killing people without compunction. I would have no problem with a “kill sharks on sight” policy in such a scenario.
Even if it’s possible to train a vampire to not harm people (just as it’s possible to train a tiger not to kill you — though ask Roy Horn about that), that doesn’t mean you alter your otherwise reasonable “kill sharks/tigers/lions on sight” policy.
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Which makes sense if vampires are animals (an analogy that has been made, I think) who need to be “trained” not to kill humans.
But it seems pretty clear that Harmony wasn’t trained, she *decided* not to kill humans. It’s less important *why* she decided that then it is to understand that she can make that decision.
So let’s say you’re a vamp living in Sunnydale. The cute blonde cheerleader type (who actually *is* a cheerleader in a movie where her character has to have an arc but not in a TV series where viewers have to like her right off and want to bring her into their living rooms week after week. But like our house, I digress…) is killing off your friends and peers. She’s doing a good job of it too so you decide to play it safe and order the Super Size Pig Blood shake instead. But it doesn’t matter because Buffy will kill you just for being a vampire which you probably never asked to be in the first place.
Or look at it another way. Your wife, best friend, parent, child, whatever, dies. Than he/she/it comes back. ME mythology is that what comes back isn’t your loved one but I dunno… Harmony sure seems like Harmony to me. Would you be willing to keep around the Mrs. or grandma or whoever by feeding them animal blood rather than see them dusted?
“Like our host” not “like our house.” Duh.