The good times keep rolling, and now I’ve finished watching season 4 of “Angel”. Do you realize what this means? I’ve now only one single season of Whedon shows left. But lets save the nostalgia for the next review. It will be more appropriate then 
So what’s my thought about this season? Well, they’re more of the same, really. This season is the best so far. It’s got no less than two (maybe three) nice story arcs and it contains the best episode so far. “Spin the Bottle” is so good that I’d rank it up there with the very best Buffysodes - and that’s saying a lot when you know how good those episodes are. I’m still much more of a Buffy fan than an Angel fan, but this series is growing on me.
The character arcs in this season are interesting. Especially Cordelia goes through some rough stuff. I’ve never been the biggest Cordy fan, and while she’s important to the show I always tend to find her scenes quite tedious and annoying. She’s a big drama queen in this season and that made her even more so. I’d kinda hoped that she’d get cut sometime along the line. I’m still rooting for that option, all though it seems unlikely at this point.
I really enjoyed the “The Beast&Angelus” arc. Angel himself can sometimes be a little… whipped, but Angelus always manages to make me smile. I was wondering when Angelus would make an appearance, cos he’s been a “threat” ever since season 1 and we’ve never got to see him for real until now. Faith and Willows appearances were also welcome. It’s always nice to see old friends come and visit
So aside from the Connor’s and Cordelia’s story arcs, I can’t point at anything else that I found negative about the season. It’s coming together nicely and I’m looking forward with anticipation to the fifth season of “Angel”. I really hope it’s as good as people are telling me.
Verdict for season 4 of “Angel”: a weak 8,5/10.
Posts
Faith’s awesome on Angel, both in season 1 and 4, I find I actually like her more there than I ever did on Buffy - though not a mean word about Dushku’s performance there, either.
The fifth season starts out as okay, and then gets brilliant, and stays there. One or two really sucky ones (brilliantly made, but not my cup of tea at all) spread in with no advance warning, though, so beware.
27. June 2007 @ 22:48 ( Permalink )
“Faith’s awesome on Angel, both in season 1 and 4, I find I actually like her more there than I ever did on Buffy - though not a mean word about Dushku’s performance there, either.”
Seeing as I watched these shows the wrong way, so to say, I never got that intense loathing particularly my sister seems to have developed for Faith. On Angel, she was so cool, and so vulnerable, that her more despicable sides, evident in Bs3 and in a more limited way 7, became more of an annoying sidetrack. Because I knew she was good, you know?
“One or two really sucky ones (brilliantly made, but not my cup of tea at all) spread in with no advance warning, though, so beware.”
Which ones are those?
Personally, I’m ambiguous about Conviction, Just Rewards, Unleashed, and The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco. Ambiguous, because while they’re not the freshest of Whedonverse episodes, especially plotwise, all of them have a mitigating trait or two. But then again, so do all Whedonverse episodes.
But the overall season? Awesomest awesomity.
28. June 2007 @ 00:50 ( Permalink )
Also, Lotta, glad you’re liking it!
28. June 2007 @ 00:51 ( Permalink )
As you might remember, I’ve always had a thing for Faith. Ever since I watched her in season 3 of Buffy she’s been much more preferable to, say, Buffy, just because she’s so… bad
“Conviction” was cool enough. “Unleashed” was a tad unoriginal. It seemed like they suddenly decided to make a werewolf episode for no better reason than because they hadn’t done it before. “Hell Bound” was awesome, though. Excuse the language, but “Spike FTW!!!”
28. June 2007 @ 09:49 ( Permalink )
The two I thought of would be “The Cautionary Tale” - which just isn’t for me, though I totally see why so many people love it - and “The Girl In Question”, which is good enough I suppose, but suffers from skipping a few beat of internal logic to get cheap laughs and feeling very misplaced in the season, mood-wise.
Both of them are entertaining stuff, though, they just doesn’t fit in with what I want from the show at their respective points in the airing - “TGIQ” could easily be a much-loved ep of mine with a few minor tweaks and a different placement in the season, and the Cautionary Tale… well… it’s like Kill Bill for me, really well done, entertaining in its own way, but it crushes the believability of what I’m watching, which is okay when what I’m watching is all there is, but not when there’s another 111 episodes of it…
The werewolf-thing was actually half-planned to be a forerunner to maybe re-introducing Oz as a werewolf-tutor to Nina in season 6, which I’d have loved, so… I like the ep ’cause of what it could have lead into. And it’s not bad on its own, either.
28. June 2007 @ 18:33 ( Permalink )