Terrible disappointment

[andrewducker]

I watched the last 4 episodes of Angel Season 2 over the last couple of days. I've been completely hooked as I worked through the videos of Buffy Season 5 and the matching Angel episodes.

The whole arc of Angel's descent into despair, epiphany and re-establishment of purpouse was fantastic. Great storytelling and cool plotting/scripting all round. And then....

They have to go into an alternate fantasy world reminiscent of Hercules (only not as well drawn or interesting) where not only are the characters 2-dimensional (purposefully, apparently), but the plots are wafer thin and things can happen for no reason that I could see.

It felt like I'd wanered into Predictable-Fantasy land - Cordelia gets grabbed by the evil overlords, so of course she turns up again as a princess. I've only seen this plot, what, 20 times or so? The evil bad guys didn't seem to have much of a reason for what they were doing, there were a whole bunch of different demon races living near (or among) each other, for no discernable reason and the whole thing felt like fan-fic written by an overexcitable 16 year-old.

There were some nice bits, certainly, and I like Winnifred. But it definitely felt like games I've played in where the GM had run out of ideas and just starting throwing ideas in, hoping that some of them would be interesting.

Sadly, most of them weren't.

Comments

More thoughts

[andrewducker]

There were things I liked about it. I liked the vampire thing. I quite liked the Grussilak. I liked the Wolf Ram and Hart thing. I liked it when Angel got hailed as a hero, and then was asked to behead Fred.

In some way it reminds me of Jurassic Park 2. There's lots of nice ideas and set up, but most of it was wasted. I can see how, for instance, the metaphysics of the world was supposed to be different, but I'd like to have seen this properly made use of. If Wesley (for instance) had said "The morality here is black and white, they won't expect us to engage in guerilla warfare." and use it to his advantage. Or, knowing that singing causes everyone withing 50 feet to go into convulsions, why the hell wasn't the attack group trained in 'advanced medley techniques' before the attack?

I felt horribly emotionally let down over the Host dying, and then not being dead. Why the hell should I care about character death if they're alive again 10 seconds later?

Bah.

Some good ideas, mostly woefully dealt with.

Re: More thoughts

[(Anonymous)]

I think the episode was mostly about denial of Angel's expectations, it kept almost being good and then wasnt. Vampirism works different, so he can go in the sun, which he enjoys, but then it also makes him into a mindless beast. He's hailed as a hero, which he really enjoys, but then asked to do things he'd hate. The host isnt dead when they think, but will be if his body is messed with. Cordelia is a princess and is going to be sacrificed. The episode giveth and the episode taketh away.

About the why dont they sing, I'm unsure. I had a similar problem in the Mummy with why they didnt move to a cat sanctuary. I suppose the native humans may not know how to sing, or even may be affected as badly as the demons. Personnal I thought Wesley *did* make good use of tactics that were unfamiliar.

Gordon