Angel

by Lorna, May 2001

If Star Trek and Babylon 5 are allowed to do spin off series, Buffy is not gonna be left behind! So at the end of season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Angel decided he had to leave Sunnydale and Buffy for her own good (sniff) and head off on his own. After a summer break he appears to have wondered a whole 5 minutes further on in the schedule to star in his own show.

Plot

Having relocated to Los Angeles (City of Angels, they must have thought for so long about that one!) Angel sets about doing what he does best. Brooding. However the Powers That Be (PTB) have other plans for him. They send him a bloke who has visions of people that need help. Angel then sets about helping these people one by one to atone for the hundred years or so he spent murdering, torturing and generally being pretty mean to anyone that came within range. And wham, bam we have a series. Angel sets up Angel Investigations and becomes a private investigator to cover his true demon fighting job.

Characters

Despite his intentions to be a brooding loner fate (and the producers) thought this might be a little dull for all concerned. So gave him some friends to 'help'.

• Doyle (Glenn Quinn, season 1) - Sent by the PTB to point Angel in the direction of people who need help by giving him migraine inducing visions. He's half demon, but no very proud of his spiky headedness and chooses to look like a normal human most of the time. Doyle is irish, drinks lots, chases Cordelia and any other female within range and drinks lots.

• Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) - Cordelia escaped from Sunnydale at the same time as Angel and they 'coincidentally' meet up. She's an aspiring (aka failing) actress and becomes Angel's receptionist/office manager. After Doyle leaves she starts getting visions, which she is less than happy about. She is much less bitchy than she was on Buffy and turns into quite a nice person, although still occasionally lacks subtlety. She also has a ghost for a room-mate, called Phantom Dennis... Star Wars Phantom Menace... get it?

• Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (Alexis Denisof, from mid season 1) - appears after Doyle leaves having been a "Rogue Demon Hunter" since he left Sunnydale (he was Buffy's watcher for a while). He's still very British (in that American British way) and is usually in charge of researching stuff, although he is pretty good with a cross bow. Not nearly as irritating as he was in Buffy, he's pretty helpful and adds that bit of humour and irony that Giles brought to Buffy.

• Charles Gunn (J. August Richards, from end season 1) - Leader of a gang of young people from a grim bit of LA who try and "keep their neighborhood safe" by killing vampires. He's gradually recruited to AI and does the hitting things and asking the questions the audience wants to ask, such as "what's going on?"

• Kate (Elisabeth Rohm season 1 and 2) - Kate's a detective who Angel befriends, she eventually finds out about vampires, demons and all the fun of the fair and alternatively helps and hinders Angel.

• The Host, Lorne (Andy Hallett) - ok this is where it gets really weird. Season 2 opens with The Host singing "I will survive". The host is green with little biddy horns and very loud dress sense. He runs Caritas a (shudder) demon karaoke bar where anyone is free to come and drink and sing without fear of injury (other than ear drums). Oh, he's also anagogic, which means when he watches people sing he can read their souls, tell them what they should do and even what's gonna happen in the future. Useful plot device you say? Cynic. But correct. He's absolutely hilarious, and is a real high point of the series.

• Winifred (Fred) Burkle (Amy Acker, end season 2 onwards) - Fred is a physicist and librarian who was transported to the host's dimension and kept for a slave for 5 years before the AI crew found and rescued her. During season 3 she comes up with various devices and theories and is generally pretty ditzy. She also likes tacos (shrug).

Plot and Review

The 1st season is mostly single episode based, with Doyle getting a vision, Angel hunting demon, Angel killing demon, Angel returning to brooding. This doesn't mean the episodes aren't good and well thought out and thouroughly enjoyable. The second season has more of an arc to it as an enemy from Angel's past returns to haunt him (mu haha) and is much darker than the first season. Wolfram and Hart are the recurring villains throughout, basically they're lawyers from hell (literally) who seem to go out of their way to piss Angel off. Season 3 also has an arc running through it and appears at first much more cheerful, but unsurprisingly takes a downwards turn quite quickly.

Angel is a much darker, more grown up version of Buffy. The characters are dealing with life in the real world (well, kinda) and have worries over flats, rent, jobs and the police. There is not always going to be a happy ending, not every puzzle is solvable, there are shades of gray between good and evil and frequently life just plain sucks. The series looks a little bleak and depressing, however this is far from the truth. There is plenty of demon butt kicking and the wit and sarcasm is very sharp, the characters are all pleasantly three dimensional and unperfect.

Above pictures are copyright © probably to Warner Bros and were originally from An Angel's Soul.

Links

 Angel's Acolyte

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-04-18

Contents include - Images, Synopses, Spoilers

Subjects include - Angel

This is a great site for Angel episode guides. The latest episodes are usually posted the same day as they are shown in the US and are very detailed with lots of screen captures. There's also a beautiful image gallery of photo montages.
Simple, stylish and easy to use, although the image map on the front page takes a little bit of time to load.

 The Sanctuary

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-04-18

Contents include - Images, Synopses, Reviews, Spoilers

Subjects include - Angel

This is an extensive Angel site run by a group of three women called the Trinity. I use the site mostly for it's episode guide and analysis. This section is huge offering in depth analysis of the episodes updated within a few days of airing in the US. There's also a photo gallery and a few bits of fanfic.
It's a bit cluttered and homepagey in places. Each section of the site has a different look which is a bit jarring. But it's easy enough to use and once you're in a section it's reasonably consistent.

The episode guide ("the screening room") provides a good synopsis of each episode, with a few images. The pop culture explanations are more detailed than they need to be, e.g. it's useful to know that "Good and Plenty" is a type of candy in America (since I haven't seen it in Britain), but I don't need to know that "In 1983, Huhtamaki Oy purchased Leaf Brands, the confectionery division of Beatrice Foods." Still, it never hurts to learn something new, and it's easy enough to skip over. My main concern is the reviews. Obviously these are subjective, so tastes will vary, but I think that the reviewers have recently been going out of their way to be negative. So, if you've seen the relevant episodes, then you can make your own assessment; if you haven't, then just be aware that some people like them, despite the criticisms.

This site has now moved to: http://www.trinityofiniquity.com/

 Official Angel Site

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-04-18

Contents include - Information, People, News

Subjects include - Angel

This site is a fairly typical official site. Ie not much information. On the plus side it has lots of interviews and questionaires with the actors and sometimes it has promo's to download. But in the most part the information is sketchy, not well indexed and very superficial.
It looks a mess, it's very difficult to actually find anything and to seperate out the numerous banner ads from the actual Angel contents. Links are often broken as well.

 BBC Cult TV - Buffy

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-04-18

Contents include - Information, Images, Synopses, Reviews, People, News

Subjects include - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel

This is yet another great site from the BBC. It's almost entirely limitted to information that people watching Buffy on terrestrial TV will appreciate so spoilers are usually avoided. It's got news, quizes, episode guides, interviews, images... just about everything you could want. There's also a comparable Angel site, even though it's not shown on the BBC.
Slick, simple, fast. It's a BBC site... what were you expecting?

 Psyche Transcripts

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-04-18

Contents include - Synopses

Subjects include - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel

The most important bit of this site is the shooting scripts for Angel and Buffy. These are complete scripts for all episodes (usually up to the last one aired in the US) including stage directions and explanations.
Functional. No images or real concessions made to prettiness but the scripts themselves are nicely laid out.

 All Things Philosophical on BTvS and AtS

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2002-04-18

Contents include - Spoilers, Synopses, Information

Subjects include - Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

An excellent site - it has an entry for each episode of Buffy/Angel, discussing issues that they raise, as well as more general pages. I always visit this site as soon as I can after I've seen new episodes.
Very easy to navigate. Has a few small images dotted around, but they're certainly not the focus of the site. The episode summaries normally come about 3/4 per page, but there are anchors to hop you to the part you're interested in.

 City of Angel

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-24

Contents include - History, Information, Images, Synopses, Reviews, People, Spoilers, News

Subjects include - Angel

There are extensive episode summaries, reviews and quotes lists, character and cast biographies, news summaries, images, trailer downloads and lots of other stuff.
This site is flash built and makes noises, however it looks great with some beautiful graphics and is generally pretty useable. My biggest complaint is that some of the text is a bit tricky to read.

 fanfiction.net

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-28

Contents include - Fanfiction, Bulletin Board/forum

Subjects include - X-Files, Gerry Anderson , X-Men, Star Wars, Angel, Farscape, Babylon 5, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Pratchett, Books, Comics, Movie Site, Star Trek - General, Stargate SG1, TV Show, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Enterprise, Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Dark Angel, Sliders, Highlander, Charmed, Blake's 7, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Red Dwarf, Star Trek: TNG, Dr Who, Firefly

If you want fanfiction, go here. This site is absolutely immense and beautifully layed out. I recon there's about 210 shows and 15,000 stories in the tv section alone. This site has many nice features - Categorised - sorted into large categories, like tv, comics, movies. Then sorted into smaller sections by tv show. Updated regularly - Updates appear every few hours, depending on how many authors are writing for a particular section. Author searches - each author has their own page, giving a full list of their fic's, links to their homepage, their favorite authors, whatever they wanna put there really. Discussion forums - if you are an author yourself, there's plenty of help available. Ratings - each fic has a summary, rating, word count and record of last update. You can even change the site colour scheme! How much more do you want?!
Brilliant. Fat loading and simple. You can even change the colour scheme if you want.

 Slayer's Fanfic Archive

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-28

Contents include - Fanfiction

Subjects include - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel

Huge amounts of fanfic mostly pretty well categorised and reasonably frequently updated. Unfortunately the search functions don't seem to be working at the moment, but you can still list the fic's by authors.
Very simple, fast loading. Almost too simple a little bit of prettiness doesn't hurt...

 The Watchers Web

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-28

Contents include - Bulletin Board/forum, Links, Quiz or competition, Information, Reviews, Spoilers, News

Subjects include - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel

This used to be a really great site for Buffy and Angel news, aimed at British viewers and very sensitive to spoilers. However the site has been on hold for a while. If it returns as promised though it's worth following. The forums still seem active though and the links sectio is useful. I have to plug them - i won a video box set off them ;0)
I like the look. It's fairly slow loading and has quite a few graphics, but I like it, particularly the banners at the top which change.

 YesWes

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-28

Contents include - History, Fanfiction, Bulletin Board/forum, Links, Information, Synopses, People

Subjects include - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel

A site devoted to Wesley from Angel (and Alexis Denisof). These people are a little obsessive and scary, but they put a lot of effort into the site. There's lots of screen captures and other images, the fiction is pretty good and the episode guide is (naturally) Wesley-centric.
The graphics are rather nice, but a little large sometimes. Plus the fading in and out thing gets irritating pretty fast.

 Destiny's Voice

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-28

Contents include - Links, Information, Images, People

Subjects include - Angel

Only a little site, but I couldn't resist it. It's completley devoted to Lorne (the Host) from Angel. The bio on the actor (Andy Hallet) has got lots of interesting stuff in it and the image section has some nice montages. A few links as well, but other than that it's just lots of pretty pictures of my favourite singing green demon.
Lots of pretty pictures so it can be a bit slow loading.

 BBC - Cult

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-10-14

Contents include - Bulletin Board/forum, Links, Information, Synopses, Reviews, Spoilers, News

Subjects include - Gerry Anderson , Hitchhikers Guide, Farscape, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Star Trek - General, TV Show, Science Fiction and Fantasy

"Classic TV - Packed with cult television pictures, quizzes, video clips, star interviews, nostalgia, trivia and gossip..."
Loads of great content on specific popular shows like Star Trek and the Simpsons as well as information on less well known shows like Gerry Anderson series and Bagpuss! It's also very UK friendly, so they'll try not to post spoilers for US episodes without lots of warning.
It's the bbc, it's simple, quick and very usable. Personally I'm not so sure about the background green/blue colour, but that's just me.

 Whedonesque

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-11-05

Contents include - Bulletin Board/forum, Spoilers, News

Subjects include - Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel

This is a great resource. Basically it's a weblog written by lots of people about Joss Whedon Projects. It means other people crawl the web for news stories and you don't have to bother. There's usually some new stuff each day, and the site only gets better as more people get involved.
A nice simple site that's got a great idea behind it. My only complaint is that they don't want me to link to their banners directly *shrug*

 Spoiled Rotten

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2003-01-08

Contents include - News, Spoilers

Subjects include - Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

A site dedicated to collating spoilers for Buffy and Angel. They seem pretty well informed and mark whether they think they're 'good or bad' spoilers.
Structure is quite nice. Can look at the spoilers by date or by episode.

 Television without Pity

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2003-05-16

Contents include - Bulletin Board/forum, Synopses, Reviews

Subjects include - Charmed, Enterprise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, TV Show

A recap site. Basically a collection of reviewers rewatch episodes of lots of different shows and give a recap of what happens. It's not only a good way to catch up on missed episodes, but it's absolutely hilarious. The one's I've read tend to be extremely sarcastic and had me laughing out loud repeatedly.
The site is pretty slow to load and often seems to get completely jammed, which makes the fact that recaps are spread over about a dozen pages even more frustrating. But once you're there it's very easy to get trapped.

Hmm, I had a brief glance at this, but I wasn't very impressed. I looked at the recap for the latest episode of "Charmed" that's been on Living, which the author describes as "gushing". Within the first paragraph, Leo is referred to as "the Dolt" eight times (and never by his actual name, so I'm identifying him having watched the episode). Now, I have no problem with people being sarcastic/critical (e.g. saying that Porthos has had more screen time than Travis in "Enterprise"), but I prefer it to be vaguely imaginative/entertaining. If you don't like Leo, fine, but at least think up different ways to insult him...

On the other hand, this particular recap may not be representative, and my patience isn't really at its peak right now.

Fair enough if you don't like it, but that's one of the things I find funny. The 'recaps' do tend to make more sense if you read from the start, alternate names tend to crop up when the recapper wasn't entirely certain of someone's name when they first appeared and a nickname stuck. Recaps for different shows also vary wildly as there's different reviewers. I'm not entirely fond of the fact that sometimes recappers seem to get 'assigned' shows that they don't actually like.