Buffy or Angel

[padders]

So does everyone watch angel as well? what do you prefere?

[Martouf]

Heh, i prefer Angel heaps more to BUffy, i reckon that thge story line is way better. I never really got into Buffy, i don't know why....
BUt they have both finished in Australia for while now

[padders]

I have not watched much of either really. I think i have probably seen 15 episodes of buffy. They are releasing the whole of season 1 on dvd so .. well.. maybe.. i will get it but i am beginning to watch it when it is on.

Only watched 1 ep of angel so don't know about it.. and it dosen't have buffy in does it? hehe lol

[Ben Thompson]

I like Angel, but Buffy rocks most of all. She is sooo cool.

[pyan]

This must set a record for the longest gap between posts!...

Buffy for me - loved the whole series, silly episodes and all...

[Constantine Opal]

Buffy had the benefit of having Angel AND Spike in the same programme with her and her Scooby gang. Buffy all the way. Especially Once More With Feeling. Inspired!

[J-Sun]

That is quite a gap.

I started with Buffy at episode one (still have never seen the movie) and stuck through to the bitter end (I hated season 6 and season 7 was not much better) but I dropped Angel at "Double or Nothing", which was the 18th show of the 3rd season. It wasn't that that particular episode sucked - it was just that it was mediocre like most of the season and that was the moment I realized I just suddenly didn't care any more. And, based on what I heard of subsequent stuff, I'm very glad I quit watching. But the first couple of seasons were mostly okay.

On the other hand, Buffy s1-3 were great and s4-5 were still mostly excellent. So put me down for both, barely, but much much much preferred BtVS.

In fact, of Whedony TV, Angel is not even second place, since there's at least Firefly.

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by Constantine Opal

Buffy had the benefit of having Angel AND Spike in the same programme with her and her Scooby gang. Buffy all the way. Especially Once More With Feeling. Inspired!

That was such crushing disappointment. I agree that OMWF was incredible. And they followed it up with the comic genius of "Tabula Rasa" and I was actually thinking the season might be saved after all. Then they went right back to the usual.

But, yeah, that was an inspired ep.

[Highlander II]

I liked 'em both. And, depending on the week, I'd like the Angel ep or the BtVS ep better.

[devilsgrin]

definitely Buffy.
though Buffy was saddled with two of the MOST annoying characters imaginable(Dawn and Xander - oh god how i hated them both), Angel had the handicap of a FAT David Boreanaz for half the series, Connor, Kate and then they killed of Lilah! i loved Lilah (possibly its a Stephanie Romanov thing... but enh).
I absolutely hated the Initiative season (4), but apart from Dawn, season 5 was awesome. Glory is hands-down the best villain in the entire series (though Drusilla comes a tied second with The Master. Spike doesn't qualify as a villain imho) and Ben is one of the most tragic (in the good, i feel for them way) characters in the series...along with poor Umpata (inca mummy girl from season 2).
Season 6 did have some good moments, but they were few and far between... Spike and Buffy being a high-point, Xander ditching Anya at the altar a low (and the final nail in the coffin of my loathing for Alexander Lavelle Harris!). Remember peeps, season 6 was the season Sarah didn't want to be there for... hence the lacklustre season as a whole, though seeing veiny Willow go nuts was incredible. Poor Tara.
Season 7 was brilliant. Every episode was enjoyable... they knew there was only this one last season to complete so they pulled out all the stops. Loved it. The return of Faith - as a good guy (didn't like it when she went bad). nathan fillion popping up was great fan service. Andrew joining the extended scoobies... he's too funny. Spike with a soul. an army of slayers. the destruction of the Watcher's Council. oh it was fun in season 7. not to mention the annihillation of Sunnydale.

[Highlander II]

I don't think they knew that S7 was the last season... not until about halfway through filming. SMG announced that she was done in like Feb after that season started, if I recall correctly. (And didn't inform anyone on the cast - they found out via the Entertainment Weekly interview.)

There are characters far more lackluster than Dawn. And without Dawn, there wouldn't have been much of a S5.

I'm not a big Xander fan, but I prefer him to Anya - she was an annoying character (though, less so than Riley). Xander is the guy who sees things. He's there, on the outskirts, the one on the outside looking in. He's the one no one pays attention to because they don't see him as a threat. He has some annoying qualities, but he'd a hugely boring character if he didn't.

Leaving Anya at the altar, he did because he thought it was the right thing to do. Sure, it hurt, it was painful, but he thought he was doing it for the right reasons. Even if the 'future' he saw wasn't real, he was having big doubts about the entire thing and would rather not do it, than make Anya miserable by going through with it. From his POV, he was choosing the lesser of two evils.

Spike was a villain in S2 when he first showed up. He wasn't supposed to be a recurring character, but he was so hugely popular that he was worked into the show. Later, he wasn't so much a villain as a foil for the white hats. He's the ambiguous presence - he's not really good, but he's not really evil either - no matter how much he tries to jump on one side or the other.

I'll have to jump back into this later... got some other stuff to take a look at....

[devilsgrin]

have to say... Riley was boring, but i liked him for some reason... (majorly nice guy perhaps - hard to dislike).

Dawn should have died at the end of S5 instead of Buffy and that should have been the end of her. She was an irrelevant character from then on...

Xander is the "everyman" amongst the scoobies. TV shows only need characters like him so that either new viewers can connect with the show, or established viewers have a point of reference to compare the Super-characters with the normal ones. I find this type of character somewhat patronising especially in a show like Buffy where nothing is normal.
What I find about Xander that is a HUGE point against him - He's essentially a coward. Yes he fights the fight and overcomes some fear - but only when Buffy, Angel, Giles, Spike, Faith, Willow are around to protect him. He victimises those who cant fight back. Those weaker and smaller than him (Andrew for instance), or those who can't hurt him back (look at all the times he attacked "chipped" Spike... thats cowardly). He's a bully-victim who became a bully.

I loved the Anya/Cordelia character - essentially very similar roles, but very different characters. brutally blunt, but incredibly incisive. almost always excruciatingly honest the truth hurts far more than a lie.

[Highlander II]

Killing Dawn at the end of S5 would have invalidated her reason for being there to begin with. She would've been an even *more* obvious plot device.

Part of the reason her character wasn't developed better is b/c of the idiotic storylines of S6 and Marti Noxon's lack of understanding of 'ensemble cast' - IMO, anyhow.

Then again, I'm a fan of the 'underdog' characters - the ones who get shoved into the corner like a ficus plant, turned into part of the scenery, though they could be so much more useful.

S5 was supposed to be the end of the series, but UPN picked it up when the WB dumped it and the end of the season was slightly reworked so they could do something else. Willow was supposed to go dark in S5, but they moved it b/c the show wasn't ending. Aside from getting some cool eps out of S6 and S7, the show could've ended after S5 and it would've been just fine.

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by Highlander II

Then again, I'm a fan of the 'underdog' characters - the ones who get shoved into the corner like a ficus plant, turned into part of the scenery, though they could be so much more useful.

Me, too, if I understand you correctly. For instance, I loved Amy, both as the innocent and the less-than-innocent on into rathood. Willow momentarily and unknowingly de-ratting Amy was one of the funniest things I've ever seen anywhere. And then The Evil One (initials M.N.) oversaw the pointless gratuitous destruction of a wonderful character as part of one of the most infuriating, incompetent, ham-handed "metaphors" ever (gotta score some "magic", man!).

However, I'm not just an underdog fan - unlike surprisingly many fans, I liked Buffy herself, and was a huge fan of Cordelia/Anya (Cordelia being my favorite between them, but I agree with devilsgrin's comments about them - basically the same character, considered functionally, and extremely wise in their dippy ways and delightfully uncensored.

Originally Posted by Highlander II

S5 was supposed to be the end of the series, but UPN picked it up when the WB dumped it and the end of the season was slightly reworked so they could do something else. Willow was supposed to go dark in S5, but they moved it b/c the show wasn't ending. Aside from getting some cool eps out of S6 and S7, the show could've ended after S5 and it would've been just fine.

That's exactly where my DVD sets end. The only things I miss are OMWF and "Tabula Rasa".

Randy Giles: "Hey! I'm a superhero, too!"

[Highlander II]

One of the things that's interesting about this show is that the first time through, I might dislike a character, but on subsequent viewings or w/ specific episodes, things change a lot.

Examples:

* Anya. Until her little outburst in "The Body", she irritated me to no end. Then she starts talking about Joyce not having fruit punch or brushing her hair, and there's a different light cast on her there. That scene made me like Anya more. Still not my fave character, but I didn't loathe her like I had before and she felt like part of the group there.

* Xander. I wasn't a big Xander fan (he's still not near the top of my list) until I saw "Potential" and he gave Dawn that 'extrordinary' speech - *that* made Xander for me.

* Buffy. I'm always ambivalent about her b/c she's inconsistent in a lot of ways. One scene that made me want to smack her was in S1 when she tells Xander that she won't go to the dance with him. She totally shoots him down and doesn't seem all that sorry about having hurt his feelings.

The character dynamics are interesting to me. I tend to explore the relationships between characters (not necessarily romantic ones) more than anything else. Spike's interactions w/ Buffy's mom are some of my favorite moments - I love when he brings the flowers and Xander tells him he can't leave them, then even Xander feels like a dolt when Willow tells him there was no card. Spike had planned to just leave the flowers and be gone, no one would've known where they came from, except that Xander and Willow were outside at the time. Little things like that are my fave scenes.