Angel: Seasons 3-5

Darla: No. No, I don't think so. Once he's gone, I won't be okay. I won't be okay at all. I don't know what I'll be. Angel... Our baby is gonna die right here in this alley. You died in an alley, remember?

Angel: I remember.

Darla: I wanna say I'm sorry. I wanna say it and mean it, but - I can't. Aren't you gonna tell me it's okay.

Angel: No.

Darla: No? It's really not, is it? We did so many terrible things together. So much destruction, so much - pain. We can't make up for any of it. You know that, don't you

Angel: Yeah.

Darla: This child - Angel, it's the one good thing we ever did together. The only good thing. You make sure to tell him that.

-exchange in Lullaby

There is a section in the first act, during the courtship dance, where my foot slips. My ankles turned and - and I don't quite hold - every time. He doesn't notice. He doesn't even know ballet that well. But always, at that same moment, I slip. It isn't just the same ballet. It's the same performance. I don't dance. I echo. -Ballerina in Waiting in the Wings

Dearest Steven, This is a most difficult letter for me to write. You mean more to me than anything in this world or any other. But your best interests must come first, which is why, by the time you receive this, I will be gone. I hope one day you will be able to forgive an old man's weaknesses, which compels him to say these things in a letter. But to attempt a good-bye in your presence would be impossible for me. I fear I would never let you go. And I must let you go. I know that if I didn't you would only end up hating me. And that I could not bear. Your destiny lies with Angel. I know that now. You will have a better life with him. I'm comforted by that certainty and the knowledge that with him you will discover your true purpose and come to know what it is you are meant to be. -voiceover by Holtz in Benediction

Season 3: In its third season, the series continues to star Boreanaz, Carpenter, Denisof, and Richards. It also adds Amy Acker to the opening credits as Winifred “Fred” Burkle. Andy Hallett returns in nearly every episode and Stephanie Romanov returns in most of them. Keith Szarabajka and Jack Conley appear as Daniel Holtz and Sahjhan, respectively. Holtz has a long-held grudge and Sahjhan’s just a demon who thrives on destruction and whatever. Daniel Dae Kim also recurs as Lilah’s law firm nemesis, Gavin Park. Laurel Holloman recurs as Justine Cooper, a woman who’s sister was killed by vamps and now has a personal vendetta against vamps, no matter who they are. Mark Lutz recurs as the Groosalugg, a humanoid introduced in the Pylea triad at the end of season 2, and John Rubinstein recurs as Linwood Murrow, the new head of W&H’s L.A. office. Julie Benz returns for 5 episodes, 3 of which compose an excellent trio of episodes. David Denman is introduced and appears in a few episodes as the scary-looking and powerful, but charismatic and frequently humorous demon Skip. Future mad man Vincent Kartheiser appears several times at the end of the season as Connor, Angel’s son.

Best Season 3 Episodes:

-That Vision Thing—In possible the season’s best episode, Angel, after Lilah persuades him to, travels to a prison guarded by the demon Skip to release a prisoner of the PTB.

-That Old Gang of Mine—An underrated episode in which Gunn is torn between loyalties to Angel and the rest of the team and to his old gang when his old gang starts taking out demons and vamps just for shits and giggles.

-Fredless—A decent enough episode, this is the first real character development for Fred’s character. I also enjoyed how genuinely kind and loving her parents are, especially given the Buffyverse’s tracked record where that’s concerned (outside of Joyce, of course).

-Billy—A really great episode, a man named Billy with the ability to get other men to brutalize women puts Fred in danger at the hands of Wesley and Gunn.

-Offspring—The first part of the excellent Darla triad, Darla arrives at the Hyperion pregnant as the team researches a prophecy about the arrival of a being with a huge impact on the world.

-Quickening—In the second of three Darla entries, Holtz begins to search for Angel, while the team tries to figure out more about the baby.

-Lullaby—In definitely the best episode of the season, Holtz hunts Angel while Darla gives birth to their son.

-Birthday—Skip comes on Cordy’s birthday and tells her that her visions are going to kill her unless she goes back in time and chooses a different path in life.

-Waiting in the Wings—Easily retitled “Angel Investigations Goes to the Ballet”, this starts out seeming like it’s not going to be very good, and then proceeds to be fantastic. They go to the ballet, where Angel realizes that the performers are the same dancers he saw perform the same show 110 years before.

-Loyalty—Wesley obsesses over and dreads the eventual fulfillment of the prophecy he has translated, “The father will kill the son.”

-Sleep Tight—In possibly the biggest character turning point of the entire series, Wesley takes Connor away from Angel in an attempt to save him.

-Forgiving—Angel searches of Sahjhan to learn more about the prophecy Wesley had acted upon while Fred and Gunn search for Wesley.

-A New World—Angel’s son returns as a teenager and Angel tries to catch him.

-Benediction—Holtz tries to use Connor to get to Angel, and Justine learns of Holtz’s return.

-Tomorrow—In a powerful episode, Angel and Cordy plan to meet to finally acknowledge their mutual feeling and discuss their collective future, but things don’t go according to plan.

Overall Season 3 Review: This is a great season of TV. Not quite as perfect as season 2 nor even as excellent as seasons 1 and 5, but still really great. I’m pretty sure I like this season more than most, and I’m proud of that. Oddly, many of the episodes some people tend to think are great I find to be just above average and vice versa, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. There were sections of this season that I found amazingly good (like the Darla triad, I don’t actually know if that’s a word) and others that I found altogether unworthy of sections like the Darla sequence. For me, any downsides of the season are saved in that three-episode sequence. Additionally, the middle section of the season is immensely strong, quality-wise.

Thematically, the season continues to explore humanity as all of them do, this time in terms of what makes humans tick. It delves into the innate responsibilities of being human. This obviously comes to a head in Lullaby, when Darla and Angel’s child is born.

I initially wrote here that the character development is relatively minimal, but then I started writing about it and realized that it's actually quite strong. Wesley receives by far the largest development, what with his immense inner struggle and eventual disastrous decision to try to save Connor. Cordy also gets a tremendous change in Birthday, but then she becomes frankly, well, boring, and I don’t just mean her transformations are boring. She, the character, is boring. Also, I’m fine that Angel and Gunn didn’t receive as much characterization this season (though Gunn did receive some nice work in That Old Gang of Mine), but I wish that Fred and W&H had been developed. Stephanie Romanov and her consistently excellent depiction of Lilah Morgan are the only thing keeping W&H at its position of hatred in the viewers’ mind this season. Linwood Morrow is truly lackluster in comparison to the truly detestable Holland Manners and Gavin Park just isn’t given much.

It’s interesting. As I was watching the season, I though after most of the episodes, “Damn. That was really good.” But once I got to the end of the season, I thought, “I need to start watching the fourth season because this third one didn’t really finish saying anything or really go a ton of places.” In other words, unlike every single other Buffyverse season, I am sad to say that this one might be less than the sum of its parts. That being said, the sum of its parts is so great that the entirety of the season being less than it still adds up to an incredible season. As I said, each episode is a great watch, I just wish it all meant a little bit more when all was said and done.

Season Score: 9/10

Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It’s harsh and cruel. That’s why there’s us. Champions. It doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.

-Angel in Deep Down

Season 4: Season 4 sees the return of Boreanaz, Carpenter, Denisof, Richards, and Acker to the regular cast. It also adds Kartheiser to that list starting with the first episode of the season and finally adds Andy Hallett to the crew in the season’s 14^th episode. Stephanie Romanov continues to recur, as does Daniel Dae Kim until a handful of episodes in when he gets killed. He proceeds to go get himself Lost. Firefly-star Gina Torres appears in 5 of the last 6 episodes of the season as Jasmine, the eventual main villain of the season. Eliza Dushku returns for a few episodes, and Alexa Davalos recurs in a few as well as Gwen Raiden, a mutant human with the ability to funnel electricity. Julie Benz, David Denman, Alyson Hannigan, Laurel Holloman, and John Rubinstein all appear in the same roles they have before, each for a single episode. Jonathan Woodward, best-known as Holden in Convos with Dead People, appears in the final episode as future recurring character Knox, a scientist at W&H.

Best Season 4 Episodes:

-Deep Down—In an excellent episode, with Cordy still stuck on a mystical plane after her meeting with Skip, Wesley attempts to retrieve Angel with the forced cooperation of Justine.

-Ground State—Angel, Fred, and Gunn try to steal an object that could help find Cordy, but an electrically gifted thief name Gwen wants it too.

-Slouching Toward Bethlehem—Cordy finally returns from never-never land, but can’t remember squat about anything, not even who she is.

-Supersymmetry—In a great episode, Fred’s has a scientific article published and speaks at a science symposium, but some bad stuff happens and Fred and Gunn have to make a monumentally difficult decision.

-Spin the Bottle—In a fantastically entertaining, but still worthwhile episode, Lorne attempts to restore Cordy’s memory, but instead reverts everybody to their teenage personalities.

-Apocalypse, Nowish—In a pretty great episode, Cordy, plagued by nightmares, sees them come to fruition when the Beast emerges. Cordy and Connor get together, showing the first signs that something’s not fine with the Mudville 9.

-Long Day’s Journey—A discovery about the answer to the Beast problem leads the gang to suspect the answer lies with Connor. Gwen returns and helps Angel search for and try to save some mystical totems in order to prevent the Beast from blotting out the sun.

-Awakening—In a pretty good episode, Wesley brings in a dark mystic to try to remove Angel’s soul in an attempt to locate and destroy the Beast.

-Soulless—Angelus is interrogated by Wesley and the team as they attempt to figure out how to kill the Beast.

-Calvary—The team discovers that the Beast has a far more powerful master, but they’re unaware of exactly how close that power really is to them.

-Salvage—In a really great episode, Wesley frees Faith from prison to help capture Angelus and take out the Beast while Angelus goes after the Beast in his own right

-Release—In what I find to be an underrated episode, Angelus continues to search for the Beast while Faith tries to contain Angelus.

-Orpheus—In a really great episode, Willow returns to restore Angel’s soul while Angelus and Faith, both in comas, relive Angel’s good deeds.

-Players—Gwen gets Gunn to help her find a device to control her abilities and Lorne tries to regain his empathic powers.

-Inside Out—The team finally learns about Jasmine’s future birth through Cordy and Darla attempts to convince Connor to preserve his oh so precious humanity.

-Peace Out—After a series of lackluster efforts in the Jasmine storyline, this one is excellent. Angel travels to another dimension where he searches for Jasmine’s true name. Meanwhile, Connor searches for Cordy.

-Home—In pretty good execution of an excellent idea, W&H makes angel and the team an offer they can’t refuse. Connor goes over the edge and Angel must make a painful decision.

Overall Season 4 Review: This fourth season falters ever so slightly for lots of the same, albeit differently shaped, issues that season 6 of Buffy ran into. The season has really lofty ambitions, and it just can’t quite get there. This is, of course, not to say that it’s a bad season of television, it’s just not up to par with the rest of the series. I think the issue is that the show tried to combine its free storytelling style with serial drama. While pretty much every other season in the Buffyverse does indeed have a season-long story arc, this season is pretty much 22 episodes of the same story. A good number of the episodes begin where the last one ended. Unfortunately, it just ended up that the writers bit off more than they could chew. That’s not to say the episodes are ad, they just aren’t as good. There isn’t really a stand out episode, except for maybe the season premier, Deep Down. For pretty much the entire season, a really great episode was followed by a mediocre episode and vice versa, which really does nothing for quality consistency.

I thought the character developments here were quite well done. Cordy’s development is pretty hardcore (unlike many, I was actually really ok with how her character was developed during this season). Connor’s also taken to some dark places that wouldn’t have been possible if not for Vincent Kartheiser’s excellent acting making it believable. Wesley’s emotional maturation is expertly done and Gunn is finally given the character development attention he deserves, finally becoming respected for more than just brawn. Angel’s struggle to understand and connect with Connor were decent enough, but I feel like they could’ve been taken further and weren’t. Jasmine is a perfectly fine character, but she gets kind of annoying after a while.

This season wasn’t terrible, just not as good as it could have been.

Season Score: 8.5/10

Tell me, father, what is it that galls you so, that I was never as good at the job as you, or that I just might be better? -Wesley to his father in Lineage

Cordelia: I naturally assumed you’d be lost without me, but this!?

Angel: I am lost without you.

Cordelia: You just forgot who you are.

Angel: Remind me.

Cordelia: Uh, no. That’s for you to figure out, bubba. I can tell you who you were: a guy who always fought his hardest for what was right, even when he couldn’t remember why, even when he was miserable, which was, let’s face it, a not small portion of the time. He did right. And that gave him something. A light, a glimmer, and that’s the guy I fell in… the um, the guy I knew. I see him around here, and maybe I’ll start believing.

-exchange in You’re Welcome

Angel: She asked me to breakfast.
Wesley: Breakfast. Right. How did you respond?
Angel: Well... of course, I -ahem- ignored it complete, changed the subject, and locked her in a cage.
-exchange in Smile Time

Groofus: I've been working on this great new song about the difference between analogy and metaphor. (Polo throws at and hits him in the head) Man!

Polo: Are you out of your mind?

Groofus: Well, we want it to be good, don't we?

Polo: We eat babies' lives!

Groofus: And uphold a certain standard of quality edu-tainment

-exchange in Smile Time

Season 5: In this fifth and final season of Angel, Boreanaz, Denisof, Richards, Acker, and Hallett stick around as the main cast. James Marsters joins the party in the first episode and Mercedes McNab, after recurring in 7 of the Buffyverse’s 12 seasons and a total of 26 episodes, joins the main cast in the 17^th episode of the season. Sarah Thompson recurs as Eve in slightly less than half of the season. Christian Kane returns to the series as Lindsey McDonald after being absent since the end of the second season. Jonathan Woodward returns as Knox, and Firefly-star Adam Baldwin joins as Marcus Hamilton. Dennis Christopher appears in a few episodes, as do Vincent Kartheiser, Juliet Landau, and Tom Lenk (as Andrew Wells). Julie Benz and Jack Conley each returns for a single episode. Roy Dotrice appears once as Wesley’s overbearing father, and Charisma Carpenter also makes a guest appearance in a single episode.

Best Season 5 Episodes:

-Conviction—After taking over W&H, Angel and the team struggle to adapt to their new surroundings. At the very end of the episode, Spike materializes out of the amulet he used to save the world in Chosen. Only issue: he’s a ghost.

-Just Rewards—The episode struggles a bit because of some storytelling style issues, but I liked it. It should have told everything from Spike’s viewpoint, but never did.

-Unleashed—This isn’t a great episode, or even a really good one. It’s pretty good, but I liked the character of Nina, despite her relative incomplexity.

-Hell Bound—This is a great episode, but it suffers because it never ends up saying anything. The episode centers on Spike’s more and more frequent disappearing acts, which are him slipping into Hell for short periods. The issue is that you finish the episode knowing no more about Spike than you did when you started.

-Lineage—In this perfect episode, Wesley’s overbearing Watcher father visits unannounced during an invasion of W&H by cyborg assassins. This is truly a remarkable episode and features what I consider to be Alexis Denisof’s finest performance in the Buffyverse.

-Destiny—A terrific episode in which a mysterious package makes Spike corporeal again. Angel and Spike battle each other for the “Cup of Perpetual Torment” in order to settle the conflict over which vamp with a soul is really the one being talked about in the Shanshu Prophecy.

-Harm’s Way—This is by no means a great episode, and I honestly had hoped it would be a little better when I finally realized it was going to be about Harmony, but it was decent nonetheless, and it featured Harmony, which is awesome.

-Soul Purpose—In this pretty good episode, Lindsey returns, claiming to be Doyle (that heartless bastard) to convince Spike that he’s really the vamp champ. Angel, meanwhile, is plagued by nightmares about his destiny of redemption being claimed by Spike.

-Damage—The beginning to an incredible succession of episodes, Angel and Spike hunt down a psychotic potential Slayer, given Slayer strength and stuff by Willow’s magic at the end of Buffy, who has escaped from her mental institution and believes that Spike is drove her insane.

-You’re Welcome—In probably not the best, but probably my favorite, episode of the season, Cordy awakens from her coma after a series of visions of Angel in trouble. The episode is tremendous as it shows Cordy’s attempts to steer Angel back from the edge of dejection. The final scene between Angel and Cordy is incredibly emotionally powerful. For me, this is Charisma Carpenter’s finest hour in the Buffyverse.

-Why We Fight—I like this one better than most, I think. It’s mostly a period piece that takes place during WWII on a captured U-boat. That being said, it suffers some because it doesn’t use era dialogue in its period segments. It also suffers because, instead of using a demon, they insert Spike and two cronies into the plot, a stretch and a bother. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting storyline and I really enjoyed it.

-Smile Time—This is quite possibly the funniest episode in the Buffyverse, and that’s saying something. Not only that, but it’s also quite convincing as a dramatic and sometimes even legitimately frightening episode. While investigating some mysterious occurrences he attributes to a children’s morning show called Smile Time, Angel gets turned into a puppet. Hysterics and strong emotional ramifications follow. Angel ends up closer to his own humanity than when he began.

-A Hole in the World—The team desperately tries to find a cure for Fred, infected by a demon imprisoned inside a sarcophagus. Fred’s death scene is immensely poignant, and while I hate to say that I kind of like that they killed Fred off since she was such a fabulously lovable character, In an attempt to save Fred from Illyria’s grasp, Angel and Spike travel to England where they meet a kind figure from Angel’s past and discover a hold in the world.
-Shells—Angel and Spike unsuccessfully attempt to restore Fred. Gunn has some painful news and Wesley has some violent emotional reactions. Illyria encounters the inconvenient truth of her modern existence. The montage at the end of the episode is pretty poignant.

-Underneath—In a very good episode, Angel, Spike, and Gunn travel to a suburban hell dimension run by the Senior Partners to track down Lindsey with the hope that he has info on the Senior Partners that will help the team out.

-Origin—In a really good episode, Connor’s new parents seek help from W&H about his supernatural abilities. (Due to some plot details revealed earlier in the season, Angel’s the only major person who knows about Connor.) Wesley’s past comes back to haunt him when his memory is restored.

-Time Bomb—In this great episode, Illyria’s power is destabilizing, causing her to jump uncontrollably through time. When the team tries to stop her, she kills them all. Amy Acker’s performance her is incredible.

-The Girl in Question—Not even a pretty good episode, but a damn funny one.

-Power Play—In this fabulous episode, the team begins to doubt Angel’s loyalty and intentions after some highly questionable decisions he makes. While Spike searches for Illyria, Drogyn arrives to tell him that Angel tried to kill him. This all eventually leads to a huge, great reveal at the end.

-Not Fade Away—Talk about fantastic episode, I just wish this hadn’t been the last one. After revealing everything that he’s been plotting over the last several months and how the team is going to start taking down the Senior Partners, the team spends a final day doing what they love before attacking the Senior Partners, with some great and some terrible consequences.

Overall Season 5 Review: This is an excellent season of television, I just wish it hadn’t been the series’ last. This is probably my 3^rd-favorite season of the series. The reason I rank it below season 1 is that it just doesn’t have that continuous string of good-to-great episodes. The episode quality consistency just isn’t there. Sure, there are a ton of great episodes, but there are also a handful of really mediocre ones, too. The first 4 or so episodes of the season are decent enough, but the 5^th and 6^th border on really bad. Luckily, then we get Lineage and the rest of the season has a really, really excellent run, with the obvious exceptions of Harm’s Way and The Girl in Question, which were, I hope, always intended to be entertaining, but lightweight, episodes. Season 1 had about 3-4 mediocre episodes and 1 bad one. Season 5 has 6 and 2 of the same.

The character development continues to be strong, though I continued to dislike what the writers did with Lorne. He’s totally sidelined to making the occasional witticism. He never does anything, leaving a character I loved when he first started recurring way back 4 seasons prior a tragically underdeveloped, very two-dimensional (bordering on one-dimensional) character. The one attempt they made to add some complexity to his character, Life of the Party, failed miserably at making you care about his emotions really at all. Gunn didn’t receive too much emotional development, but he does become a more complex character through his intelligence implant, a development I liked even better after he lost the suit. For most of the season, Angel undergoes the same sort of character arc he does in season 2. He begins to slip into darkness and has to be pulled back out. The big reveal at the end of the season is a fabulous change of pace for Angel’s personal emotional struggles. Obviously, the biggest character developments happen to Fred, or rather Amy Acker, and to Wesley. Amy Acker handles her two characters brilliantly, and her work in the episodes in which she’s required to portray both Illyria and Fred is unqualified brilliance. Wesley is forced to undergo a huge amount of emotional development over the course of the season, and the writers do a uniformly excellent job of making his entire transformation, in a continuation of season 4, entirely believable and powerful. Denisof also does a fantastic job acting his changes, though I did feel like too many of his facial expressions during some of his close-ups during the latter half of the seasons were bothersome.
Overall, I feel like this season did a better job of wrapping up the series than the 7^th season did of wrapping up Buffy. I say this despite the fact that season 5 wasn’t supposed to be Angel’s last and it only was because Joss Whedon got a little overzealous in asking WB for a renewal. Angel and the team’s struggle against the Senior Partners, and evil and darkness in general, is going to go on more a long time after this season ends, so having the series ending with the team uniting about to go into battle is a great way to finish it.

Season Score: 9.5/10

Angel: Seasons 1-2

(watching Angel and the girl he has just saved) (in a high voice) How can I thank you, you mysterious, black-clad hunk of night thing? (low voice) No need, little lady, your tears of gratitude are enough for me. You see, I was once a badass campire, but love – and a pesky curse – defanged me. Now I’m just a big, fluffy puppy with bad teeth…No, not the hair? Never the hair! (high voice) But there must be some way I can show my appreciation. (low voice) No, helping those in need’s my job, - and working up a load of sexual tension, and prancing away like a magnificent poof is truly thank enough! (high voice) I understand. I have a nephew who is gay, so… (low voice) Gasp! Say no more. Evil’s still afoot! And I’m almost out of that Nancy-boy hair-gel that I like so much! Quickly, to the Angel-mobile, away!

-Spike in In the Dark

The good fight, yeah? - You never know until you've been tested. - I get that now. (knocking Angel over, turns to a kisses Cordelia) Too back we'll never know (morphs into demon face) if this is a face you could learn to love. -Doyle in Hero

Season 1: The first episode of the first season introduces the three main characters who will be the main cast for at least part of the first season. David Boreanaz stars as the titular soul-endowed vampire, Angel; Charisma Carpenter continues her time in the Buffyverse as Cordelia Chase, transplanting herself to L.A. from Sunnydale in an attempt to start a career as an actress; Glenn Quinn stars in the first 10 episodes as half-demon, vision-endowed Allen Francis Doyle, or just Doyle for short; and Alexis Denisof reappears after his short stint on Buffy to star in the last two-thirds of the season as a much softer, but still morally upright Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, now a rogue demon hunter. The series also introduces recurring guest stars Elisabeth Röhm as Detective Kate Lockley; Christian Kane and Stephanie Romanov as Lindsey McDonald and Lilah Morgan, up-and-coming lawyers for the demonic law firm Wolfram and Hart; Sam Anderson as Holland Manners, Lindsey and Lilah's boss; and Julie Benz as Angel’s sire, Darla, returning after being killed by Angel in season 1 of Buffy. The other notable guest stars J. August Richards as future team member Charles Gunn; Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy; Eliza Dushku; Seth Green as Oz; and James Marsters as Spike.

Best Season 1 Episodes:

-City Of—In this fantastic season premier, Angel, having just arrived in L.A., is befriended by and convinced to start a supernatural investigations company that helps people (Angel Investigations) by an Irish half-demon named Doyle who gets visions from the Powers That Be (the PTB) of people in trouble, leading him to a powerful vampire who’s next victim might be Cordelia Chase.

-Lonely Hearts—Angel investigates a demon serial killer. In the process, he meets Detective Kate Lockley who starts to think that Angel is the murder based on circumstantial evidence she continues finding.

-In the Dark—Immediately following the events of the Buffy episode Wild at Heart, Oz comes to town, bringing with him a present from Buffy. Spike also appears trying to steal it away. The cold opening features one of my favorite monologues of the series from James Marsters on a rooftop.

-Rm w/a Vu—Cordy searches for an apartment and buys a haunted one. Sounds cheesy, I know, but just watch it and you’ll see why it’s so great. Also, Doyle dodges a demon loan shark who is a literal shark. Ghost Dennis is introduced.

-Sense & Sensitivity—One of those pretty good episodes elevated by one incredible scene. The episode is mostly just really fun when an evil sensitivity trainer screws with the police force, but one scene at Lockley’s father’s retirement party (he’s a police officer) is absolutely heartwrenching. Röhm does an amazing job with the scene, always showing, but never overplaying, the immense heartbreak her character feels.

-The Bachelor Party—A strange idea for an episode that could have easily crashed and burned, Doyle’s almost ex-wife (she’s a demonologist) returns with her demon fiancé and Doyle agrees to attend his bachelor party. But the bachelor party isn’t everything it seems

-I Will Remember You—Buffy returns to L.A. just as a demon attacks Angel Investigations, leading to hope, but eventual tragedy, leading Angel to make an incredibly difficult decision.

-Hero—Another case of a pretty good episode capped by an immensely powerful scene, Hero is centered on a band of half-blood demons being hunted down by the Scourge, a group of violent racial supremacists intent on killing them because they’re not pure-blooded. The entire episode is pretty good. But the second-to-last scene is incredibly emotionally powerful and the final scene is absolutely heartbreaking. Glenn Quinn deserved an Emmy nomination for this and I’ll swear by that statement till my dying day.

-Parting Gifts—Wesley shows up by chance, helping Angel and Cordy track down a demonic bounty hunter.

-Somnambulist—Featuring a great performance by a younger Jeremy Renner as a vamp that Angel sired and mentored long ago, Somnambulist is an incredible episode. Renner’s vamp, Penn, is a serial killer who kills using Angelus’s old MO, but Angel is having dreams/hallucinations (or are they really?) that he’s actually killing everyone. Lockley also discovers that Angel is a vamp, forever altering their relationship.

-Expecting—This is not, by any means, a great, or even a pretty good, episode. It is merely good, but some of its scenes are quite demonstrative of what I keep saying about the great emotion that this season has. The scenes with the whole team are touching.

-I’ve Got You Under My Skin—The Exorcist, Angel-style, and not clichéd.

-The Prodigal—Kate’s father is caught up in some crazy shit, causing Angel to remember his own final conflict with his tyrannical father the day he was sired.

-Eternity—A movie star from a Beverly Hills, 90210-esque series enlists Angels help for protection, but her attraction to him soon goes overboard.

-Five by Five—Directly following the events of This Year’s Girl and Who Are You, Faith comes to L.A. and is immediately hired by Wolfram and Hart to assassinate Angel, harkening Angel back to his failed attempts at redemption. This is a truly excellent episode.

-Sanctuary—The second part of the Faith duo continues with Angel’s flashbacks. Everybody, and I mean everybody, well, except for Angel, is out to get Faith, and Angel’s the only one that can stop them.

-War Zone—While tracking down a geeky millionaire’s blackmailer, Angel finds a group of teens, led by Charles Gunn, who protect their neighborhood from vamps.

-Blind Date—Lindsey, in one of his intermittent good-guy spells, helps Angel break into Wolfram and Hart where Angel finds a scroll he feels oddly connected to and steals it.

-To Shanshu in L.A.—In a nearly perfect episode, Wolfram and Hart raises a demon to take out Angel. Eventually, events lead to the reveal of a prophecy of monumental importance. Also, an old acquaintance of Angel’s is resurrected.

Overall Review of Season 1: The first season is one of the series’ best, with three essentially perfect episodes, a ton of excellent ones, a bunch of decent episodes with one or two emotionally powerful scenes in them, a few unnecessary filler episodes, and only one truly bad episode. The season is incredibly effective at establishing the mission of Angel Investigations. It’s detractors dislike it because it doesn’t really have an overarching storyline like the other seasons of Angel have or like all of Buffy’s did (with the Big Bads), but I think that helps it rather than hurts it. Angel the Series needed to find its own identity, and it did so by straying from the season-long story arc path and focusing instead on strengthening Angel the character and brilliantly examining Angel’s never-ending goal, redemption, and some of its facets. The entire series examines different aspects of redemption, and season 1 really focuses on belonging and finding yourself, on developing who you are as a person, and it does an excellent job at it.

Not only does Angel search for redemption, but so do pretty much all of the other major characters. Cordelia begins regretting her self-centered attitude and materialistic outlook on life while in high school during this season. Her most important characterization developments come in later seasons (especially 3 and somewhat in 4), but it all starts here. Wesley, after the disastrous events and effect on his Watcher career in Buffy, is looking to carve out a new path for himself. He gets some character development this season, but he eventually becomes the most changed and probably most complex character by the end of the entire series. Kate Lockley is a fantastic character and Elisabeth Röhm, underrated actress that she is, does a brilliant job with her. Her entire story arc is terrifically well done, so much so that I wish she had found some way to join the main cast instead of going and starring for a few seasons on Law & Order.

I will say that there are a few things that I didn’t like about the season. First and foremost, of course, is the early death of Doyle. He was such a great character, and Glenn Quinn did an awesome job developing him and I just hated to see him go so soon. Also, the lack of a strong story arc kind of hurt the season because it lacked narrative focus as a result, but at the same I feel like it helped the series gain its own unique footing. In the end, I actually think the lack of story arc helped the season mainly because all of the stand-alone episodes were, to an amazing extent, so well-written and constructed. Looking back on it, I wish Wolfram and Hart had done more in this first season, but I know I didn’t really find much fault with that fact when I initially watched it. And actually, the timing of Angel’s startling discovery mid-way through season 2 meshed perfectly with all of his other character developments, so I struggle to think about how much more they could’ve had Wolfram and Hart do before ruining that great thematic parallel you find in the second season.

As I write my thoughts down right now, I am continually drawn to the fact that I wrote down 20 out of the season’s 22 episodes above, and I begin to think about how truly incredible this season was. Its excellence kind of creeps up on you. It doesn’t have as many amazing and perfect episodes as seasons 2, 3, and 5 of Buffy do, but it’s still really damn great.

Season Score: 9.5/10

Wesley: Angel, you don’t fine me especially paranoid, do you?

Angel: Not especially.

Wesley: Oh, thank god! I was worried.

-exchange in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?

If there’s no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. ‘Cause that’s all there is. What we do. Now. Today. –Angel in Epiphany

Season 2: This essentially perfect season continues to star Boreanaz, Carpenter, and Denisof. J. August Richards joins the regular cast as Charles Gunn. Christian Kane, Stephanie Romanov, Sam Anderson, and Elisabeth Röhm appear in the same roles they portrayed in the first season. Andy Hallett, eventually a future regular member, appears as Lorne in quite a few episodes. Julie Benz is the driving force behind the season-long arc as Darla, and she absolutely delivers. Juliet Landau also appears as Drusilla. Amy Acker appears in a 3-4 episode end-of-season arc as Winifred “Fred” Burkle. Alyson Hannigan also appears as Willow in 2 episodes.

Best Season 2 Episodes:

-Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?—The first four episodes of the season are stand-alones, and this is the best of all of them. The film takes place pretty much entirely in Angel’s past in the 50s. The episode is a fabulous example of production design, photography, and atmosphere creation. I’m not even going to reveal any more plot details because the episode deserves to be watched with as little background as possible.

-Untouched—The fourth season-beginning stand-alone, this is also a great episode. Angel tries to help a girl with telekinetic powers before Wolfram and Hart can control her. Guest star Daisy McCrackin is really great in the episode.

-Dear Boy—An excellent episode. Wolfram and Hart convinces Darla to unbalance Angel enough to get him to become Angelus again.

-Guise Will Be Guise—In a pretty good episode, Angel meets a Swami to end his obsession with Darla while Wesley assumes a fake identity to protect an attractive rich girl.

-Darla—This is a perfect episode, and either my first or second favorite episode of the season. Angel attempts to rescue Darla from Wolfram and Hart and Darla remembers her past.

-The Shroud of Rahmon—A pretty good episode, Angel and Gunn go undercover to prevent a the mind-altering Shroud of Rahmon from ending up with the wrong people.

-The Trial—An excellent episode in which Angel, after discovering that Darla is dying, refuses to vamp her and undertakes a series of gradually more sacrificial mystical ordeals to save her life.

-Reunion—In a perfect episode and probably my third or fourth favorite of this astonishingly brilliant season, Darla and Drusilla hit the streets and Angel is thrown into a tizzy.

-Redefinition—A nearly perfect episode, Angel fires everybody, slipping closer to his inner darkness, and cutting himself from all help, Angel takes on Darla and Dru.

-Blood Money—Angel threatens to reveal Wolfram and Hart for what they really are after he discovers them stealing from a teen shelter.

-Happy Anniversary—A pretty good episode about a brilliant scientist trying to freeze time. It also further develops Angel’s dark outlook on life.

-Reprise—Another perfect episode and probably the third or fourth best of the season, one of Wolfram and Harts Senior Partners is coming for a 75-year review. Angel successfully makes it to W&H’s Home Office, but it isn’t what he expected. The scene of Angel and Holland in the elevator is maybe the best scene in the entire series. Also, Kate’s life falls apart.

-Epiphany—Yet another perfect episode and probably the best one of the season. Angel wakes up after a night of passion with Darla and has, you guessed it!, an epiphany.

-Disharmony—This isn’t as good as pretty much all of the others I’ve listed, but Harmony comes for an appearance and that’s always noteworthy.

-Dead End—Cordy’s visions worsen and her health comes into question.

-Belonging—An enjoyable episode. More importantly, however, Charisma Carpenter in a bikini. Damn! And she still looks amazing at 42.

-Over the Rainbow—A decent enough episode, I really only included this one because it sets up the next two. Cordy’s just been sucked into Pylea, Lorne’s home dimension, where she’s made to be a slave.

-Through the Looking Glass—Cordy’s the Princess of Pylea and other developments. This was one of the most pleasant surprises of the season.

-There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb—A pretty great conclusion to the series’ best season.

Overall Season 2 Review: I know there are fewer episodes listed here than for season 1, but if I were to list every episode that is of the same quality as the ones listed for season 1, literally every single one would be listed.

Thematically, the season explores what it means to be human. At the end of season 1, Angel was given a purpose, a very human thing, but season 2 examines the humanity inside of him. For much of this season, Angel slips deeper and deeper into his inner darkness. At the same time, Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn are developing separately. Darla leads Angel into his own world and he follows, thereby exploring human existence and how damn complex it is. The season has such brilliant inter-related thematic examinations the best and worst humanity has to offer.

The season is really dark, as I haven’t said but hope you’ve been able to guess. That being said, the season is incredibly entertaining at points. Watching David Boreanaz get up and sing for Lorne is both painful and exceedingly entertaining.

The character development, especially of Angel is top-notch. Angel’s descent into caring about nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, but bringing down W&H is infuriating and yet immensely compelling. He no longer finds helping the helpless to be important, but punishing the wicked instead. He uses the helpless to get to W&H, and it hurts to watch. But if the first half of the season is a downer, then Epiphany is a beautiful thing. The episode is hope embodied, and I couldn’t have asked for it in a more well-written package. There is no blunt-instrument metaphor writing here, just pure, true emotion.

We’ll still have to wait for more complete characterizations of Cordy and Wesley in the coming seasons, but Angel’s development and the perfection of Darla’s usage and Julie Benz’s portrayal are absolutely everything I could have hoped for. That being said, Cordy and Wesley, do indeed change, well sort of. They continue to change in relation to their Buffy characters, but not really all that much since the first season. Nevertheless, they have transformed in tiny ways. Cordy’s begun realizing she’s not perfect. She has her flaws, but she can use them for good. Wesley is all about dealing with the self-image issues that have, throughout his life, grown out of his image as a stuck-up, snobbish, prattish, British prick. They develop their roles as emotional and logical center more fully during the season.

This season also furthers, actually it really concretely creates, the Wolfram and Hart we all learn to know and hate with various degrees of fiery passion. For me, the law firm, along with Wesley's amazing Buffyverse character arc, is what makes Angel brilliant. W&H is the greatest gift the writers could have given us, and it's huge amount of fleshing out this season is a huge part of what makes this epic season so, well, epic. The whole idea behind the firm's single-minded evil sounds really good, but is it? They provide the evil because, if there's no evil left in the world, then can there really be any good? The scene in which Angel and Holland are in the elevator and the successive realization that Holland imparts to Angel in Reprise is one of the most chilling revelations and scenes I've ever seen.

I was reading about the series somewhere recently, and I came something I think is telling about this season. Every season of Angel is divisive. Some can’t stand arc-less season 1 while some love it, like me. Some really like season 3, like me, while others think it’s just overly dramatic with too much filler. Season 4 is pretty much agreed to have high goals, but not fully meeting them. Season 5 has a huge number of supporters, including me, by some vitriolic detractors as well. Season 2, however, pretty much has unanimous support. And therein lies its immense strength. It’s a truly perfect season of television that challenges Buffy’s best, and indeed the best of most other series.

Season Score: 10/10

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3-4

Cordelia: When did you become Martha Stewart?

Buffy: First of all Martha Stewart knows jack about hand-cut prosciutto.

Xander: I don't believe she slays, either.

Oz: Oh, I hear she can, but she doesn't like to.

-exchange in Faith, Hope, and Trick

Angel: It told me to kill you. You were in the dream. You know. It told me to lose my soul in you and become a monster again.

Buffy: I know what it told you. What does it matter?

Angel: Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly! I want to take comfort in you, and I know it'll cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn't care. Look, I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.

-exchange in Amends

Xander: You girls need a lift?

Buffy: What is this?

Xander: What do you mean, what is it? It's my thing.

Willow: Your thing?

Xander: My thing!

Buffy: Is this a penis metaphor?

Xander: It's my thing that makes me cool. You know, that makes me unique. I'm Car Guy. Guy with the car.

-exchange in The Zeppo

(eating Gavrock spiders) Mmm. My god, what a feeling. The power of these creatures. It suffuses my being. I can feel the changes begin. My organs are shifting, changing, making ready fo the Ascencion. Plus, the babies are high in fiber. And what's the fun in becoming an immortal demon if you're not regular, am I right? -the Mayor in Graduation Day, Part 1

Season 3: In another great season with a few brilliant episodes and a lot of great ones, all of the regular cast members return and are joined by Seth Green. Kristine Sutherland, Armin Shimerman, and Danny Strong all return as recurring characters. Eliza Dushku, Harry Groener, and Alexis Denisof join the cast as Slayer Faith, a misguided slayer with emotional problems and a dangerous love of excitement; the Mayor; and mega-British Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce respectively. Emma Caulfield, future series regular, also makes a handful of appearances as vengeance and then former vengeance demon Anyanka and then Anya Jenkins. The Big Bad is the Mayor, who just happens to be a demon.

Best Season 3 Episodes: -Anne—Buffy, living in LA after the unfortunate events of Becoming, Part 2, helps a transformed previous acquaintance and the other down-and-outs of LA from losing their sense of selves.
-Faith, Hope & Trick—Another Slayer, Faith, comes to Sunnydale and meets Buffy. Together they try to take down a vamp named Mr. Trick.

-Homecoming—Buffy and Cordy compete for Homecoming Queen, and Buffy and Cordy are stranded together fighting in Mr. Trick’s SlayerFest ’98, where they reconcile their differences.
-The Wish—In a wonderfully imaginative episode, Cordy, feeling betrayed by some of Xander’s actions, summons the vengeance demon Anyanka and wishes that Xander never came to Sunnydale. This transports her to an alternate reality where the Master completed the Harvest and in which a number of notable characters, including Willow and Xander, are vamps.
-Amends—In a very underrated episode, Angel fights against the First Evil as it drives him insane by appearing as victims of his past crimes, trying to get him to kill Buffy, but driving him to the brink of suicide instead.
-Helpless—In a dangerous ordeal created by the Watchers’ Council to test Slayers on their 18^th birthday, Giles helps Buffy, forever altering his future.
-The Zeppo—This great, Xander-centric episode (there aren’t nearly enough of those) is a very underrated look at the nature of popularity and being content with who you are. Nicholas Brendon’s best performance.
-Bad Girls—New Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce arrives. Buffy and Faith go to the Bronze, where Angel imparts some info to them. Faith does something unfortunate.
-Consequences—Faith blames her unfortunate actions on Buffy. Angel confronts her, but Wesley intervenes and Faith plots her escape.
-Doppelgangland—In an excellent episode. Willow’s vampire counterpart from The Wish returns after Anya tricks Willow into helping her try to become a vengeance demon again. This is the best performance given by Hannigan at least until the end of season 6 and probably for the entire series.
-Enemies—The Mayor and Faith plot to bring Angelus back to eliminate Buffy.
-Earshot—Very controversial and actually released after the rest of the season because of Columbine, this episode examines the issues that come with popularity again, but in a very different way than The Zeppo. It delves into the problems associated with what happens when a person thinks everyone hates them when in fact they are just ignored. The episode revolves around Buffy’s newfound ability, and curse, to read minds, allowing her to hear somewhat thinking violent threats to the whole school before she goes insane.
-Choices—Buffy attempts to stop the Mayor’s Ascension while Faith continues to try to eliminate her.
-The Prom—Angel breaks up with Buffy, devastating her just before the prom, which ends up being okay because she has to save it from formal-wear-craving hellhounds anyway.
-Graduation Day, Parts 1 and 2—In the two-part series finale, the Mayor prepares for Ascension while Faith ties up loose ends, including Angel, poisoning him. Buffy makes a tremendous decision in saving him and later fights Faith.

Overall Season 3 Review: In either the second-or-third-best season of the series, the series production staff made an entire season out of an excellent villain. The Mayor is easily the second-best villain. He is just such a likeable guy, except that he’s really a serpentine demon that’s been mayor of Sunnydale since it was founded like 100 years before. It’s always the nice guys you gotta watch out for. The story is interesting this season as it centers far more around the Mayor and especially around Faith, with fewer monster-of-the-week episodes than previous seasons.

Anyway, some other reasons to love this excellent season are the character creations. Faith is an excellent character in her own right, and her personality contrasts exceptionally well with Buffy’s. Sometimes rebellious characters can be written over the top and you become angry that they’re written so ridiculously, but instead you hate Faith because of the perfectly believable, but negatively impactful things she does and convinces others to do. Eliza Dushku does a fantastic job with the role and I was so happy every time in following seasons of both Buffy and Angel when I read her name as a guest star. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is also a great character in that way that you know he’s supposed to be unbearable annoying and he succeeds completely. Alexis Denisof does a brilliant job at making Wesley essentially a caricature of Giles in some ways, which was indeed the point, and to differentiate himself in the most annoying way possible in others. Perhaps the best part of Denisof characterization is how much room for character softening he allowed himself once joining the cast of Angel. The introduction of Anya/Anyanka here is also key, and Emma Caulfield does an excellent job portraying her immense lust for vengeance. Seth Green is always priceless as boyfriend-of-few-words Oz. Essentially everything he says is profound and consists of about 10 or fewer words.

The season introduces Jane Espenson (23 total episodes) and Doug Petrie (16 total episodes) as major staff writers and establishes David Grossman (13 total episodes) and David Solomon (19 total episodes) as major series directors.

Season Score: 9.5/10

Adam: You feel smothered. Trapped like an animal. Pure in its ferocity, unable to actualize the urges within. Clinging to one truth. Like a flame struggling to burn within an enclosed glass. That a beast this powerful cannot be contained. Inevitably it will break free and savage the land again. I will make you whole again. Make you savage.

Spike: Wow. I mean, yeah. I get why the demons all fall in line with you. You're like Tony Robbins. If he was a big, scary, Frankenstein-looking -- You're exactly like Tony Robbins.

-exchange in The Yoko Factor

Ah, well, at least you all didn't dream about that guy with the cheese. I don't know where the hell that came from. -Buffy in Restless

Season 4: Buffy and the gang begin college in the somewhat less amazing, but still great 4^th season. Marking the first major shift in the regular cast, both David Boreanaz and Charisma Carpenter depart the show to star in the spin-off series, Angel. Seth Green remains part of the main cast until the 6^th episode, James Marsters joins the main cast in the 7^th episode, and Marc Blucas joins the main cast as Riley Finn in the 11^th episode after a handful of guest appearances earlier in the season. Emma Caulfield appears in pretty much every episode as Anya and Amber Benson appears as Willow’s love interest Tara Maclay. Kristine Sutherland returns in a greatly reduced number of episodes, while Leonard Roberts, Bailey Chase, Lindsay Crouse, and George Hertzberg appear in various capacities. The Big Bad is a composite monster named Adam originally intended for use by the powers of good.

Best Season 4 Episodes:

-The Freshman—While not great, the season premiere is good at effectively and satisfyingly transporting us from high school to college and accurately depicting the confusion that comes with quick transportation to new locales.
-Living Conditions—This essentially fantasy-free episode does a great job at examining the issues that come with living with a roommate.
-The Harsh Light of Day—Spike returns to Sunnydale with a gem that makes him invincible.
-Wild at Heart—Oz meets another werewolf, some unfortunate stuff happens, and he leaves town.
-The Initiative—Spike is held hostage by a group of secret government employees called the Initiative who experiment on demons. He escapes and goes to find Buffy.
-Hush—In arguably the best episode of the season and probably the scariest episode of television I’ve ever seen, a group of demons called the Gentlemen steal the voices of the entire population of Sunnydale in order to extract 7 hearts, because if you can’t scream, it’s harder to get help. The episode examines the limits of speech as a mode of communication and how it impedes societal interactions. The only series episode to ever be nominated for a major category Emmy (Writing-Drama), the episode contains 27 minutes of material without any dialogue. This is the best episode to watch first if you want to get hooked on Buffy.
-The I in Team—The leader of the Initiative attempts to have Buffy killed, causing Riley to question his allegiances and consider leaving the Initiative.
-Goodbye Iowa—Riley becomes unstable and Adam learns more about what he is, but not who he is.
-This Year’s Girl—Faith wakes up from her coma and seeks revenge (of course). She and Buffy switch bodies using a gift left to her by the Mayor. This is a very good episode, but not amazing.
-Who Are You—In the second part of this mid-season two-parter, the Watchers’ Council abducts Buffy in Faith’s body and Faith in Buffy’s body has lots of fun. They eventually trade bodies and Faith feels bad for everything she’s done and then leaves for LA, where she is involved in a short Angel storyline. Unlike the first part, this episode is a masterpiece in pretty much every way.
-Superstar—In a wonderfully entertaining break from the dramatic storylines of the season (though it ends up being a throw-away episode as there's no plot-point carry over anywhere else ever), Jonathan magically makes everyone in Sunnydale believe that he’s a superstar, but the spell comes at a price.
-New Moon Rising—In an excellent episode, Oz returns to Sunnydale after learning to control his inner werewolf, but he loses control when he learns of Willow and Tara’s relationship and is caught by the Initiative.
-The Yoko Factor—Spike works to turn the gang against itself with Adam progressing rapidly in his plan.
-Primeval—In the second part of the end-of-season two-parter, the gang discovers the full scope of Adam’s plans, and, using a composite form of all of them combined, kills Adam in one of the best fight scenes in the entire series.
-Restless—In arguably the best season finale in the entire series and the second-best episode of the season, especially because it’s so unlike all of the others, the spirit of the First Slayer (and a cheese man) haunts Buffy, Giles, Willow, and Xander.

Overall Season 4 Review: Buffy fell off a bit after its third season, but that’s not to say that season 4 isn’t still great. The overarching story arc and villain just aren’t as compelling as in seasons 2 and 3. That being said, I did thoroughly enjoy the entire season, except for Beer Bad, which is possibly the worst episode of television I’ve ever had the misfortune of watching. In all honesty, it probably isn’t that bad, but it is atrocious in comparison with the rest of the episodes in the series.

I really enjoyed some of story ideas and characters in the season, though. I thought the idea of the Initiative was really great and was executed quite well, except that it got kind of old by the end. I guess I just wish they had developed it more quickly. I just felt like Adam had almost no time to develop as a villain, which might also have been a product of him not having much potential as far as story goes. I also really liked Riley Finn, played very well by Marc Blucas. I enjoyed the relationship he shared with Buffy, a relationship vastly different from Buffy’s relationship with Angel. His status as a demon hunter could have come across as a cop-out, but it’s written so well that it never feels like one. The introduction of Tara Maclay, Willow’s lesbian love interest is a great character. Initially not really a part of the gang (she never completely gets there, but almost), she still fills an emotionally quiet niche that the series needed to fill. Amber Benson is great in the role too, though her best work as the character was still to come. Also, the promotion of un-demonized Anya to a more prominent character was also a great move. First of all, the character is absolutely hysterical. Secondly, Xander deserves to have at least a few things go right for him, so I was glad, at least while watching this season, to see him being happy. And I almost forgot (how could I?) about the reintroduction of Spike. Reintroducing the most entertaining character of a show is never a bad move (he’s also probably my favorite character in the entire Buffyverse), and so Spike’s reintroduction was an excellent choice. His obsession with Buffy and his anti-violence brain chip add huge amounts of humor to the series and Marsters does wonders with them.

Some episode ordering decisions and topic choices also greatly improved the season. The Faith-centric, two-episode arc of This Year’s Girl and Who Are You was brilliantly placed right after Adam’s reveal and initial encounter, splitting up the rising action of the Big Bad episodes perfectly. The episodes are also great and memorable for their excellent performances by Gellar and Dushku (the scene where Gellar is standing in front of mirror with Faith inside is priceless). Faith’s emotional transformation is quite powerful. In a similar fashion, Whedon’s brilliant decision to make the season finale unlike any of the other season finales, and unlike any other episode other the entire series really, resulted in one of the best episodes of the entire series.

The issue of transferring the series to college was, I felt, handled quite well. The first few episodes struggled to incorporate Xander into the gang, but that issue seemed to go away as soon as they stop trying to explain why he’s at the university or why everybody else isn’t.

This is a great season that just wasn't as good as it's two most recent predecessors, mostly because its season-long story arc just wasn't as compelling, but it still was an overall quite above average season of television.

As we get later into the seasons, fewer writers and directors are going to join the team, obviously. The only notable addition in either arena this season is Nick Marck (7 total episodes) as a director.
Season Score: 8.5/10

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seasons 1-2

Xander: See, what I should do is I should just start with talking about the dance. 'Ya know, Buffy, Spring Fling just isn't a time for students to choose, um...a mate and then we can...observe their...mating rituals and tag them before they migrate.' Just kill me!

Buffy: Giles, care? I'm putting my life on the line battling the undead. Look, I broke a nail, okay? I'm wearing an press-on. The least you could do is exhibit some casual interest. You could go, 'hmm.'

Giles: Hmm? Oh, sorry. Um, yes, I'm very glad that you're alright. Uh, I need to verify, um...I just can't really talk right now.

Buffy: Fine. That's okay. I can't put it off any longer. I have to meet my terrible fate.

Giles: What!?

Buffy: Biology.

-exchange in Prophecy Girl

The Master: You're dead!

Buffy: I may be dead, but I'm still pretty. Which is more than I can say for you.

-exchange in Prophecy Girl

The Master: Did you really think you could best me here when you couldn't below?

Buffy: You have fruit punch mouth.

The Master: What?

-exchange in Prophecy Girl

Season 1: The first season, picked up as a replacement for a failed fall series, is just 12 episodes long, so it shouldn’t take too long. The season isn’t really as much about great episodes as much it is about establishing the personalities of the great characters and chemistry the rest of the show’s duration relied on. The season also introduces a few characters who will either be important in the season or in both the season and future ones. It features David Boreanaz as Angel, a 242-year-old vampire cursed by gypsies with a soul who tries to help everyone he can to try to repay his debts for all of the terrible murders he committed; Kristine Sutherland as Buffy’s mom, Joyce Summers; Mark Metcalf as the “Big Bad” of the season, The Master, a ridiculously old vampire trying to take over the world; Julie Benz as Angel’s sire (or person who made someone a vampire) Darla, who will be incredibly important in the spin-off series Angel; Robia LaMorte as high school teacher Jenny Calendar; Mercedes McNab as Cordelia Chase’s top groupie, Harmony Kendall; and Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder, a bossy man with a largely unjustified grudge against Buffy as well as a short temper and an even shorter stature.

Best Season 1 Episodes:

-Welcome to the Hellmouth—The pilot episode, while not fantastic, does a brilliant job at explaining the entire basic premise of the show without feeling like an info-dump. It quite effectively establishes and fleshes out the main characters as well.
-The Harvest—The second part of the pilot is great for all of the same reasons as Welcome to the Hellmouth.
-Angel—Probably my favorite episode of the season, it discusses the background of Angel and features the first real signals of the perfect love found between Buffy and a certain someone.
-Nightmares—A boy in a coma is responsible for everyone’s worst nightmares coming true and the gang must wake the boy and help him face his fears.
-Out of Mind, Out of Sight—A girl named Marcie, unnoticed by everyone, literally turns invisible because she seemed to be so to everyone around her. This, for me, is really an underrated gem.
-Prophecy Girl—Arguably the best episode of the season, it features the end-of-the-world prophecies that come quite often throughout both Buffy and Angel and that almost always end up being untrue.

Overall Season 1 Review: As I mentioned above, season 1 really is all above the series finding its place. Something that far too many movies and TV series struggle with nowadays is finding that sense of place. For movies, at least, some of them don’t need it because they are entertaining enough, but the truly great movies all have at least a basic sense of place. For a TV series, unless carried entirely by its lead actors, a sense of place, focused episode tone, and strong narrative direction are immensely important, especially for a successful “genre” show. The first season really explores all of the show’s potential storytelling methods and dialogue motifs, allowing Whedon to really fine tune his vision and perfect them for the coming seasons. As far as prominent series writers are concerned, the first season features episodes penned by Whedon (27 total episodes) and by David Greenwalt (9 total episodes before becoming the showrunner on Angel). No other first season writer pens an episode after season 2. Same with directors, where Whedon (20 total episodes) is the only director to lead the filming of an episode after season 2.
Season Score: 7/10

You're a vampire. Oh, I'm sorry. Was that an offensive term? Should I say 'undead American'? - Buffy to Angel in When She Was Bad

Cordelia: So, does looking at guns really make girls wanna have sex? That's scary.
Xander: Yeah, I guess.
Cordelia: Well, does looking at guns make you wanna have sex?
Xander: I'm seventeen. Looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex.
-exchange in Innocence

Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping...waiting. And though unwanted...unbidden...it will stir...open its jaws, and howl. It speaks to us...guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have?...Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love...the clarity of hatred...and the ecstasy of grief...If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow,...empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead. -Angel in Passion

Season 2: In a truly excellent season, all of the main cast returns and David Boreanaz joins the main cast. The Big Bads, my favorites of the entire series, are vampire couple Drusilla and Spike, Angel’s vampire daughter and grandson (I don’t really know what to call them because, since vampire grandfather/mother is grandsire, that term doesn’t really work here), and are portrayed by Juliet Landau and James Marsters. They are incredibly entertaining and menacing and will play large both in this season and later ones. Kristine Sutherland returns, as does Robia LaMorte in a position of increased importance. Shimerman also returns. Seth Green is introduced as Oz Osbourne; Danny Strong, Emmy-winner for his screenplay for Game Change this past year, appears in a small role in a handful of episodes as Jonathan Levinson, a role that will become far more important in a few seasons; and Bianca Lawson appears as Kendra, a role that, if I revealed it’s true nature, would completely ruin parts of the series.

Best Season 2 Episodes:

-When She Was Bad—Buffy, suffering visions, is forced to revisit the end of the previous season and finish what she started.
-School Hard—In a fantastic episode, Spike and Drusilla are introduced and an impatient Spike, having already killed two Slayers in his lifetime, attempts to kill Buffy at Sunnydale High on Parent Teacher Night.
-Halloween—In a really fun episode, Ethan Rayne, an unwelcome memory from Giles’ darker past, comes to Sunnydale and turns everyone into their Halloween costumes.
-Lie to Me-Buffy has a mutual attraction to a guy, but he isn't at all what he seems to be.
-What’s My Line, Parts 1 and 2—Kendra arrives unannounced and helps Buffy defeat the Order of Taraka
-Ted—Guest starring John Ritter, the episode explores the difficulties faced by the child when a divorced parent starts dating again and the only person who sees the prospective family member’s huge flaws is the “ungrateful, bratty” kid.
-Surprise—On Buffy’s 17^th birthday, Spike and Dru assemble a long incapacitated, previously indestructible, demon called the Judge to kill Buffy. Buffy and Angel get it on, and perfect happiness ensues.
-Innocence—In my second-favorite episode of the season, Angel becomes Angelus and teams up with Spike and Dru. Buffy uses her birthday present from Xander to defeat the Judge.
-Phases—Oz becomes important when it’s discovered that he’s a werewolf. The episode examines the idea that what’s on the inside is what really counts.
-Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered—After a short-lived relationship, Cordelia breaks up with Xander, who tries to magically force her to fall in love with him, instead making everyone but Cordy fall in love with him.
-Passion—In my favorite episode of the season and one of the best written episodes I’ve seen anywhere, Angelus kicks his revenge campaign into overdrive. Jenny Calendar, revealed to be more than she says, attempts to restore Angel’s soul and the gang tries to bar Angel from their various homes. Angelus takes revenge on Jenny with catastrophic consequences.
-Killed by Death—Not as brilliant as some of the others I’ve listed, this episode still deserves real attention. Buffy’s in the hospital with bad case of the flu, where she discovers and investigates a nightmare demon invisible to healthy people called Der Kindestod. After being cured, Buffy reinfects herself to save the other children, curing herself of her longheld hospital phobia.
-I Only Have Eyes for You—What could have been a boring episode turns into an incredibly rewarding, absolutely riveting 45 minutes of TV. In this criminally underrated episode, the ghost of a love-tortured former student continuously reenacts a murder-suicide he committed, a murder-suicide Buffy and Angelus eventually have to reenact, raising the issue of forgiveness.
-Becoming, Parts 1 and 2—Two excellent episodes close out what is either the first or second best season of the series. Kendra returns to help Buffy take down a demon called Acathla that Spike and Dru are resurrecting, which will suck every living thing into hell. After some unexpected twists, Buffy and Angelus engage in a climactic sword fight.

Overall Season 2 Review: This is my favorite season of Buffy for several reasons. The biggest reason for that is the introduction of Spike and Dru, but mostly Spike. As a team, they’re simultaneously incredibly entertaining and menacing. Dru’s insanity is written and acted brilliantly, which adds quite a bit to the couple’s chemistry. Spike, though, adds this whole new dimension to what a supernatural/fantasy/sci-fi/horror villain could be. He is both menacing and hysterical. In my opinion, one of the best decisions Whedon & Co. ever made was eventually bringing him back (I’ll talk about that over the next few days). He just adds this fantastic quality to the show that I feel can’t really be explained and must be experienced. I had seen James Marsters in a 3-episode arc on Torchwood and enjoyed him, but wasn’t really blown away by him. That’s probably because, looking back on the Torchwood episodes, his character was more used as a plot device to develop the show’s male protagonist. Regardless, I came to absolutely love him. He is incredibly gifted at creating incredibly memorable and menacing villains. I would really love to see him do some film work before he gets too old. Also, he is often cast a villains, but, when examining the later Spike, I could picture him turning in some great work in well-written Woody Allen movie (which are, unfortunately, getting harder and harder to come by). He seems like he would just have a knack for playing neurotic characters if given the chance. The introduction of Angelus is also fantastic and really gives David Boreanaz the opportunity to show off his acting chops (which are frankly tragically underutilized in Bones, save for the fast-paced, flirtatious dialogue that appears about once every episode). He isn't the greatest actor ever, and frankly is pretty bad in the first half of the first season, but he develops Angel perfectly through his 8 season run. After portraying this quiet, brooding, albeit hunky, vamp with a soul, Boreanaz equally convincingly pulls off this monumental character tonal and behavioral shift with amazing ease and naturalness. He seemingly so effortlessly creates two personalities for Angel/Angelus that are always separate, and yet, whichever personality he is at any given moment, you can always see the other one struggling to get free.

This season wouldn’t have been possible, however, without the tremendous writing of the characters, done not only by Whedon, but by the likes of Marti Noxon, David Greenwalt, and Ty King, as well. Until School Hard, Buffy hadn’t really hit its stride, but with the introduction of Spike and Dru, the show took off, and it only got better after Surprise/Innocence. In other words, it finally figured out what it really wanted to be and set to work doing an amazing job of being just that.

The season introduces Marti Noxon (23 total episodes) and David Fury (17 total episodes) as prominent writers and establishes James A. Contner (20 total episodes) and Michael Gershman (10 total episodes) as prominent series directors. One interesting side-note is that the episode What's My Line, Part 1 was co-written by Howard Gordon and Marti Noxon. Gordon would go on the co-create/develop the critically acclaimed, 6-time Emmy Award-winning series Homeland and produce the critically acclaimed, though short-lived, series Awake starring Jason Isaacs, or Lucius Malfoy.

Season Score: 10/10