{"id":25424,"date":"2014-04-23T06:30:20","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T18:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=25424"},"modified":"2014-04-23T08:45:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T20:45:02","slug":"big-worlds-on-small-screens-rebecca-fisher-discusses-angel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/04\/23\/big-worlds-on-small-screens-rebecca-fisher-discusses-angel\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Worlds On Small Screens: Rebecca Fisher Discusses “Angel”"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rebecca Fisher<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction:<\/h3>\n

In developing a spin-off series for Joss Whedon\u2019s cult hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em><\/strong>, the character of Angel seemed the natural choice for a leading role in his own show. Always on the outskirts of Buffy\u2019s inner-circle, and a character whose story-arc in Season Two made him a danger to Buffy\u2019s well-being, Angel eventually makes the decision to move to Los Angeles in order to fight the good fight there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Much of Angel\u2019s backstory was already covered in Buffy<\/em><\/strong>, although the gift of immortality is that there\u2019s always plenty of space in which to explore more of such a lengthy life. The short version begins with Liam, a directionless and debauched young man living in Ireland in the 18th century \u2013 who becomes a soulless vampire and embraces his newfound freedom as a creature unbound by the rules of morality. Acquiring the moniker of \u201cAngelus\u201d, he soon becomes known as one of the most sadistic vampires in Europe \u2013 at least until he crosses paths with a vengeful gypsy clan.<\/p>\n

As punishment for killing one of their young women, the gypsies place a curse upon Angelus \u2013 the reinstating of his human soul. It\u2019s simple, but effective. Hounded by guilt and disgusted by his nature, the ensouled vampire ends up as little more than a homeless man living on the blood of rats \u2013 at least until he\u2019s given renewed purpose when he meets Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer.<\/p>\n

But the gypsy\u2019s curse came with a caveat. They wanted Angel to suffer the agony of having a soul, not enjoy its benefits, and so the spell cast upon him had one crucial condition: that if he ever experienced one moment of pure happiness, he would immediately lose his soul again. I\u2019m sure you can guess where this is going. Buffy made Angel happy, he lost his soul in consequence, and on regaining it once more, realized that it was too dangerous for them to be together.<\/p>\n

Next stop \u2013 Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Premise:<\/h3>\n

Whew, that\u2019s quite a set-up, and we haven\u2019t even gotten to the spin-off yet!<\/p>\n

Significantly darker and more adult than its parent show (for despite dealing with some hefty themes, Buffy never quite let go of its comedy-horror roots), Angel<\/em><\/strong> was originally envisioned as a film-noir detective series, with each episode devoted to a specific case that needed solving. Of course, this show\u2019s detective was an immortal vampire, so the mysteries he investigated naturally had a supernatural bent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Angel — without the fangs<\/p>\n

Even though most episodes were standalone, many of them contributed to an over-arching storyline. And whereas Buffy would centre each season around a specific antagonist to be defeated, Angel<\/em><\/strong> portrayed its protagonists as minor players in a much larger battle between good and evil, as represented by champions of the mysterious Powers That Be and the corrupt law-firm Wolfram and Hart. With this framework, the show immediately throws itself into shades of grey, for its main conflict revolves around a vampire trying to defeat a bunch of powerful lawyers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Angel — WITH the fangs<\/p>\n

This naturally begs the question \u2013 how do you defeat the law? Since most of Wolfram and Hart\u2019s employees are human, Angel can\u2019t simply go around murdering them. Unlike Buffy<\/em><\/strong>, in which defeating evil was usually accomplished with super-strength, teamwork and witty one-liners, Angel had to face more incorporeal threats: corruption, temptation, despair, addiction, entropy, poverty, law suits, as well as his own feet of clay: the ever present threat of Angelus bubbling just below the surface.<\/p>\n

Story:<\/h3>\n

Across its five seasons the show never strays far from Angel\u2019s struggle against what Wolfram and Hart represent: corporate evil. On this show, evil is not necessarily horned and red-skinned, but dressed in business suits and flashing charming smiles. Here, evil is a commodity, one that begets further evil through ordinary people giving into their baser instincts. Even Angel himself is susceptible to their machinations, going through a crisis of faith over the course of Season Two.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The face of pure evil (of course it would be a law firm)<\/p>\n

The law-firm symbolizes the banality of evil and how it permeates everything (heck, even in another dimension Angel runs across an alternative version of the organisation), and a rather ingenious twist in the fifth season has the firm\u2019s Senior Partners decide to make Angel head of the L.A .branch, offering him all its personnel and resources to do with as he wishes.<\/p>\n

The show also features guest-stars from Buffy<\/em><\/strong> such as Drusilla and Faith, and plenty of flashback sequences that explore Angel\u2019s past as Angelus. Oh, and in one episode he gets changed into a puppet. It\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s a long story<\/p>\n

Characters:<\/h3>\n

A further dissimilarity from Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/strong><\/em> is that unlike the parent show, which had a core cast of four main characters that remained the same from start to finish (though other characters came and went), Angel<\/em><\/strong> had a revolving cast that changed dramatically from season to season. As it stands, David Boreanaz as Angel is the only actor to appear in all one hundred and ten episodes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The original team<\/p>\n

When the show starts, Angel is initially joined by Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), another Sunnydale High survivor, and Doyle (Glenn Quinn), a human-demon hybrid whose psychic visions direct Angel toward various innocents that need help. Doyle didn\u2019t last long, being killed off very early in the show\u2019s run, thus fulfilling Joss Whedon\u2019s dream of catching the audience off-guard by abruptly writing out a character who\u2019d featured in the opening credits (though the actor\u2019s rumoured drug problems probably also had something to do with it).<\/p>\n

Doyle was replaced by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), a wannabe \u201crogue demon hunter\u201d and Buffy\u2019s ex-Watcher (he certainly wasn\u2019t missed in Sunnydale). Later in the show\u2019s run they\u2019re joined by Charles Gunn (J. August\u00a0 Richards), the leader of a gang of vampire-hunters who struggles with the idea of a \u201cgood\u201d vampire, Fred Burkle (Amy Ackers) a physicist who was trapped for five years in another dimension, and Lorne (Andy Hallet), a singing demon who can read the auras of others.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The final season’s team — including Spike from Buffy<\/em><\/p>\n

Quite an eclectic group! Calling themselves Angel Investigations, their mission is to \u201chelp the helpless\u201d, though Angel\u2019s personal motto is more rooted in his quest for redemption. Unable to forget the horrific deeds he committed whilst a soulless vampire, he\u2019s especially intrigued by various prophesies that seem to suggest that if he saves enough souls, he might well get the chance to regain his humanity.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/h3>\n

The inevitable question when it comes to spin-offs is always: is it better than the original? In my humble opinion, the very best that Buffy<\/strong> had to offer was superior to Angel<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 but Angel<\/em><\/strong> was more consistent in its quality, whereas Buffy<\/em><\/strong> had some real stinkers in its time.<\/p>\n

Angel<\/em><\/strong> was mature and sophisticated storytelling (though it wasn\u2019t afraid to make fun of itself at times), with a central theme that provided plenty of food for thought: that the fight for good can never be truly won, but neither can it be abandoned. In Angel\u2019s own words: \u201cif nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.\u201d<\/em> From the beginning to the very end, that message shaped the course of the show: of people fighting for what was right regardless of whether or not they stood a chance of winning.<\/p>\n

Next Time:<\/em> <\/span><\/h3>\n

I have no idea. Enjoy the suspense. \ud83d\ude09<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

About The Reviewer:<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Rebecca Fisher<\/p><\/div>\n

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com<\/a>, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com<\/a> and her LiveJournal<\/a> blog.<\/p>\n

To read Rebecca\u2019s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:<\/p>\n

Big Worlds On Small Screens<\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rebecca Fisher Introduction: In developing a spin-off series for Joss Whedon\u2019s cult hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the character of Angel seemed the natural choice for a leading role in his own show. Always on the outskirts of Buffy\u2019s inner-circle, and a character whose story-arc in Season Two made him a danger to Buffy\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-worlds-on-small-screens-with-rebecca-fisher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25424"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25487,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424\/revisions\/25487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}