It’s started well, with “Apocalypse, Nowish” and its commentary with Steven S. DeKnight (writer and co-producer) and Vern Gillum (director). Great episode, but the commentaries wasn’t able to top the ones I’ve seen before. But those had either Whedon, Hallett or Denisof (or two of them) on them, so that’s not really to be expected.
But first for the episode itself. It starts off with a lots of portents, like rats, snakes, bugs and sparrows, threw in some character conflicts (Fred and Gunn, Wes and Lilah, Wes and Gunn, and perhaps also the Cordelia-Connor-Angel thing; I’m not really sure if that one can be classified as a conflict, but there certainly are a lot of conflictoid material there, in the very least), launched the Beast (just seeing Vladimir Kulich’s name on the titles gave me the heebie jeebies), and got the Angelettes beaten to near death on a rooftop. Then it finishes off with some incestoid sex.
Best thing? Why, Wes’ guns, of course. Goosebumps, and great expectations, both for season 5 (dad! 
) and for the second reappearence of Skip. Oh geez, this is gonna be so good!
As for the commentaries, DeKnight and Gillum were a lot more serious than, say, Whedon, and they talked about more technical shooting stuff than other commentators I’ve seen (not that Whedon doesn’t talk about technicalities; far from it), they just didn’t say so much about the plot itself, apart from commenting on how great Kartheiser and Boreanaz and Massa are. One thing, howeve, that surprised me a little, is that according to DeKnight Cordelia was already manipulating Angel. And here I was of the impression that she didn’t start doing that before she got pregnant? Oh well. If that whole “higher being” stunt was a Skip/Beast/Jasmine incited hoax, I don’t see why they shouldn’t have been able to control her at least to some extent.
Interesting stuff, and the last commentaries for a while. Meaning, of course, that I now can concentrate on the episodes themselves. And boy, am I looking forward to that!
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