Maybe it's good it was cancelled . . .

POSTED BY: grrarrg
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 20:31
VIEWED: 11296
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GRRARRG

Friday, March 11, 2005 1:56 PM

[ducking to avoid various flying objects]

Now, hear me out. Maybe this has been said before, but it just really came together for me.

I think most people would agree that Angel S4 (all the inexplicable events dealing with "the Beast" and releasing Angelus, supposedly to pave the way for Cordy's love child) and Buffy S7 were among the crappiest times of either series. Episodes were poorly written, and the story arcs were annoying and full of unnecessary elements. It has always seemed fairly obvious to me that Joss was heavily involved in creating, running, and then trying to save Firefly while those episodes of Buffy and Angel were in production, and thus he was not as involved with Angel or Buffy. Then, with Angel S5, Joss was much less distracted, and there was significant improvement (although the end was rushed due to the unexpected cancellation).

Which brings us to last summer, when production for Angel S6 would have been in full swing. Except that Joss spent every waking hour working on Serenity. He would have had even less involvement with Angel than ever, and I really think it would have been the worst season of either series, and certainly would have been cancelled. So, given the timing of Serenity, I think the show ended on a much higher note than it would have. And now I'm thinking that that was a good thing. I don't think we could have had a quality Angel S6 and a quality Serenity, and the Firefly 'verse is much more deficient than the Buffyverse.

Anyone agree?

I mock you with my monkey pants

CAPTAINCDC

Friday, March 11, 2005 4:05 PM

I respectfully disagree. I must be one of the few people on this site that thoroughly enjoyed S4 of Angel. I think it was the 2nd or 3rd best season out of the five. I also enjoyed S7 of Buffy. Though I would put S2, S3, S4, and S6 in front of it in terms of my favorites. I think S6 of Angel would have been really good even with Joss working on Serenity because one thing he has proven good at is surrounding himself with brilliant writers. Plus with Wonderfalls being cancelled around that time maybe the great Tim Minear would have come back to run the show in Joss's stead.

The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason!

CYBERSNARK

Friday, March 11, 2005 4:58 PM

Plus, y'know, compare even a crappy season of Buffy and/or Angel to. . . just about anything else on the air.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

EMBERS

Friday, March 11, 2005 5:18 PM

I have to agree w/Cybersnark...
even the worse episode in the worst season
of any Joss show,
would be ten thousand times better than most everything else on TV

so, lets argue about what WOULD be the worse episode of the worst season?
Because in my experience no one ever agrees:

I thought BtVS was weakest it's first season...
and that the worst show was 'Teacher's Pet'
- altho I loved the moment when Buffy's teacher had faith in her, before he was horribly killed...
- and I really loved the implied open ending where there were eggs laid in the science room
(does that mean the murdered teacher was a virgin?)

On Angel the Series I felt that the weakest season was S4
and the weakest episode was when evil Cordelia
is trying to tell evil Angelus what to do in the funny (masculine) voice...
that all seemed very cheesy to me.
But as I recall the good part was Wesley...

so IMO there is always something redeeming...

ZEEK

Friday, March 11, 2005 6:11 PM

I liked Season 7 of Buffy. Granted the massive number of potentials did lead to some problems. Not all the characters could be developed and such.

Anyway as for worst episodes:

Buffy - probably an episode like As You Were. Pretty much a pointless episode to wrap up Riley's story. Since I never liked Riley's character I'd rather they just see a little blurb about him in the obituaries at some point. That would have been nice.

Angel - I'd go with Double or Nothing. Such a let down after Forgiving. The episode was pretty dumb and pointless. Come on, gunn sold his soul for a truck. I don't buy it.

CAPTAINCDC

Friday, March 11, 2005 6:14 PM

As I said before I liked S4 of Angel, but one of the main reasons for that is Wesley. I had always thought Wes was hilarious, but the transformation he went through in between seasons made him my favorite character of any of Joss's shows.

I also think that Buffy S1 was the weakest of the 7. However it had a great villian and it was still enough to have me hooked for the duration of the series. As far as Cordelia talking in the masculine voice, I am tempted to say that it was cheesy in a good way 'cause every time I hear it I find myself cracking up. One of the weakest eps of Angel IMO might have been the one where the doctor could dismember parts of his body and roam around as just a hand or something.

The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason!

BATMARLOWE

Friday, March 11, 2005 6:21 PM

I can see your point. At this time last year I was ready to see ANGEL go. I felt S5 was the weakest overall season. But I know Joss had some big ideas for S6 and I would have liked to have seen them so I'm a bit torn.

As to my worst eps, Doublemeat Palace is, IMHO, the worst episode of BUFFY, don't really know about ANGEL. Somewhere toward the end of Season 4 with all the possessed Cordy crap. Somewhere around in there is when I felt the quality in ANGEL drop. Particularly when they tried to convince us all previous events were orchestrated to bring about Jasmine.

EMBERS

Friday, March 11, 2005 6:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zeek:
Anyway as for worst episodes:

Buffy - probably an episode like As You Were. Pretty much a pointless episode to wrap up Riley's story. Since I never liked Riley's character I'd rather they just see a little blurb about him in the obituaries at some point. That would have been nice.

Angel - I'd go with Double or Nothing. Such a let down after Forgiving. The episode was pretty dumb and pointless. Come on, gunn sold his soul for a truck. I don't buy it.

See? I thought 'As You Were' was more about what a pathetic loser Buffy was (and not really so much about Riley, except that, in contrast, he had his life together)

and selling your soul for a truck may seem silly to you, w/your good job and a car...
but to a homeless teen-ager trying to keep a band of children safe, it probably seemed like life itself (I LOVED that he didn't think to require air-conditioning...because inner city LA is unbelievably hot!)

so, I hope this didn't qualify as high jacking a thread,
because I love hearing people's least favorites

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, March 11, 2005 6:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by embers:
so, lets argue about what WOULD be the worse episode of the worst season?

Quite honestly I thought the worst episode of Buffy was the last. The reason wasn’t the cinematography, or the characters, or anything like that. It was the presentation.

Every girl who could be a slayer will be a slayer. Yay! But, the thing that I remember about slayers is that they are murderers. When Faith started killing people it was no big deal to the people who knew slayers. They had a nice little, ineffective, plan all set up. One would assume this is because it happened so often.

Now you have slayers all over the world, and more being born all the time. Each of these has the potential to be a more a terrifying killer than the vast majority of demons. There isn’t anyone around to guide all of these slayers and keep them from becoming killers.

Strength like what they will have usually results in one of two things, becoming a bully, or being bullied. Neither of those encourages a nonviolent lifestyle.

-

With all of that in the air they make it seem like it’s an incredibly good thing that the world is now filled with natural born killers not all of which are likely to join the forces of good.

It just struck me as off. So very off that I dislike the entire episode and the ones leading up to it. They had enough problems dealing with one bad slayer.

EMBERS

Friday, March 11, 2005 7:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
the thing that I remember about slayers is that they are murderers.
There isn’t anyone around to guide all of these slayers and keep them from becoming killers.

Wow,
you certainly were watching a different show than me.
So you figure that without a middle aged British guy to guide them,
most young women with super strength will kill people right and left?

I was just imagining they would all join the Olympics

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