Showing posts with label Angel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angel. Show all posts

Thursday, 13 March 2014

Review: ANGEL (Seasons 2-5)

Angel
Seasons 2 to 5
Starring David Boreanaz.
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: dvd box set

About Angel:
At the start of the series, Angel has just moved to Los Angeles. He is soon visited by Doyle, a messenger sent to him on behalf of The Powers That Be. Doyle receives visions that can guide Angel on his mission as a champion of humankind. Angel also encounters Cordelia Chase, who is trying to launch an acting career. The three group together to form Angel Investigations, a detective agency that hopes to "help the helpless." When Doyle dies in the episode "Hero", he passes on his 'visions' to Cordelia with a kiss. Shortly thereafter, the ex-Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, joins the group. Meanwhile, the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart pay increasing attention to Angel. They tempt him toward darkness when they resurrect Darla, Angel's ex-lover and sire — killed by Angel in the first season of Buffy in the episode "Angel".
Source: Info in the About Angel was taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_%28TV_series%29 on 25/02/2013.

Review:
I struggled with the first half of the first Season of the Angel show but because I haven't got any better to watch, I eventually got through the first Season. And by the end of Season 1 I was an Angel show fan. Despite the annoyances along the way, I continued to be an Angel show fan. Until almost to the end of Season 5, that was. Okey so good and evil is very flexible in this world which I think made the fantastical world of Angel more realistic in the sense that it mirrors very closely what is good and evil in us humans. This made the show easy to identify with by the audience which in turns draws more followers in which I was one of them. Some shows carry this ambiguous presentation of good and evil with aplomb and sometimes not. In the Angel show, the creators almost got away with it. But I think they tried too hard or something and the cracks were showing. That I didn't like. In fact it dialed down my Angel show fan-hood almost to nothing. In a way that was good and in a way it was not. It was good because there were no more Angel shows. It was bad because I would have rather keep my fantasy bubble. Anyway, The "cracks" first appeared when they tried too hard to make Cordellia one of the good guys and a bigger role. That didn't sold. It didn't tally that a selfish, superficial bitch could care that much for people she didn't know and could not give her money or anything else but pain and suffering which is what was suppose to be her motivator. There is a huge inconsistency in the character development there. Sure a person could change, but not that much. Not a 180 degrees turn around. No matter that Charisma Carpenter portrayed the character really well. Then the creators sort of contradicted themselves by taking out Lindsey McDonald as a bad guy in the end. As I recon it, Lindsey McDonald is more consistent to become good than Cordelia Chase ever did. And I was royally annoyed with that inconsistency! It burst my "fantasy bubble" which I would have preferred to keep. By the end of Season 5, I was not much of a fan anymore. I would say that the Angel show could have been made better if given the chance to continue into further seasons as a TV series rather than cut off abruptly but they way it is now, I would rate it a 3.5 out of 5.

Empirical Evaluation:
Cinematography = 3
Acting = 4
Character development = 3
Story itself = 3
World building = 4
Attention to detail = 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries

Sunday, 16 February 2014

Review: ANGEL (Season 1, Episodes 9 to Finale)

Angel
Season 1, Episode 9 to Season Finale
Starring David Boreanaz.
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: dvd box set

About Angel:
At the start of the series, Angel has just moved to Los Angeles. He is soon visited by Doyle, a messenger sent to him on behalf of The Powers That Be. Doyle receives visions that can guide Angel on his mission as a champion of humankind. Angel also encounters Cordelia Chase, who is trying to launch an acting career. The three group together to form Angel Investigations, a detective agency that hopes to "help the helpless." When Doyle dies in the episode "Hero", he passes on his 'visions' to Cordelia with a kiss. Shortly thereafter, the ex-Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, joins the group. Meanwhile, the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart pay increasing attention to Angel. They tempt him toward darkness when they resurrect Darla, Angel's ex-lover and sire — killed by Angel in the first season of Buffy in the episode "Angel".
Source: Info in the About Angel was taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_%28TV_series%29 on 25/02/2013.

Review:
I bought the 5 Seasons Angel dvd box set originally because I wanted more David Boreanaz goodness having been addicted to his Special Agent Seeley Booth character in the Bones TV show. At first I wasn't too keen on his Angel persona. But after Season 1, I was a convert. The Season still ended in a cliffhanger, of course, but I got 4 more Seasons to go! Yay for me!! So the disappointment is deterred for another day. It is still very obvious though that this show was filmed during the times before sophisticated 3D computer animation was widely used in television. Because I could distinctly see the difference. In what I could only term as "smoothness" in the blending of elements in the show, or transition from scene to scene or whatever, in television now-a-days. The absence of this "smoothness" is sometimes quite distinct in the Angel show at times. I think this "smoothness" is quite important specially in a fantasy show because it plays an important role in being extra convincing that the supernatural elements in the show is authentic and not plastic props. Helps the audience forget the props and therefore adds to the enjoyment in the watching experience. But then again we have to remember that this show was filmed more than ten years ago. We have to be fair and give them credit for a good job without the advanced technology that film-making enjoys now-a-days... I still have questions about the world building though but I am now willing to put those issues in the back burner for the pleasurable few hours that an Angel show offers!

Empirical Evaluation:
Cinematography = 4
Acting = 4
Character development = 3
Story itself = 4
World building = 4
Attention to details = 3.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

Sunday, 12 January 2014

Review: ANGEL (Season 1, Episodes 1-8)

Angel
Season 1, Episodes 1 to 8, Discs 1 & 2
Starring David Boreanaz.
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: dvd box set

About Angel:
At the start of the series, Angel has just moved to Los Angeles. He is soon visited by Doyle, a messenger sent to him on behalf of The Powers That Be. Doyle receives visions that can guide Angel on his mission as a champion of humankind. Angel also encounters Cordelia Chase, who is trying to launch an acting career. The three group together to form Angel Investigations, a detective agency that hopes to "help the helpless." When Doyle dies in the episode "Hero", he passes on his 'visions' to Cordelia with a kiss. Shortly thereafter, the ex-Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, joins the group. Meanwhile, the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart pay increasing attention to Angel. They tempt him toward darkness when they resurrect Darla, Angel's ex-lover and sire — killed by Angel in the first season of Buffy in the episode "Angel".
Source: Info in the About Angel was taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_%28TV_series%29 on 25/02/2013.

Angel Season 1 Trailer:


Review:
I admit that I only bought the Angel dvd box set Seasons 1 to 5 because I wanted more David Boreanaz goodness, having been addicted to his Special Agent Seeley Booth character! But Angel is not Agent Booth. Rather silly of me to want it to be so! Anyway, I originally planned to have a "5 seasons of Angel" marathon. It didn't quite go as planned. What happened instead was that it took me several months just to get through 2 discs of the first season. WTF! What was that all about?? Hey, I am suppose to be an urban fantasy geek! So why do I like David Boreanaz more as Agent Booth rather than Angel?? What happened??...

By the very nature of the world building in this show it has to incorporate fantastical elements with the more mundane world. And I think the special effects people and cinematographic team needs to be given credit for the great job they did. It looks seamless and believable in the screen. The world building though has a hole in it. Just like any other urban fantasy with hidden supernatural world living alongside the normal one. Simply because there would always be selfish, greedy and/or out-and-out stupid people (supernatural or otherwise) who thinks they can benefit by outing the secret. Some authors/scriptwriters are able to pull it off. I haven't watched Buffy, but I don't think that this issue has been clearly explained in the world of Angel. I am still hoping that they would address this sometime along the series.

I think David Boreanaz fits the character of Angel very well. However I don't really like the character of Cordelia Chase. Oh I think Charisma Carpenter portrayed her well. It's just that Cordelia's character of a down-on-her-luck superbitch do not fit the "superhero team" membership at all. Oh, the show tried, but I don't think it really gelled. It just doesn't ring true. Although I can see that Cordelia doesn't seem to be part of the rest of the Angel show anymore from ?Season 3? onward? Maybe the show makers did do something about it. I'll just have to watch the rest of the dvd box set...

Empirical Evaluation:
Cinematography = 4
Acting = 4
Character development = 3
Story itself = 4
World building = 3
Attention to details = 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries