[buffy@pylduck.com]

(Spoilers inevitable in posts. Be warned.)

[12:04:06 PM]

I'm disappointed by Angel. I really don't think I'll be watching the show devotedly this season.

I watched the season premiere last night at Patrick's. As usual, the episode was promising, but ultimately unimaginative. The thing is, Angel has so much potential to explore the complex symbolism of Angel as the Fallen Angel, ideas of redemption, and the whole concept of heroism. (In this episode, for example, there was an interesting allusion to the martyred St. Sebastian in the flashback scene. St. Sebastian, who has become a gay icon as well as an idea of selfless, sacrificing love.) But instead, the show resorts to replaying and restating trite observations about Angel's "goodness" and his "heroism" without really working through what those things mean.

In the terms of elementary creative writing instruction, the show also needs to show us things more than tell.

I noticed the heavy-handedness with which the show attempted to create a disjuncture between words and events, to bring out an ironic representation of things. But it was so predictable as to be no longer fruitfully ironic, only expectedly tongue-in-cheek. The show starts out with Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn talking about Angel's vacation: a boring retreat to the distant mountains and a temple of monks. Of course, the camera then cuts to a frantic action sequence with a besieged Angel battling a crowd of red-clad ninja-like "monks." They turned out to be demons. And on and on, each time someone would say something about a boring situation or quiet and calm, the next action would prove her/him to be absolutely wrong. (Another example: Towards the end of the episode, Cordelia wants to stay with Angel rather than go back to her apartment because she knows that being alone inevitably means she is vulnerable to being taken hostage by the bad guy; of course, as soon as Angel gives up trying to convince her to go away and opens the door, who should be standing there but the bad guy?)

The central idea of the show is one over which I constantly obsess: Romantic love and the idea of going on after the passing of the loved. Angel mourns Buffy's death. Then we bring in these two new characters from his past who supposedly exemplify obsessive Romantic love, poetic love. And they are silly. The man whispers sweet nothings in the woman's ear. He steals jewelry for her. Ooo.

In the present, Angel kills the woman. The man is so distraught over his loss that he sacrifices himself in order to avenge her death. Through some medical/magical procedure, he gains six hours (minutes?) of invincibility before he dies, becomes dust. And he uses these last few moments to attack Angel. He accuses Angel of being heartless. (In the past, Angelus was willing to sacrifice even Darla, his lover, to save his own skin.) And this new vampire man can't understand that kind of callous treatment of lovers. But what's really interesting is that Angelus and Darla (and more pointedly, Angelus and Drusilla) embodied a kind of Romantic love that went far beyond the "niceness" of love, the obsessive fawning over the loved. They tortured each other, didn't fawn over each other like they were precious, fragile things. Instead, they loved passionately and threw obstacles in each other's ways (each overcoming a proof of the strength of their bond, beyond niceness and even "life"). I think Angelus, in other words, was a far better example of obsessive love than this insipid guy who couldn't live on once his lover died. (For one of my classes, I'm about to dive into Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights which is one of the world's greatest stories of a kind of love far beyond niceness, living, etc.)

o0o

[2:04:11 PM]

Yay for [FX Network's] syndicated run of Buffy!

As always, the [Buffyguide.com] site has loads of information and news about the show. New Angel tonight at 9 pm on the WB. New Buffy next Tuesday, October 2, at 8 pm on UPN!!

o0o

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