Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 8, 2017 19:37:44 GMT -8
Just jotting this down - "Awakening" makes me wonder whether Angel is wholesale rejecting the absurdist tenets of Buffy? Specifically, the Angel/Angelus divide the last few episodes have been setting up is very Kantian. And there's also a bit of dialogue where Cordy says "you have a choice!" and Angel's like "no I don't" which is an explicit rejection of absurdism.
Oh and there was an episode attached to it too. Zzzzzzz. That ending was kind of funny though??
EDIT: Yo "Soulless," remember when I liked this show? Yeah me neither. The climax of this one was like, a jar being empty or something. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Post by ThirdMan on Apr 9, 2017 2:02:56 GMT -8
You're so far gone into a negative impression of the show at this point, that I wonder if you'll even be able to enjoy or appreciate what are considered by most viewers to be strong episodes, in the fifth season.
In my experience, once a viewer "turns" on a show, they typically just shut down from that point on, and either stop watching or just "hate-watch" for completion's sake.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 9, 2017 7:28:52 GMT -8
You're so far gone into a negative impression of the show at this point, that I wonder if you'll even be able to enjoy or appreciate what are considered by most viewers to be strong episodes, in the fifth season. In my experience, once a viewer "turns" on a show, they typically just shut down from that point on, and either stop watching or just "hate-watch" for completion's sake. But everyone hates Season Four! I greatly like and dislike this show in equal measure, but I think now that I'm not doing extensive write-ups my reaction comes off more negative than it actually is. Don't get me wrong, Hannibal Vampire is massively disappointing relative to Buffy S2, or even "Eternity"'s depiction of the guy; now he's... simultaneously more slapsticky and more hypercompetent? Which is bizarre.
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Post by Jeremy on Apr 9, 2017 11:01:00 GMT -8
Depends on how well the show in question can really redeem itself from that point on. I've never met anyone who likes Friday Night Lights S2, but pretty much everyone enjoyed S3-S5.
Angel is an uneven show, but it tends to deliver enough highs to make up for the lows. And one thing that makes Season Five so remarkable is the way it redeems many of the weaker spots in Seasons Three and Four.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Apr 9, 2017 12:16:36 GMT -8
You're so far gone into a negative impression of the show at this point, that I wonder if you'll even be able to enjoy or appreciate what are considered by most viewers to be strong episodes, in the fifth season. In my experience, once a viewer "turns" on a show, they typically just shut down from that point on, and either stop watching or just "hate-watch" for completion's sake. I think she'll at least enjoy it more. Seasons 3 and 4 are hard to enjoy because they take themselves so seriously, but Seasons 2 and 5 less so, uncoincidentally the best seasons of the show (I found Bosc's claim that Angel is campy noir to be completely unfounded, Angel's at its best when it finds the balance between humorous, but not outright comedy, and dark drama, but not self important). Anyway, my main point is that it's a lot easier to forgive something's flaws when it's fun. That's why I enjoy the first half of Season 5, despite its characterization issues, and adore the second half. I think she might too, though it's no guarantee, as some of the episodes I love in 3 and 4, she dismissed, like "Lullaby", and "Forgiving" which she said wasn't very deep, "Sleep Tight", which she said was laughably cheesy, and "Deep Down", which I can't remember her critiques. I'm not saying you're wrong, it's subjective obviously, but the show might just not click with you the same way it does for others (including myself).
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 10, 2017 10:02:34 GMT -8
(I found Bosc's claim that Angel is campy noir to be completely unfounded, Angel's at its best when it finds the balance between humorous, but not outright comedy, and dark drama, but not self important). Where are people getting this from? (Good thing I have the entire CT archive on my hard drive) From "Rm w/ a Vu": Which is not the case with noir, or at the very least, not the case with the sort of noir Angel is trying to evoke. (guttersnipe mentioned a lot of films I've never heard of when I mentioned campy noir as an impossibility. I don't know any off the top of my head. Uh... Kiss Me Deadly is kind of over-the-top, I guess?) This is why in the "Deep Down" review I mentioned that Angel's tonal problems stem from it being very hard for a piece to work as serious noir while maintaining camp elements. If Angel did crack the code and became an honest-to-god camp noir, I think it'd be a lot better. Or at the very least, a lot more fun.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 10, 2017 20:25:18 GMT -8
"Calvary"
Lilah!!!!!!!! Yayyyyyy wait ahahahahahaha WHAT
"Salvage"
Faith!!!!!!! Yayyyyyy wait ahahahahahaha WHAT
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Post by ThirdMan on Apr 11, 2017 3:01:01 GMT -8
Season 4 is so serialized that I can't remember the plot of those episodes based on the titles. Please elaborate...a little.
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Quiara
Grade School
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Post by Quiara on Apr 11, 2017 5:35:44 GMT -8
"Calvary" is the one where Lilah comes back just in time to be murdered by Cordelia, who we learn is the one REALLY behind everything with the most underwhelming line reading ever. (There's an essay to be written about every instance of the word "bitch" in Angel and its relative scarcity except in a villainous context on the mothership.) Also Angelus gets loose.
Then in "Salvage" Wesley's like "yo Faith we need you to get Angel" so she breaks out of prison, then Angelus kills the Beast, and ""Cordelia"" reveals she is pregnant with Con(VOMIT NOISES)
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 12, 2017 20:03:49 GMT -8
Okay, what is with this show's predilection for guns and drug addiction? Like,I thought we left that shit behind when Greenwalt left. But here I am enjoying "Release" when oh crap, vampire opium den. And requisite scene of Wes the badass torturing another woman, which is sorta questioned but not really because he's sooo cool and grizzled. God, fuck Wesley at this point. I know this is a "minority opinion" and all but like I really despise that Wes went from John Cleese to John Constantine in the span of like three episodes and that the show has him casually do such depraved shit which is overlooked in favor of his boner for Fred. Ugh ugh ugh.
Uh, that fight scene with Faith and Angel was fun though.
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"Orpheus" was probably the best episode of the season. Until the ending which is like. Holy shit. Unforgivable. When did Cordy find time to change into Hot Topic villainess garb???
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Post by ThirdMan on Apr 13, 2017 1:28:36 GMT -8
I thought Wes was already getting pretty dark by late Season 2, which was, of course, undone a bit by the silly Pylea shenanigans.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 13, 2017 8:33:14 GMT -8
I thought Wes in Pylea was a natural evolution of the Watchers' ends-before-means philosophy. Wes dual-wielding pistols and literally chaining a woman to the wall of his apartment... not so much.
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WOW "PLAYERS" WAS AWESOME. I had no idea the fucking Gwen Raiden heist episode was going to be the highlight of the season, but. Woooooooooooooo that was fun. And that ending! Niiice.
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I like how the writers felt a need to explain to us the non-mystery of how Cordy killed Manny without getting blood on her clothes. What is this, the third Phoenix Wright game??? Or were they that desperate to get a shot of her in the nude? "Inside Out" had some cool stuff but it mostly underlined how shittily Angel treats its women; that Darla/Cordy confrontation would have been fantastic if either felt like a real character. But hey, Gina Torres.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 13, 2017 20:16:34 GMT -8
Wow "Shiny Happy People" was great!!! It's incredible how making Fred the protagonist and leaving Cordy totally comatose somehow _improved_ the show??? Or maybe it's just residual Gina Torres. Luuuuuuv Gina Torres.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 13, 2017 21:31:19 GMT -8
Let's see... that's after Jasmine is "born" and starts brainwashing everyone, right? As I recall, that was the only part of the season that I actually thought was good.
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Post by ThirdMan on Apr 14, 2017 0:27:40 GMT -8
Whereas I didn't mind parts of Season Four, and yet found Torres's character, and the effect she had on almost every other major character, totally insufferable. Heh.
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