Five Seasons of Angel
Nov. 4th, 2004 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desoto_hia873I got my copy of Five Seasons of Angel in the mail yesterday. It's a collection of essays in the same vein (vampire pun, heh) as Seven Seasons of Buffy. (I also have and have read the latter, and highly recommend it.) I stayed up far too late last night reading the first three essays and thought I'd post a few excerpts:
Angelus Populi by Don DeBrandt
On bullies and atonement:
If Angelus does represent the same kind of tormentor to Joss as he does to me, I admire his response. Despite the deep anger he must hold toward the character, Joss has chosen redemption over revenge. Sure, he's made him suffer - Angel spent most of a century living in sewers and eating rats, and another hundred years in a hell dimension - but, ultimately, he has the chance to make good. According to an ancient prophecy, if Angel "fulfills his destiny," he will be rewarded by becoming human.
Becoming human. No more Angelus, no more living in the dark... and by extension, no more fighting supernatural menaces. To rejoin the human race as a weaker, sadder, but much better person.
Is there any better fate to impose on a bully?.
"That Angel Doesn't Live Here Anymore" by Laura Resnick
On the "perfect happiness" subclause of Angel's curse:
Buffy's Angel is such a well-fitted love interest for the heroine, the emotional connection is so emphatically protrayed as true love, that the story needs a truly remarkable and credibly unconquerable obstacle if the two characters are to break up without one or both of them turning into idiots, jerks or corpses. [Technically, one of them is already a corpse, but never mind...] The curse's subclause succeeds in creating that obstacle; through no fault of their own, and with no diminishment of their true love, Buffy and Angel cannot possibly be a couple.
Angel's Angel, on the other hand, is a deeply troubled loner carrying a ton of emotional baggage. He has trouble relating to people. He resists intimacy. He's often uncomfortable with (and in denial about) his own emotions. He has dark moods, predatory instincts and is prone to violence. As portrayed in "Lonely Hearts" (A1-2) and "She" (A1-13), he's socially awkward, even to the point of rudeness. He's obsessed with a woman he doesn't like or respect (Darla). He's done many evil things which haunt him - and which would horrify any woman who got close enough to him to fully understand what he's done.
Do we really think this guy is so likely to have a great relationship that he needs a gypsy curse to keep it from happening?
Angel By The Numbers by Dan Kerns
Dan Kerns worked as Assistant Chief Lighting Technician ("Best Boy") for the first two seasons of Angel and Chief Lighting Technician ("Gaffer") for the remaining three. (I always wondered what "Best Boy" and "Gaffer" meant.)
For the character of Lorne, Andy Hallett has had to endure 4 hours of make-up - 3 to apply, one to remove - 241 times.
James Marsters has one leather jacket. He has muffed only 4 lines of dialogue, all in rehearsal. He bears a scar over his left eye received in an altercation in New York some years ago. Details are sketchy. The scar is highlighted and accented with make-up for his character Spike. After Angel wraps, he plans to go back to his natural hair color as soon as he can remember what it is.
There were 4 conniption fits thrown by 4 producers the day Charisma Carpenter cut her hair without telling any of the aforementioned producers (names furnished upon request).
Two days of shooting were lost due to an ankle injury suffered by D.B. doing a stunt in season one; zero shooting days were lost for his knee surgery during season five. Years of playing hockey had finally caught up with him.
A total of 18 minutes were lost because the entire cast could not stop laughing during their first rehearsal with the Angel Muppet.
Production Designer Stuart Blatt created a Kelly Manners bobble-head doll and has managed to sneak it into 6 episodes. [I'm going to be looking for that thing every time I watch Angel from now on...]
The Set Lighting crew has worked very hard to place and power 991 lights of various sizes only to have me tell them to turn the lights off and move them somewhere else. They have also completed 2,105 crossword puzzles.
(It should be noted that many of the preceding numbers are estimates, guesses, stabs in the dark or just plain wrong. Inaccuracies available upon request.)
At the start of the third essay, the editor, Glenn Yeffeth, lists statistics regarding his viewing of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Just for fun, I'll do the same. If I had a bigger friends list, I could start my own meme. :-)
I first became aware of Buffy and Angel 4 years ago.
I have since watched 144 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 110 episodes of Angel a total of 638 times (approximately). That's 451 hours of Buffy and 187 hours of Angel.
The largest number of consecutive hours I've spent watching Buffy and/or Angel is 5.
ETA: I think I miscalculated my numbers of hours. The second estimate came out to 413 hours of Buffy and 253 hours of Angel. That makes a total of 666 hours. Seems like an appropriate number, given the subject. :-)
Angelus Populi by Don DeBrandt
On bullies and atonement:
If Angelus does represent the same kind of tormentor to Joss as he does to me, I admire his response. Despite the deep anger he must hold toward the character, Joss has chosen redemption over revenge. Sure, he's made him suffer - Angel spent most of a century living in sewers and eating rats, and another hundred years in a hell dimension - but, ultimately, he has the chance to make good. According to an ancient prophecy, if Angel "fulfills his destiny," he will be rewarded by becoming human.
Becoming human. No more Angelus, no more living in the dark... and by extension, no more fighting supernatural menaces. To rejoin the human race as a weaker, sadder, but much better person.
Is there any better fate to impose on a bully?.
"That Angel Doesn't Live Here Anymore" by Laura Resnick
On the "perfect happiness" subclause of Angel's curse:
Buffy's Angel is such a well-fitted love interest for the heroine, the emotional connection is so emphatically protrayed as true love, that the story needs a truly remarkable and credibly unconquerable obstacle if the two characters are to break up without one or both of them turning into idiots, jerks or corpses. [Technically, one of them is already a corpse, but never mind...] The curse's subclause succeeds in creating that obstacle; through no fault of their own, and with no diminishment of their true love, Buffy and Angel cannot possibly be a couple.
Angel's Angel, on the other hand, is a deeply troubled loner carrying a ton of emotional baggage. He has trouble relating to people. He resists intimacy. He's often uncomfortable with (and in denial about) his own emotions. He has dark moods, predatory instincts and is prone to violence. As portrayed in "Lonely Hearts" (A1-2) and "She" (A1-13), he's socially awkward, even to the point of rudeness. He's obsessed with a woman he doesn't like or respect (Darla). He's done many evil things which haunt him - and which would horrify any woman who got close enough to him to fully understand what he's done.
Do we really think this guy is so likely to have a great relationship that he needs a gypsy curse to keep it from happening?
Angel By The Numbers by Dan Kerns
Dan Kerns worked as Assistant Chief Lighting Technician ("Best Boy") for the first two seasons of Angel and Chief Lighting Technician ("Gaffer") for the remaining three. (I always wondered what "Best Boy" and "Gaffer" meant.)
For the character of Lorne, Andy Hallett has had to endure 4 hours of make-up - 3 to apply, one to remove - 241 times.
James Marsters has one leather jacket. He has muffed only 4 lines of dialogue, all in rehearsal. He bears a scar over his left eye received in an altercation in New York some years ago. Details are sketchy. The scar is highlighted and accented with make-up for his character Spike. After Angel wraps, he plans to go back to his natural hair color as soon as he can remember what it is.
There were 4 conniption fits thrown by 4 producers the day Charisma Carpenter cut her hair without telling any of the aforementioned producers (names furnished upon request).
Two days of shooting were lost due to an ankle injury suffered by D.B. doing a stunt in season one; zero shooting days were lost for his knee surgery during season five. Years of playing hockey had finally caught up with him.
A total of 18 minutes were lost because the entire cast could not stop laughing during their first rehearsal with the Angel Muppet.
Production Designer Stuart Blatt created a Kelly Manners bobble-head doll and has managed to sneak it into 6 episodes. [I'm going to be looking for that thing every time I watch Angel from now on...]
The Set Lighting crew has worked very hard to place and power 991 lights of various sizes only to have me tell them to turn the lights off and move them somewhere else. They have also completed 2,105 crossword puzzles.
(It should be noted that many of the preceding numbers are estimates, guesses, stabs in the dark or just plain wrong. Inaccuracies available upon request.)
At the start of the third essay, the editor, Glenn Yeffeth, lists statistics regarding his viewing of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Just for fun, I'll do the same. If I had a bigger friends list, I could start my own meme. :-)
I first became aware of Buffy and Angel 4 years ago.
I have since watched 144 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 110 episodes of Angel a total of 638 times (approximately). That's 451 hours of Buffy and 187 hours of Angel.
The largest number of consecutive hours I've spent watching Buffy and/or Angel is 5.
ETA: I think I miscalculated my numbers of hours. The second estimate came out to 413 hours of Buffy and 253 hours of Angel. That makes a total of 666 hours. Seems like an appropriate number, given the subject. :-)
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Date: 2004-11-04 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 01:03 pm (UTC)