Angel series 1
Feb. 18th, 2011 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWesley is cool at this point, as the second major fighter other than Angel. He's still pretentious, but unfortunately being pretentious when you're beating the crap out of someone makes him an awful lot more cool than being pretentious when he's being ineffectual.
There's a touch too many episodes on the trot where the innocent victim turns out to be an unspeakably evil killer (the little boy possessed by the demon, the empath demon Wesley was tracking when he appeared, the McNamara brothers) which is a good twist but starts to get samey at this point.
Did Angel ever get American citizenship? In Buffy, someone asked if they should describe him as an undead American, and I shouted "you idiot, he's supposed to be Irish!" :)
The Ring
This was pretty good. There's a few rough edges, which really seemed to undermine it the first time, but matter a lot less when you know what the shape of the story is supposed to be.
Always, always, when you have a lead, let home base know where you're going so they can rescue you if it goes badly.
There's several episodes where Angel (or Buffy) are subdued by humans with a tranquilliser dart or a shock stick. Which is probably because it's sometimes narratively necessary for them to be captured. But it happens too often, because I always think "if it works that well, why doesn't everyone carry incapacitating weapons in California?"
Jack was stupid to stand too close to the red line and let Angel grab him. But it was very, very chilling when his brother shot him. Up till then I thought Angel had found a pretty good loophole.
I don't know what would have happened if the brother hadn't done anything. Angel should probably have killed Jack -- executions are nasty, but killing a multiple murderer who is currently kidnapping you is clearly, clearly, permitted.
OTOH, given demons' general recuperative powers, they probably should have prepared to have a prisoner desperate enough to cut their arm off.
When Angel was at W&H, couldn't he have broken free then? Or kill the brother when he was on the other still side of the red line? Or lie (when threatened with death) and then go back on his word?
When they free the demons at the end, they walk right into one of the big underlying questions: how many demons are inherently evil? And when is it safe to assume so? All the fighters walk out, and they expect many of them to possibly do evil things, even though all we know is that they're good fighters, but what should they have done? Interrogated them and decided who had a right to live? Some demons (notably the pure demons and vampires) are seen as evil, but other demons are seen as having free will, but being evil -- but then, how come they seem not to have any moral civil rights? The series in general copes with this problem, but I think it was a mistake to raise it directly.
There's a touch too many episodes on the trot where the innocent victim turns out to be an unspeakably evil killer (the little boy possessed by the demon, the empath demon Wesley was tracking when he appeared, the McNamara brothers) which is a good twist but starts to get samey at this point.
Did Angel ever get American citizenship? In Buffy, someone asked if they should describe him as an undead American, and I shouted "you idiot, he's supposed to be Irish!" :)
The Ring
This was pretty good. There's a few rough edges, which really seemed to undermine it the first time, but matter a lot less when you know what the shape of the story is supposed to be.
Always, always, when you have a lead, let home base know where you're going so they can rescue you if it goes badly.
There's several episodes where Angel (or Buffy) are subdued by humans with a tranquilliser dart or a shock stick. Which is probably because it's sometimes narratively necessary for them to be captured. But it happens too often, because I always think "if it works that well, why doesn't everyone carry incapacitating weapons in California?"
Jack was stupid to stand too close to the red line and let Angel grab him. But it was very, very chilling when his brother shot him. Up till then I thought Angel had found a pretty good loophole.
I don't know what would have happened if the brother hadn't done anything. Angel should probably have killed Jack -- executions are nasty, but killing a multiple murderer who is currently kidnapping you is clearly, clearly, permitted.
OTOH, given demons' general recuperative powers, they probably should have prepared to have a prisoner desperate enough to cut their arm off.
When Angel was at W&H, couldn't he have broken free then? Or kill the brother when he was on the other still side of the red line? Or lie (when threatened with death) and then go back on his word?
When they free the demons at the end, they walk right into one of the big underlying questions: how many demons are inherently evil? And when is it safe to assume so? All the fighters walk out, and they expect many of them to possibly do evil things, even though all we know is that they're good fighters, but what should they have done? Interrogated them and decided who had a right to live? Some demons (notably the pure demons and vampires) are seen as evil, but other demons are seen as having free will, but being evil -- but then, how come they seem not to have any moral civil rights? The series in general copes with this problem, but I think it was a mistake to raise it directly.