(S01E10) Angel: Wesley.
Wesley: I'll wager you never thought you'd see me again.
Angel: To tell you the truth, I hadn't given it much thought one way or the other.
Hello, and welcome to Angel, Season 1A. You're probably scratching your heads at this categorization, since you're pretty sure that the first season of Angel wasn't broken up into two separate pieces. Well, actually, if you think about it, it really was two separate seasons.
Season one (the first nine episodes) set up the environment where Angel took place. We saw the beginning of some threads that would be carried throughout the series (The Powers That Be, Wolfram & Hart), but they were very subtle. With Doyle being the one who had the visions, and Cordelia trying to find her purpose in life, it seemed like a very different show. With the tenth episode, however, the dynamic of the show changed dramatically and set the stage for many events that would continue to the very end of the series. Hence, the reason that Season 1A begins with this episode.
Three factors contributed to the shift in focus. The first was Angel himself. During the first episodes he was just your normal vampire with a soul who was trying to do some good in this world to pay for the sins that he had committed in the past. In the past two episodes he began to realize (with a little help from Doyle) that his purpose in life was a bit grander than he thought. After directly confronting the Oracles this episode he realized that he could no longer work alone and he would need all of the help he could get to avoid the planet from being absorbed by an unimaginable evil.
The second factor was Cordelia. The kiss that Doyle planted on her at the end of the last episode wasn't just to say good-bye. He actually gave her the gift (or curse, depending on your belief) of the visions. Two things happened when she realized what he had given her. First, the maturity that had been brewing for several episodes finally surfaced. Second, she was no longer just the office manager, but someone who was now in danger equally as much as her boss. That was clearly seen this episode when she became an item on the auction block because of her visions. This would be a recurring theme throughout the rest of the series.
The third factor: Wesley. While a secondary player on Buffy the Vampire Slayer during that show's third season, he became a major player in the show. And, while shown as a bit clumsy this episode, he showed talents for research and demon languages that Doyle never exhibited. His knowledge would lead Angel into the larger role of 'world saver' as the season and series progressed.
So that's my argument, folks. While the first episodes of Angel where sad, funny, and majestic they also stood on their own in the history of the series. Starting with this episode we saw the birth of the Angel (as well as Angel Investigations) that would eventually help save more that just the population of Los Angeles.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-02-2006 @ 2:00AM
King Bob said...
Excellent recap, you nailed it. This truly was the beginning of Angel in my book. It's dad that the guy who played Doyle was a druggie who overdosed, but that led to Wesley coming into the picture, and changed the dynamic of the show.
It was close to this point that Buffy 'jumped the shark', and Angel became a far far better show!
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8-02-2006 @ 2:02AM
King Bob said...
in my prvs comment, dad = sad.
seriously, no Edit???
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8-04-2006 @ 6:40PM
Kassy said...
does anyone know if angel will becoming to a Boxset DVD. I don't want to buy all the seasons if it's gonna be coming to a box set. Please let me know.
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8-08-2006 @ 10:08AM
Edgeoforever said...
Very good commentary - I hadn't quite seen it this way.
As for the first poster, and his Freudian slip about his dad, whatever your personal problems are, I won't allow you to smear Colin Quinn's memory, just because you like another character.
It was the reason I researched Minear's comments on Doyle - to defend this kind of trash talk - so here it is - the quote from his blog - to stop the attacks on someone who cannot defend himself. And BTW, for the rest of us, Angel started with City of....
"I killed Doyle, and I’d do it again,` laughs Minear."
Doyle meets his end in `Hero`, as the character sacrifices himself to save humans from a weapon launched by a group of Nazi-like demons. `I killed Doyle, and I’d do it again,` laughs Minear. `Truthfully, we killed Doyle because we thought it would be better for the show. It was something that was decided way before ‘Bachelor Party’. All of those episodes that featured that character were there for this moment when he sacrifices himself. There were a lot of reasons, but I think mostly we were still figuring out the show early on; we were still figuring out what the dynamics should be. Again, you look at the pilot and the story where Angel doesn’t save the girl. You look at episode nine of a 22-episode season, and the guy who is in the main titles, the sidekick, dies. The reason for that is that it proves anything can happen. It was decided early on that that would be an interesting, creative thing to do. And there was also some feeling, too, that David and Glenn’s characters were very similar: They were both half human and half demon; they both had a past; they both were brooding type characters, and they were both searching for redemption. It just seemed like the same note to some degree. So we decided we could do two things. We could shake up the universe of the show; we could give our characters an emotionally resonating event that would help infuse the show a little bit. Again, for the first nine episodes, their shared history feels like it should be another series. This is a huge event in our universe that can inform things to come. I think you’ll see that in later episodes. You look at THE EXORCIST episode, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’, and if Doyle hadn’t died, it wouldn’t be as interesting.
http://www.timminear.net/archives/press/000040.html
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8-08-2006 @ 10:11AM
Edgeoforever said...
Kassy, I bought the Angel Boxset DVD from Amazon UK. You can do that if you have a multi-region DVD player or are willing to watch them on your computer.
As far as I know - no plans for us, US Angel fans - but the seasons prices were reduced to $30 a season I believe some months ago.
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