Reduction Through Expansion: Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 Underwhelms!

The Good: Moments of character, Good special effects, Continuity, Moments of acting
The Bad: Disturbingly reductive over the course of the season, Very few impressive lines, performances, or character moments
The Basics: In its first season, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. loses its originality and goes instead toward an interpretation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that reduces the entire concept to a troublingly simple concept.


Coming into last year’s television season, there was no show I was looking forward to as much as Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. As a fan of the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (reviewed here!), the idea of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was an instantly intriguing one to me. Given that Agent Phil Coulson – one of the most consistent representations of the superspy organization S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films – was killed in The Avengers (reviewed here!), when Clark Gregg was cast as Coulson for Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., it only raised my level of intrigue for the television show. And the mystery of how Coulson was resurrected is one of the first big mysteries explored and solved in the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Fortunately, the answer is neither the obvious one for fans of Marvel comic books, nor does it exist within the first season without consequences: just as the viewer learns how Coulson was returned from the dead, the show’s long-running adversary is revealed and needs to make use of the same technology!

Unfortunately, even as Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. works to fit itself into the second phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it undermines the whole franchise in a truly disappointing way. While the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has strong tie-ins to Iron Man 3 (reviewed here!), Thor: The Dark World (reviewed here!) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!), in reacting to the climactic events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. reduces the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a surprisingly dull dialectic. While the first half of the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is very much a “villain of the week” show that feels largely episodic, when the series comes together in the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it turns out that all the villains are tied together under the banner of the villainous organization exposed in that film. The viewers of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. are left with one hero, one villain (in essence) and that does not bode well for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. begins by working very hard to fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe by setting the small team of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents against superhumans, corrupt industrialists and aliens from the godlike realms explored in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But as the season progresses, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. turns into a very typical spy drama show, much like Alias (reviewed here!). Unfortunately for Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., when the show makes a turn toward the spy drama, it sacrifices most of the supernatural/comic book-based charm that it began with. The result is a troublingly mundane version of the conspiracy thriller television show and, for a series touted as Joss Whedon’s latest return to television, a letdown at that.

The first season opens in the wake of the Chitari attack on New York City where a man has begun to exhibit superhuman abilities. That man, Mike Peterson, draws the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D., a secret United States-based spy organization designed to protect humanity from superhuman, otherworldly, and over-the-top technological threats. The team is led by Agent Phil Coulson, who is hunting Peterson at the same time as he and his team encounter Skye, a woman who is part of the terrorist organization Rising Tide. When Coulson – along with his straightlaced assistant Grant Ward, his old friend and confidant Melinda May (who flies the S.H.I.E.L.D. super-plane known as The Bus), and his technical team made up of Leo Fitz and Simmons – captures Skye, he enlists Skye to join his team. But the S.H.I.E.L.D. team continues to encounter agents who have been compromised, mysterious particles and mad scientists, Coulson and his team start to open themselves to Skye. As Skye starts to use S.H.I.E.L.D. resources to discover her own origins, Coulson starts to dig deeper into how he was resurrected and both secrets seem to be linked to the reclusive and mysterious head of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury.

Following an attack by an Asgardian prisoner, the Agents, who have begun hunting a mysterious villain called the Clairvoyant (who always seems to be a step ahead of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and is assembling an organization surprisingly similar to S.H.I.E.L.D., stocked with less-reputable individuals), the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. find themselves under constant attack. As the Agents close in on the Clairvoyant, they find themselves beset by Mike Peterson, who has been altered into a killer cyborg now known as Deathlok, and threats from within S.H.I.E.L.D. that threaten to tear apart the entire spy organization.

As a spy show, reversals are necessary and expected in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Even so, many of the reversals in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. are unfortunately predictable and some make very little sense. As Skye and Ward move toward having a relationship, the Agents encounter a powerful artifact from Asgaard and, in the process, a relationship between Ward and May is formed instead. That reversal becomes one of the most problematic of the series, as May supposedly bonds with Ward over his dark side . . . without seeing just how dark his undertones actually are. But that type of relationship reversal is pretty common in Joss Whedon works. Sadly, that is one of the few ways that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is like other Joss Whedon productions.

Many of the other reversals are far less audacious or interesting. There are quick reversals, like characters leaping out of airplanes or shootouts, but the big reversals tend to come with a sense of predictability or a ho-hum quality to them. By the time Coulson discovers the nature of his resurrection, the truth is somewhat unimpressive compared to the theories that preceded the revelation. When a mole within the core characters is exposed, the reaction is much more of a “finally, THAT character is interesting” as opposed to an “oh my god, oh my god, how could they?!” As well, many of the episodes feature final moments that either directly influence the beginning of the next episode or they have a scene that reveals that the apparently sealed fate of the Villain Of The Week is less permanent than viewers might have thought. Unfortunately, fans of comic books, science fiction or spy thrillers are likely to see those reversals coming about a mile away. Similarly, when it appears that the Clairvoyant has been tracked down, that the first major “Clairvoyant” is just a red herring is utterly unsurprising.

The show oscillates between mundane and bordering on being what one might hope as a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unfortunately, the first season lacks a spark of consistently fast-paced and witty dialogue consistent with other Joss Whedon productions. Most of the characters are also less interesting than Whedonverse characters, so viewers might find themselves wondering why Joss Whedon actually decided to executive produce Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. under his Mutant Enemy banner.

Beyond that, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is unfortunately reductive of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the Marvel Comic Book Universe, there are many villains (some of which cannot be used in the Marvel Cinematic Universe due to conflicting license agreements with competing studios): H.Y.D.R.A., A.I.M., Dr. Doom, The Hand, Oscorp, etc. If the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. does anything well, it is reduce the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a much more simple dialectic. A.I.M., it appears, was virtually crushed in Iron Man 3 and all of the villains presented in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. are now, it appears, subcontracting for the Clairvoyant who is working for one of the other organizations (I’m not going to spoil it in a review of the entire season as it is a long arc within the season!). Ultimately, this leaves the viewer with the sense that there truly is only one real villainous organization left on Earth after the attacks from the Chitari, Dark Elves, and A.I.M. each failed!

To better understand the show, it helps to know who the characters are. In the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., the essential characters are:

Agent Phil Coulson – Resurrected after The Avengers, he believes that he was just seriously wounded and had an amazing vacation in Tahiti. But soon, irregularities begin to make him question whether or not that is the truth. As Coulson tries to find answers into his own past, he learns that Skye, a young cyberterrorist he has taken into the team, has a mysterious past of her own. He relies upon May to connect with his team and give him a root to his past. He leads the team fairly and has a couple of fun zingers throughout the season,

Agent Melinda May – A martial arts expert and Coulson’s oldest friend, she was resistant to joining Coulson in the field again. As an expert pilot, she drives The Bus on most of the missions and she provides essential backup. During a mission that puts her in touch with an Asgardian spear, she taps into her dark side and, as a result, finds herself enamored with Ward and willing to develop a romantic relationship with him,

Agent Grant Ward – A by-the-book operative who takes Skye under his wing when she joins the team. He gets involved with May after they encounter the Asgardian spear that leaves him in touch with his dark past as a bully. He is duped by the seductive Lorelei, which destroys his relationship with May, though he finds some peace in returning to the side of his original mentor at S.H.I.E.L.D. when John Garrett teams up with Coulson’s team for a mission,

Fitz – A brilliant young scientist, he makes most of the gadgets for the S.H.I.E.L.D. team. He idolizes Ward and tries to impress him whenever they are in the field together. He has a passion for Simmons,

Jemma Simmons – The other technical expert in Coulson’s team, she is a little younger than Fitz and she is willing to sacrifice herself in order to keep the team safe on multiple occasions. She is a medical expert and becomes fascinated with the technology used to resurrect Coulson, so much so that she risks her career to acquire the serum when Skye is mortally wounded. She develops an attraction for Agent Tripp, Garrett’s right-hand man and is oblivious to Fitz’s attraction to her,

Skye – An orphaned woman who has become a cyberterrorist for the mysterious organization Rising Tide, she intrigues Coulson and he reaches out to make her a part of his team when the two cross paths over Mike Peterson and the Centipede Project. Despite betraying the S.H.I.E.L.D. team in early encounters, Ward takes her under his wing and soon she is being trained to be a full-fledged S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Throughout the season, she hunts for clues to the identity of her parents and the S.H.I.E.L.D. link to the orphanage she was placed at as a child, but her search is put on hold when S.H.I.E.L.D. is attacked from within,

Mike Peterson – He is a father who displays extraordinary abilities after the attack on New York City. Unfortunately, after being altered by Project Centipede to be a supersoldier with Extremis, he becomes a target of the Clairvoyant, who uses Raina to alter him further. Manipulated by Raina, he is transformed into a cyborg controlled by the Clairvoyant to be used as a tool . . . called Deathlok,

Raina – The Woman In The Flower Dress, she is a true believer working for the Clairvoyant. She is an unethical scientist who wants to help develop supersoldiers and other advanced technologies without the restraints of government or corporate interests,

Quinn – A wealthy adversary who funds Raina’s research and helps to advance the Clairvoyant’s agenda, he becomes the target of Coulson’s team’s efforts to track the Clairvoyant, though he proves himself to be remarkably resilient and resourceful,

And The Clairvoyant – After a few encounters with Quinn, Raina, and their experiments, Coulson’s team discovers they are working for someone else . . . the mysterious Clairvoyant. The Clairvoyant seems to know where and when Coulson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. team will be, but he becomes obsessed with Coulson and how Coulson was resurrected . . . in order to use that technology for himself!

Throughout the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., the performances are generally consistent and most of the performers are given at least one moment to truly explore some emotional depth or range for their character, the two who are given the most work to give layered performances are Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen. Gregg plays Coulson and his performance evolves throughout the first season from being stiff, almost robotic, to loose and charismatic. Through his body language, he embodies a man who is loosening up from the stiffness of death and that actually works well. Gregg does more than provide fish-out-of-water type comedy like he did in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. Instead, he becomes a conflicted and tormented character as he digs into the truth surrounding his vacation in Tahiti.

Ming-Na Wen plays Melinda May and she comes across initially as a monolithic badass whose sole purpose is to drive the Bus. But May heads out into the field and she soon becomes a sounding board for Coulson. Ming-Na Wen is amazing at embodying compassion with her eyes and by loosening the tight façade her character usually keeps raised. Throughout the season, Ming-Na Wen is given some of the best opportunities to present real emotional range, in addition to getting through an inordinate amount of technobabble while still keeping her character interesting and realistic.

Unfortunately, much of the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. wastes time and attention on Skye. That puts an acting burden on Chloe Bennet. Bennet has classically Hollywood good looks and, unfortunately, acting abilities that seem to hinge more on her ability to open her eyes wide and look interested when other people are talking. Skye is not a particularly interesting character and Bennet does not bring anything distinctive to the role, so the added attention to her character acts as a drag on the first season.

The first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is erratic and lacks charm. Charm is something Joss Whedon-produced shows usually have going for them at the very least, so the absence of consistently witty dialogue and characters with genuine quirks (outside the dialogue between Fitz and Simmons in every other episode) makes the show a tougher sell to those who are not already invested in or interested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

For a better understanding of the components of the first season, please visit my reviews of each of the episodes in the first season episodes of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. at:
“Pilot”
“0-8-4”
“The Asset”
"Eye Spy"
“Girl In The Flower Dress”
“FZZT”
“The Hub”
“The Well”
“Repairs”
“The Bridge”
“The Magical Place”
“Seeds”
“T.R.A.C.K.S.”
“T.A.H.I.T.I.”
“Yes Men”
“End Of The Beginning”
"Turn, Turn, Turn"
“Providence”
“The Only Light In The Darkness”
“Nothing Personal”
“Ragtag”
“The Beginning Of The End”

4.5/10

For other television and movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Amy Acker Is Not “The Only Light In The Darkness” For Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. At The Turning Point!

The Good: Good banter, Decent acting, Pretty tight plot
The Bad: Lighter on character, No thematic resonance.
The Basics: “The Only Light In The Darkness” advances the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. plotline by bringing back Coulson’s girlfriend while putting Skye in the sensible danger she needs to be on her own with Ward!


It takes a pretty cool show to take a throwaway line in a movie to make an entire episode for the season from it. Back when Iron Man 2 (reviewed here!) appeared on the big screen, Agent Coulson was very much a background character. So, when Pepper Potts mentions that Coulson has a girlfriend and he mentions that she is a cellist, it was pretty much a throwaway at the time. With S.H.I.E.L.D. in shambles, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to bring that cellist to the forefront. Picking up where “Providence” (reviewed here!) left off with a previously unknown supervillain being released from The Fridge and Agent Coulson determined to find him, “The Only Light In The Darkness” continues the Marvel Cinematic Universe storyline with mixed results.

“The Only Light In The Darkness” is yet another episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. that feels like a bridge episode that might be working toward something, but viewers have to take on faith will pay off. Given how Joss Whedon productions have a pretty long history of turning things around, the faith viewers have in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. might well be justified, but “The Only Light In The Darkness” is not a tremendous episode on its own. That said, it’s not bad and, in fact, at its worst “The Only Light In The Darkness” is struggling because it is treading where Alias went about a decade ago. In fact, if I had more time, I’d hunt down the episode of Alias that had a similar plot wherein one of the main characters barely evades the new double agent they’ve discovered. I bet I’d find at least three.

With Marcus Daniels out in the world, killing again (despite not having been seen in the series before now), Agent Coulson’s team is finally reunited and safe at Eric Koenig’s safehouse. With Ward patched up – and telling the team how he killed Garrett - Coulson is eager to go out and recover Daniels. Koenig, however, is not an idiot and he is determined to make sure that Coulson’s team is safe to be in Providence. Ward manages to pass Koenig’s foolproof lie detector test by skewing his answers and inflicting pain upon himself. Coulson becomes obsessed with recovering Daniels and he knows how to find her: apparently Daniels was obsessed with Audrey Nathans . . . who is the cellist that Coulson dated years prior.

At Providence, Skye figures out how to find Daniels using NSA satellites. Koenig is suspicious of Ward and tasks Skye with hacking the satellites. Simmons and Triplett debrief Audrey as she tells them about her prior contact with Daniels. May tells Ward she is leaving, with the Bus fixed and Coulson ostracizing her. With Ward making a move on Koenig to protect himself, Audrey practices at a public venue as a trap for Coulson and the rest of the team to capture Daniels. While Coulson’s team works to take out Blackout without Audrey seeing Coulson alive, Skye uncovers the truth about Ward (literally seconds after I told my wife “They can’t kill off Koenig; he’s an old friend of Nick Fury who’s in the comic books for years!”) and works to stay alive.

“The Only Light In The Darkness” does some things very right. On the character front, Simmons continues to develop her relationship with Triplett and Fitz is jealous of their budding relationship. The realism of that plays out well. Coulson is appropriately tormented by Audrey’s return to a point adjacent to his life. He is unwilling to have contact with her given how she is healing from his, apparent, death in New York City. She obviously did not know about his resurrection.

The continued character development of Koenig actually makes the episode watchable. Koenig is suspicious of Ward and he does not lose that suspicion. He clearly has an agenda and director Vincent Misiano smartly captures Patton Oswalt’s subtle eye motions that emote Koenig’s continued suspicion of the operative that plays out well.

Interestingly enough, “The Only Light In The Darkness” is the episode where I finally actually liked Skye. All along, Skye has been annoying and viewers have had to take it on faith that the character has something going for her that Coulson alone has seen up until this point. Actress Chloe Bennet has not brought a lot to the role, but in “The Only Light In The Darkness,” the character is finally smart enough to justify her presence on the show and on the S.H.I.E.L.D. team. Near the end of the episode, a penny has an important and prominent role; I know what Ward was doing with it the moment it first appeared. For the first time on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., it turns out Skye was up to speed with me. In fact, with May fleeing to an unlikely source, May is set up to be the next major character betrayed, but in “The Only Light In The Darkness” Skye is betrayed but is smart and professional enough to adapt to her dangerous circumstances. And Bennet lands it!

“The Only Light In The Darkness” is entertaining and it is clearly setting up the first season finale of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a big event (right now, we’re moving toward an episode where Skye is clearly about to be tortured for the location where the hard drive can be decrypted and an inevitable rescue attempt from the rest of the Agents), but on its own, it is not stellar television. It’s good entertainment, but it is hard to imagine having forty-five minutes to spare and picking out “The Only Light In The Darkness” as an episode to watch to fill that time.

For other works with Amy Acker, please visit my reviews of:
The Cabin In The Woods
Alias - Season 5
Angel

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season here!
Thanks!]

6.5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Holodecks And Horrors, Joss Whedon And Drew Goddard Make A Mess With Cabin In The Woods!

The Good: Moments of dialogue, Very general concept
The Bad: Most of the performances, Utterly ridiculous plot, No character development/interesting characters, Direction.
The Basics: Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard co-write a film that is easy to understand, but makes no real sense with Cabin In The Woods.


It is a pretty rare thing for me as a reviewer to continue writing about any movie or product I encounter and find myself talking myself into steadily lowering the rating I have planned to give it. And yet, with The Cabin In The Woods, I find myself having difficulty writing my full level of distaste for the film without providing massive spoilers. And yet, at the end of the day, it is utterly impossible for me to write anything without first acknowledging that: 1. I am, as a general rule, a big fan of the works of Joss Whedon, and 2. The Cabin In The Woods is a terrible movie built upon an exceptionally flawed premise. And one of the few redeeming elements of the advertising campaign for the film was that it ruined enough of the movie so that I was not scared for . . . well, any of it.

The Cabin In The Woods is a horror film that harkens back to a number of concepts Joss Whedon already mined (to death) in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. My wife suggested to me that I might be too harsh on the initial concept of The Cabin In The Woods (though she liked it even less than I did), despite my general belief that the vast majority of people going to see The Cabin In The Woods will know what a Holodeck is. A Holodeck is a device in Star Trek: The Next Generation (and that era of the Star Trek franchise) that creates a virtual reality experience that includes holograms, force fields and inanimate objects that are materialized from raw matter. Early in The Cabin In The Woods, it becomes apparent that the film is Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s Holodeck horror film . . . or, at the very least, the film employs a barrier that has Holodeck-like qualities.

That said, The Cabin In The Woods is a deadly take on the idea and the film mortgages any sense of personal safety early on. This is not a clean, controlled program . . . and therein lies one of the major problems with the film. Without revealing any spoilers, in the final third of The Cabin In The Woods, the whole purpose to the exercise that involves killing young people is revealed. Sufficed to say, the stakes are ridiculously high. Given that, the movie makes no real sense. The whole, complicated construct around which The Cabin In The Woods revolves leaves far too much to chance with the stakes being as high as they are.

And, at the end of the day, the movie oscillates between the silly, the pointless and elements that Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard have already done before. And both have presented the concepts and elements that they use in The Cabin In The Woods with characters we actually care about in their other works. The Cabin In The Woods has no emotional tether for viewers. In fact, probably the biggest jag either my wife or I got out of the film was seeing actors we liked or recognized from other works pop up. That, sadly, is not at all enough to make The Cabin In The Woods worth spending money upon.

Jules, Curt, Marty, Holden and Dana are headed to the woods for a weekend away from everyone and everything. Having inherited a place in a remote location, Curt is eager to check it out and they head up, ignorant of an entire facility existing below the property and agents monitoring them from before they even leave for their trip. At the last possible place, the young people stop for gas where a creepy man, Mordecai, freaks them out. The quintet arrives at Curt’s cabin and almost immediately discovers odd things about it, including a one-way mirror.

With Jules acting hyper sexual, the result of chemicals administered to her through her hair dye by the workers in the facility below the cabin, the friends start a game of “Truth or Dare.” This leads the quintet to the creepy basement of the cabin where they find several mysterious objects, one of which is a journal. Dana reads the journal, including a passage in Latin aloud, which causes the people in the facility below to set a group of zombie rednecks upon the group. From there, the kids get slaughtered one by one and when they are killed, their blood is provided to the subterranean facility for use in a very old machine. . .

The Cabin In The Woods immediately provides viewers with information that the five young characters lack. Because the movie starts with Hadley and Sitterson in the secure facility, some of the traditional horror shock is absent from the film. I like that, in a way, because the movie becomes far less about freaking the viewer out and more about trying to engage the viewer into reasoning out what the purpose of the facility and the scenario is. And the moment Jules is slain by a turn-of-the-century zombie, the viewer knows that The Cabin In The Woods is not some safe, fun flick that is going to have a happy ending that mortgages the rest of the film, a la The Game (reviewed here!).

Director Drew Goddard presents The Cabin In The Woods with a significant amount of physical darkness, while co-writer Joss Whedon’s light and often ironic lines easily stand out to disarm the viewer. But, even Goddard’s direction feels like something that would have made most of The Cabin In The Woods safe for a Buffy The Vampire Slayer arc. In fact, with most of the carnage for the bulk of the movie occurring in very dark scenes or off-screen, the real bloodbath that ensues is of such a scale that it is impossible to focus on any one thing. This actually lessens the impact of The Cabin In The Woods in its climax because by that point in the film, most of the characters the viewer might have cared about are already dead and/or they are dispatched ridiculously fast as part of a wholesale slaughter that gives Joss Whedon a chance to do something so nihilistic and game-changing that he could simply have never done it on a television show (much the way the second season of Millennium ended with such a profound and powerful ending that the show had to entirely retool and negate it to progress to its third season).

The reason this review of The Cabin In The Woods has been so plot-heavy is that is how the film is. None of the characters, above or below, is particularly interesting or even distinctive. The closest any of them come to being engaging is the stoner Marty who seems much more aware of how weird things are. He serves as a strange voice of reason for the group, which is (oddly) both addressed and contradicted within the movie. Marty believes that he is so aware because the THC in the weed he is constantly smoking is making him immune to the various chemicals and pheromones those below are administering to the youths, while scientists below confirm that they have treated his weed.

On the acting front, The Cabin In The Woods is a great example of a film with pretty amazing casting that goes absolutely nowhere with it. What was supposed to be the start of a big summer for Chris Hemsworth,The Cabin In The Woods barely utilizes him and when he is on screen, he has very few lines and takes very few actions. In fact, in The Cabin In The Woods, Hemsworth was used like Channing Tatum might have been and the result is both Hemsworth and his character of Curt are essentially nonentities in the film.

In a similar fashion, Bradley Whitford is woefully misused in The Cabin In The Woods. Whitford’s character in The Cabin In The Woods is Hadley and he is essentially Josh Lyman in an underground compound. This performance shows us nothing new, different or distinctive from the otherwise great actor. Similar things could be said for Amy Acker’s brief appearance, Tom Lenk’s pointless role, or most of Richard Jenkins’s presence in the film. These are usually wonderful actors and Drew Goddard gets nothing from them for The Cabin In The Woods.

The Cabin In The Woods is a hard horror . . . eventually. The gore is mostly computer-generated in the last quarter of the film and by that point, viewers are unlikely to still care. As important, when the special effects kick in, there are so very many of them that the scenes are much more chaotic than either scary or even interesting. That makes The Cabin In The Woods pretty much a failure on all fronts and very easy to recommend against watching at all.

For other films with Chris Hemsworth, please check out my reviews of:
Snow White And The Huntsman
The Avengers
Thor
Star Trek

2/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed.

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

What Does A Dark Ancient Goddess Need With Swords? Illyria: The Action Figure!

The Good: Excellent sculpt, Generally decent posability, Good concept
The Bad: Hands do not hold accessories, Standing balance is off
The Basics: Illyria is a very cool character from Angel rendered well, if unbalanced, as an action figure for fans and collectors alike!


I write this review on the presumption that those reading it are fans of the television series Angel and know who Illyria is. If not, you might want to stop reading the review only for this reason; if you want to watch Angel and be surprised by one of the last twists in the series, this review is going to ruin it. Sorry. Can't be helped.

So, in all of my viewings and rewatchings of the fifth season of Angel, I've never had the heart to rewatch the episode "Shells." "Shells" is the second part of what seemed like it would be a two-parter in which Wesley, Gunn and Angel work feverishly to save Fred's life when she is struck down by a power they do not understand. And the thing is, when I first watched the episode, I figured it would be a last minute save and Fred would be all right. Well, as fans know, she wasn't; Fred is lost and replaced with the ancient Goddess Illyria. And the thing is "Shells" ends with a flashback of Fred leaving home and I know that the next time I see the episode, knowing that Fred is lost for good, that that'll probably be a tear-jerker.

When Diamond Select Toys came out with an action figure of Illyria, I was psyched.

Basics

Illyria is easily one of the most interesting and original action figures in the Angel action figure line from Diamond Select toys. Based on the character that was only in the latter half of the fifth season of Angel, Illyria is a figure of Fred transformed into the dark Goddess who possesses and alters her body.

Standing six and one-half inches tall, Illyria is a skinny, pleather-clad warrior woman with shoulder-length blue and black hair. With blue lips and a forehead discolored by the blue possession marks of Illyria, this is one cool looking action figure. Yes, Illyria looked pretty badass on television and in plastic, she's well-represented. Her maroon pleather outfit looks like it did on the show and the detailing on the arms, hands, and upper body is pretty impressive.

The sculpt is pretty incredible; the figure looks like Amy Acker as Illyria. The figure is so detailed that the nostrils are actually cavities and the fingers have defined fingernails under the gloves. It is actually astonishing how detailed the figure is and how much attention went into making it a very true representation of the character as she appeared on film.

Accessories

Illyria comes with a 2 1/2 inch battle ax and 4 1/4 inch long thin sword. As well, she comes with a snap-together base which represents a wall of an armory at Wolfram & Hart. The base is a 3 1/2 inch square plastic base that connects to a 6 3/4 inch tall wall segment that has another ax and sword attached to it. The sword and ax on the wall do not detach.

The base is a flat base, which makes some sense because there are not peg holes in Illyria's feet for her to attach to a base with.

Unfortunately as well, the right hand can hold both the ax and the sword, but the left is left open such that the ax cannot possibly be gripped by it. Moreover, in order for the hand to take the sword, it may only balance it in there, it cannot actually grip it. The result is that for either accessory, the left hand is difficult to use to give Illyria a two-weaponed pose. It makes one wonder why she was given two accessories if she could not possibly hang onto them both.

Poseability

Because Illyria does not have foot holes and corresponding pegs, posing Illyria is based entirely on balance. Despite having ten points of articulation, Illyria does not have incredibly posability and must be stood flatfooted if one wants to display her standing. Despite having knees that bend as well as groin socket and waist with articulation, it's virtually impossible to get Illyria to stay standing unless both of her feet are square on the base.

Moreover, while her elbows and biceps have articulation, the grip problem makes it difficult to pose the upper body with both accessories. Whatever is in the right hand can be easily controlled and made to look good, but with the sword in the left hand, Illyria is either left resting the sword on her head or shoulder or the sword balances precariously in her hand until a light breeze (or a nearby cat) knocks it over.

What is surprisingly posable is the head. Illyria has a ball-socket head, so the head swivels realistically up, down and to the sides. The hair is made of a more flexible, rubbery plastic and as a result, there is some tension in keeping the head up and it works wonderfully to have Illyria looking in other directions.

But it's virtually impossible to have a real action pose - especially with the accessories - for Illyria to use her as a display piece.

Playability

All of the articulation makes Illyria a decent toy for play, but one suspects those who would recognize Illyria enough to enjoy the figure would not be the type to actually play with it. The accessories are big enough to not be a swallowing hazard around young children or animals, but the sword could poke out an eye.

Collectibility

Diamond Select Toys made a good figure with Illyria and while she is not the most rare in the Fred line, she is also not the most common. As a result, Illyria is probably a good investment figure, if one holds onto her in mint condition long enough. As more and more people see through the end of Angel and appreciate the significance of Illyria, this figure will likely appreciate.

The figure was not, however, a limited edition figure, nor does it have any sort of individual number that would make it more collectible. In general, though, the most valuable collectibles are the ones that capture well the essence of the subject and Illyria looks great as an action figure!


Overview

Despite the posability problems, it's hard enough finding good figures of female characters in virtually any toy franchise. Illyria is part of my "Strong women of science fiction" toy line-up and she makes for an excellent addition. She looks good and any fan of Angel and the Buffyverse is likely to want to make this an addition to their collection!

Illyria appears solely in the fifth season of Angel, reviewed here!

For other Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel toys, please visit my reviews of:
"You're Welcome" Cordelia
Puppet Spike doll
Pylean Princess Cordelia Chase

6.5/10

For other toy reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Coda To The Vampire's Saga: Angel Season Five Serves Up Mixed Results!

The Good: Decent character development, Nice new conflicts, Acting, Illyria plot
The Bad: Loss of cordelia, Moments of jumped shark, Infuriating ending
The Basics: While Angel adapts to the humdrum life of running the evil lawfirm Wolfram & Hart, he finds himself plagued by old adversaries and a conscience in Angel Season 5.


It seems to me that sometimes people know when the end is near in television and they bail ship at just the right point. Thus, it is hard for me to castigate Charisma Carpenter for not returning to the show Angel for its fifth (and final) season. At the same time, possibly only because it is retrospect, the question must be asked, "Why did Angel return for a fifth season?" Before rabid fans start to take huge meaty chunks out of my flesh, know that I am a fan, I signed every petition begging the WB to extend the life of the show. I wanted to see where the show could still go. As far as inherent potential, Angel had more potential for longer staying power than the concept of Buffy The Vampire Slayer ever did.

The fifth season of Angel could have been a new beginning. Instead, it exists now solely as a coda to seven years of investment by fans of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe. In many ways, the fifth season of Angel is plagued by the same difficulty as the sixth season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, namely where to go after the adversary has been a God. It's quite a difficult story to recover from. Here is what the fifth season of Angel looks like.

Following the defeat of Jasmine at the climax of the fourth season, Angel and his group find themselves walking an ethical tightrope as the new heads of the villainous lawfirm Wolfram & Hart. Angel sheds his sword to manage the firm, Gunn discards his past to become an agile lawyer with a fierce legal mind, Wesley takes a mid-management job, Fred becomes the head of the Research department and Lorne finds himself working as a security screener. Joining the group is Harmony, the vampire who used to be Cordelia's best friend, and Spike, who was last seen in the Buffyverse getting burnt to a crisp by an amulet in the series finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Finding himself plagued by Spike and forced to rely on a mysterious woman named Eve as a relay to the Senior Partners, Angel discovers life is far more complicated than it ever has been before. Not burdened with his supernatural son and somewhat emotionally lost given Cordelia's coma, Angel tries to figure out how to fight the good fight while leading the forces of evil. At the same time, Spike, still burdened with a soul, becomes seduced by the possibility that the prophecies that everyone has assumed are about Angel could now pertain to him.

First of all, the whole arc that Spike goes on where he challenges the legitimacy of the assumption that the "vampire with the soul" who gets redeemed, is brilliant. Nothing short of an amazingly good idea. Conceptually, this is what makes the first half of the season interesting and fun to rewatch. Now that Angel is no longer the only vampire with a soul, it challenges the viewer to rethink many of the assumptions we have.

Moreover, the addition of Spike is a great way to remix the characters and situations of Angel. He has long been an annoyance to Angel and when events revolve around Buffy, the show becomes tiresome. However, when the conflicts between Angel and Spike are dealt with without the Buffy context, they are two much more interesting characters. It is a shame that there was not a season to deal with the sense of resignation both characters gain in the late season five episode "The Girl In Question."

In effect, though, this final season of Angel stands as a denouement, with many loose ends being tied up as the season goes on. On the character front, however, the show opens up some intriguing new directions for Spike and, surprisingly, Fred. The season ends with a pretty impressive series finale that looks great on DVD. But as character is of fundamental import on Angel, here is where the characters stand for season five:

Cordelia - lies in a coma. She's gone. She appears in a single episode of the fifth season and that is one of the best, saddest, most wonderful and bittersweet episodes of the series,

Harmony - tries hard to be good, but between being soulless and a secretary to Angel at Wolfram & Hart, she rarely succeeds. Hers is the story of an evil minion forever trapped in being a teenager,

Eve - The liaison between Angel and his team and the Senior Partners that have spent the prior four years making Angel's life hell is never quite what she seems. While the gang is instantly suspicious of her as an outsider, they have good reason to be and it does not take long before her true nature becomes apparent,

Lorne - Working at Wolfram & Hart leaves Lorne unsettled and feeling like a moral compass that is not checked nearly as frequently as it should be. Lorne continues to be the invariable force of good in the world otherwise filled with grays,

Gunn - Trades in his streetsmarts for an encyclopedic knowledge of the law. This, of course, has consequences and when one of the other characters is stricken down, he learns that he may be at fault and checks himself into hell to save the group,

Wesley - Will do his usual thing and along the way finally get what he's wanted for years, only to have everything he loves destroyed. Wesley grapples his demons and in the process learns the truth about the bargain Angel made to get them their status at Wolfram & Hart. In short, Good Wesley doesn't last,

Fred - In a strange turn, the introverted head of the research department will undergo an incredible transformation that will be a harbinger to the coming of all evil. Fred's story, usually at the back of the class, will take the forefront as her character becomes a tragic hero,

Spike - Restored from the dead by the same forces that killed him, the blonde vampire challenges Angel's authority by simply being the goon he's always been. Now with a soul, Spike adds both legitimate menace and wonderful comic relief to the show,

Angel - As in previous seasons, nowhere near as interesting as those who surround him, Angel adapts to life as a manager of people fighting a morally ambiguous fight using tools that are inherently evil. This leads him to learn about the deepest evil and make his attempt to fight for good in the grandest way possible.

The fifth season of Angel continues the tradition of the show to push the envelope and combine horrible incidents with quirky, offbeat humor. Wesley's character arc, for example, is a study of vicious irony in the way it develops. Episodes like "Smile Time," where Angel is turned into a puppet strike one as the moment the show jumps the shark, but somehow it works on Angel. In fact, that episode is funny and works well as a metaphor.

Being able to rewatch the episodes from the fifth season leads to greater appreciation of them (they were not rerun on most WB stations once the show was canceled). The fifth season is filled with action. Indeed, the episodes "You're Welcome" (the show's 100th episode) and "Not Fade Away" (the series finale) have some of the most impressive battles I've ever seen. Not just on television, ever. These are entertaining shows.

Part of what keeps the show wonderful is the acting. David Boreanaz is fine as Angel, though James Marsters kicks new life into the show with his portrayal of Spike. But neither deserves the lion's share of praise for the acting in season three.

J. August Richards, who portrays Gunn, is finally given the opportunity to express the full depth of his range. Instead of being monolithic and out for vengeance or wrestling with the conflict between his past fighting on the street and working as a part of a team, Richards is able to use the character changes in season five to illustrate his articulation and the depths to which he can play sorrow and loss. He is incredible.

Alexis Denisof, usually a favorite of mine, does a great job in season five, but does not get to illustrate more of his acting ability beyond what we've already seen. That honor, for expressing real growth as an actor beyond what we've seen before, goes to Amy Acker, who plays Winnifred Burkle. Acker is given the chance to illustrate her range when Fred's story takes an abrupt turn. She is amazingly extroverted and able to exude an aura of confidence and power that she has never before revealed on Angel. It is a treat to see.

Who will enjoy the fifth season of Angel? Anyone who enjoys good, quirky, science-fiction comedy. But it is a denouement. Buying this set is ridiculous if you're looking to get into the series. You're coming in for the last act, the final stanzas, the lines before the curtain falls. At least, until Joss Whedon gives up on movies and gives fans of the Buffyverse a show featuring Spike, Faith, Illyria, and Andrew.

Until then, though, this is it. And it is a fitting end if nothing else ever comes.

For other final seasons of pretty epic shows, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Millennium - Season 3
Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete Seventh Season
The X-Files - Season Nine

7/10

For other television and movie reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Long Dark Night Of The Vampire's Soul: Angel Season Four!

The Good: Dark, Excellent characters, Interesting plotline, Wonderful acting
The Bad: One real dud, Misuse of talent (Charisma Carpenter!)
The Basics: When Angel returns from the bottom of the sea, the Apocalypse comes in two very deadly forms in the fourth season of Angel.


The television series Angel, has a way of ending its seasons with a nod toward its fans, isolating those who are not fans of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Angel franchises. For example, the first season ends with the appearance of Darla resurrected and unless one watches the show regularly, the significance of that event is lost. Similarly, the end of the second season is baffling to those who do no know what happened in the finale of the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The third season is something of an exception to that rule. There are not mugs to the audience, there are no secret innuendoes: Lorne leaves, Wesley has gone rogue, Cordelia ascends, and Connor sends Angel to the bottom of the ocean in a box.

The fourth season of Angel opens with a stark exploration of the bleak events that capped off the previous season. While Angel goes slowly insane in his watery grave, Gunn and Fred struggle to hold Angel Investigations together having exhausted every last lead in the search for their employer. And as Angel struggles to return to sanity after his rescue, the crew finds themselves entering an apocalypse that cannot be blamed on anything other than the direct path their lives have taken up until now.

In short, writer/director Joss Whedon risks the franchise by playing every possible card in his arsenal. Whedon and David Greenwalt declare that this was the season the characters were destined to get to as they fully explain the significance of the interlocking lives that have been the Angel cast. It is in season four that Connor's existence is explained, Angel is revealed to be a tool for his conception, Lorne's participation as a guide and Cordelia's purpose in ascending and returning is explored.

Man, this is a bleak picture! In the course of the fourth season, Angel and his partners come to learn everything was set into motion outside them and they've moved and been moved toward a certain moment and the moment of their destiny has arrived. This is the Apocalypse and Angel does it with style, flair and intrigue.

Here is how the main characters weather the year:

Connor - The teen struggles with the death of his father, the reappearance of his dad, Angel, and the tide of bad choices he makes in regard to Cordelia and the Angel Investigations team,

Lorne - Returns to Los Angeles after being imprisoned in Las Vegas by tyrants at a casino only to find that his powers have been compromised by something even more powerful than himself,

Fred - Finds her life emotionally complicated when she is able to confront the professor who sent her to the hell dimension for five years and her attempts to deal with the fallout from that is compromised when she finds herself on the losing end of a war to save the world,

Gunn - Realized as a leader in Angel's absence, he works hard and sacrifices everything to save Fred from falling into darkness, at the cost of what is most precious to him,

Wesley - Still alone following his betrayals in the third season, Wesley has fallen in love with Lilah Morgan and he works desperately for redemption with his friends,

Cordelia - Returns to our plane of existence after being made virtually into a Goddess, only to find she has no memories. When her purpose for returning is made clear, Angel's love is revealed as the earliest casualty of the Apocalypse and her life is placed in supreme jeopardy,

Angel - is rescued only to find his fruitless search for Cordelia frustrating beyond belief and her return complicated by his feelings for her and his confusion by her relationship with Connor. Angel is forced to confront his dark side, Angelus, when it becomes clear that his past may be an important trigger to the Apocalypse.

The fourth season of Angel continues its trend toward a morally ambiguous hero who struggles with the prophecies and realities of his life. Here, Angel is not only pitted against the incredible Beast that rains down fire and blocks out the sun, but he is forced to confront his unresolved love for Cordelia and the complications of having a duplicitous son.

And that is what Angel has done remarkably well since day one, since the first episode. Angel balances action/adventure with deep personal, character moments wherein the individuals involved are forced to develop. There are consequences to every action in Angel and the fourth season illustrates that perfectly as Angelus is unleashed in an attempt to stop The Beast and the appearance of the most subversive evil the Angel Investigations team has ever faced.

This is a season where our heroes are trapped in a downward spiral of loss. Angel is unable to reconcile with his son Connor, Cordelia's return is marred by her lack of identity, and the beautiful love between Fred and Gunn becomes torn. But is it worth watching? Absolutely. This is television that draws the viewer in and on DVD, the ability to watch the episodes over and over is a great boon. That the crew works constantly to overcome is the true spectacle and while the characters agonize, the viewer is constantly intrigues as opposed to depressed. This is not Magnolia (reviewed here!), where the characters are mired in depression, this is the last minutes of The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!) where the characters are going down, but they desperately, heroically, try anything to endure and persevere.

In fact, in the entire twenty-two episode set, only one episode is a real dud. I cannot say anything more about it because it comes late in the season and to describe the faults of the episode would reveal more about the deeper plot than I already have and it ought to be a surprise to the viewer. On the other hand, the show comes out of its one episode rut swinging and it skyrockets toward an impressive climax. But the show has an annoying tendency to be brilliant and engaging and agonize the fans. Upon her return, Cordelia asks Angel the question all of the fans have wanted the answer to, in the last second of the episode! Fortunately, with the DVDs, we need not wait an entire week for the answer!

Many fans do not like the fourth season of Angel because of the presence of Connor, played by Vincent Kartheiser. While the obvious argument is that he is the typical WB pretty boy, the more substantive argument against Connor and Kartheiser is that Connor is a crappy character who is poorly acted. But Kartheiser's performance is actually genius; Connor is a confused kid. Connor is a confused child who is caught in a rash of stupid decisions followed by huge consequences and punctuated by more bad choices. Connor is annoying, not because Kartheiser cannot act, but because Kartheiser acts so precisely. Who wants to watch some idiot kid make stupid choice after stupid choice? Of course it is going to be agonizing! And as a result, it works wonderfully here.

The real acting issue in the fourth season is with Charisma Carpenter. Carpenter may be the best potential choice for a Wonder Woman feature film and while the fourth season gives her some juicy parts, it never provides her with a chance to explore Cordelia's character in a satisfying or meaningful way. In short, Carpenter's talents are wasted in the fourth season as her character becomes a tool and Carpenter's days are clearly numbered on the show.

Holding the whole sandwich together is David Boreanaz (Angel) and Alexis Denisof (Wesley). Boreanaz returns to the role of Angel with little growth, but in a season where there is such intense action, he does not need to expand the acting repertoire too much. Boreanaz comes through, however, when forced to portray Angelus over several episodes. Sustaining his character's alter ego works and Boreanaz pulls it off with satisfying results. Denisof, however, continues to expand Wesley into a dark, often tragic, hero caught between his desire for redemption and his belief in the reasons for his mistakes. Denisof is both subtle and calculating as Wesley this season and he makes Wesley the character to watch.

The bottom line for this DVD set is that it wraps up the tale of Angel quite nicely. Yes, there is another season after this, but we'll get to that when the fifth season boxed set comes out. This finishes the longest arcs of Angel and rewards the fans with a pretty pounding season-wide arc that gives everyone in the show their chance to shine. If you haven't been a fan of Angel before now, don't start with this set, go back and work up to it. You will be glad you did.

For other works with vampires, please visit my reviews of:
Breaking Dawn Part 1
True Blood - Season 3
Daybreakers

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Torment Finds The Vampire A Child: Angel Season Three Soars!

The Good: Excellent character development, Intriguing plots, Acting
The Bad: Minor strange inconsistencies, Not making Lorne a full cast member
The Basics: As Angel and Cordelia begin to move even closer together, two ancient adversaries of Angel's resurface to change everything in Angel The Complete Third Season.


It is hard to be a spin-off show for a series where big, grand things occur week after week. That is to say, it is difficult to create a series that happens in the same time as the original series it is spun off from and make it its own entity. Angel season three is a perfect example of that. In the Buffyverse, Angel still has a strong emotional bond to Buffy, whom he loved. Yet, just as Angel seems to be fully on its own steam, Buffy was killed in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, forcing Angel to have a reaction. Why? Because in our age it is impossible to believe that either: a. the love they shared could be brushed off easily if he did know about her death or b. that communications between Sunnydale, California and Los Angeles, California would be so bad that Angel never found out. The last moment of the second season of Angel brought the heroic protagonist the news of Buffy's death and that is where the third season begins.

Angel returns to the hotel after months in isolation trying to deal with the death of his beloved (though estranged) Buffy. Fred, the young woman he rescued from the Hell Dimension, has not left her room and the months have found Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn holding Los Angeles together in their fight against demons as Angel Investigations. Angel's return is followed in short order by the return of the villainous Darla, who comes bearing Angel's baby. Against all laws of nature, human and vampire, it appears Darla is pregnant with a fully human baby. As she nears term, the baby becomes the focus of the energies of all sorts of forces, including the villainous Wolfram and Hart, a cult that believes the baby will spell doom for all vampires, Holtz (one of Angel's victims who has been in suspended animation for two hundred years) and a dimension-shifting demon who has a grudge against Angel. These forces prey on the heroes of Angel Investigations until each member of the team is forced to make life altering decisions that change their lives.

What the third season of Angel does exceedingly well is push the supernatural drama into what the general viewer might consider "legitimate" drama. From its first season, Angel has been somewhat obsessed with exploring adult issues using the supernatural context of vampires and demons. Unlike Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the demons often have a symbolic value where they may be compared to childhood fears of adulthood, Angel's demons are quite literal and the stories tend to spend much more time and emphasis focused on the repercussions of the decisions. That is to say, how the team of Angel Investigations fights evil is often more important than the evil itself. This approach works fabulously to keep the viewers focused on the characters, which should be the goal of any great drama.

As the characters are the most important aspect of the series, it is important to see where they are and where they are going this season:

Darla - Attempts to understand the baby within her and deal with that,

Holtz - His quest for revenge on Angel for slaying his family centuries before finds him forming an army of vampire hunters and making a choice that will destroy Angel's baby,

Groo - Returns from Pylea to take Cordelia as his wife in an unlikely turn that shifts the momentum of Cordelia and Angel's relationship,

Lilah - Working for Wolfram and Hart, she continues to attempt to destroy Angel, now finding an ally in Sahjhan, a time-shifting demon,

Lorne - Ever the ally to Angel Investigations, Lorne spends the season helping Fred get used to our dimension and counseling Angel on parental matters,

Fred - Slowly learns to deal with being back on Earth, she develops a strong relationship with Gunn and slowly becomes comfortable with being the staff researcher,

Gunn - Bonds with Fred and comes to deal with the consequences of his having made a deal long ago with a very dangerous demon. Still kicking butt, Gunn is forced to accept that his priorities in life have changed greatly since his days on the street, and go from there,

Wesley - Perhaps the most complicated arc of the season finds Wesley researching along, falling for Fred when she and Gunn become involved. Rattled by that, Wesley turns to his research where he discovers a terrifying prophecy about the baby that is to be born from Angel and Darla and he must make a difficult choice that jeopardizes everyone,

Cordelia - Still plagued by the visions from the Powers That Be, Cordelia is almost lethally wounded on her birthday, leading her to make a decision - based on her love for Angel - that will allow her to live and be strong. Renouncing part of her humanity opens up all sorts of new doors for her, though, and it leads her to a climactic decision in the season finale,

Angel - Confused over the death of Buffy and by his feelings for Cordelia, he finds his situation getting infinitely more complicated by Darla's appearance. His new role as father changes his priorities and his obsession with protecting his son begins to motivate everything he does.

These are, to say the least, compelling character arcs, for all concerned. This is the season that Angel steps out and fully becomes its own show. The consequences that the group, all of them including the peripheral characters and villains, is forced to deal with completely change the momentum of the show while still maintaining its integrity and recurring theme of responsibility. Angel is forced to take responsibility for his one night stand with Darla, Cordelia is forced to take responsibility for her love of Angel, and Wesley must deal with the decision he feels forced to make with the weight of prophecy against him. It's all about that bear responsibility and how it knocks us around.

But Angel is far more entertaining than a simple lecture on responsibility and season three has a good number of fun moments. In "Double Or Nothing," Cordelia's solution to the problem of the demon who owns Gunn's soul is amusing and in possibly the best episode of the season, "Waiting In The Wings," there is a scene that is genuinely erotic. And that's a rare thing to be able to pull off. Sure there's a lot of sex on television (I suppose), but actual erotic scenes, that's much more rare.

In addition to all of that, Angel is a likable protagonist and season three finds him and Cordelia in a maturing relationship based on a powerful, if unspoken, love. This season reads like a family story between the two of them and many of their scenes are passionate and beautiful, some utterly heartwrenching. And, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there are a lot of good one-liners that make everything snap along.

What makes all of this possible is the actors. Newcomer Amy Acker quickly establishes herself as more than just a beautiful face as Fred, just as great storylines and the ability to act completely charming prevents J. August Richards' Gunn from simply being a token ethnic actor. In fact, Richards continues to distinguish himself as a genuine, instinctive, articulate actor and one of the best characters (of any ethnicity) on television.

Alexis Denisof, who plays Wesley, is given his biggest assignments here and he lives up to the challenges with style and skill. Denisof plays Wesley as a man haunted by the potential choice he would like to avoid but feel drawn to make. Denisof's body language and ability to get around complex lines exceeds even his post-beating acting from the first season (which, was quite masterful. Were I a casting director needing someone to pretend they had just been tortured to within an inch of their life, I would want Denisof).

Charisma Carpenter continues to shine as Cordelia, infusing the role with more humanity and far less snob than ever before. Carpenter brings life to a character that started out (on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) so monolithic. She plays the quiet scenes with depth, the humorous scenes with an impish spark and her erotic scenes with mature passion. Season three finds Carpenter as an acting force to be reckoned with.

Finally, star David Boreanaz is given a chance to show some real range as well. Season three, in fact, falls into a minor technical difficulty as a result. Boreanaz plays Angel as overjoyed over his son, which should mean that Angel's curse comes back into play. Angel is supposed to lose his soul if he is ever truly happy, a condition which the franchise keeps equating to sexual terms, but Boreanaz's expressiveness over Connor would seem to be enough to make his character lose his soul.

This DVD set is wonderful for fans of the series or anyone wanting to get into the show. It is very close to achieving perfection, robbed only by little moments like Angel attacking Wesley in the hospital in "Forgiving," a scene that makes little sense following the powerful scene that preceded it.

The DVD set is possibly the best one yet from the series featuring some deleted scenes that some of us have been hankering for for a while. The commentaries are decent as well, making this a great boxed set. Anyone who is open to accepting great drama where they find it is likely to enjoy the third season of Angel, and it's quite accessible to those who have not known the show before this.

For other works with Keith Szarabajka, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
The Dark Knight

9.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Who Will Fight The Apocalypse? A Vampire And His Team: Angel - The Complete Series!

The Good: Funny, Clever, Moments that are downright touching, New pack saves space, Decent acting/plots
The Bad: One or two real lemon episodes, Could always use more DVD extras...
The Basics: A vampire with a soul strikes out with a small band of demon hunters, learning that he is part of an impending Apocalypse, one that is closer than anyone thinks!


There is a reason why Joss Whedon fans are as loyal as they are: Whedon has a habit of creating television shows that are a wonderful mix of action and comedy, surreal drama and pure metaphor, violent and quiet and touching. Whedon strikes a balance with all of those things with his writing and producing of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!) and Firefly (reviewed here!). In between the two projects by which he seems to be best known was a little show called Angel. Out now in one complete series pack, Angel is available for fans to get everything in one fell swoop, with a few little goodies thrown in that were not previously available.

First off, it's important to note that this is essentially a repackaging of the same DVDs already released as individual season sets along with one or two little incentives for the boxed set buyer, much like The West Wing did with its complete series boxed set (reviewed here!). Fans of Angel who have been holding out to buy the entire series are rewarded with a note from Joss Whedon (ooh, ahh, wow!) and a booklet. Those who purchased the series right along are not penalized by missing out on any additional DVD content. There are NO DVD bonus features or discs exclusive to this boxed set! Those who purchase this set simply get an extra booklet and letter and have an Angel DVD collection that takes up less space on the shelf.

For those unfamiliar with Angel, it is a fantasy/action series robbed of most of the metaphor that defined much of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - from which Angel was spun off. Angel takes place in a very gritty, very real Los Angeles where there are people in need and a champion rises up to protect the innocent.

Following Buffy's graduation from high school, Angel leaves Sunnydale and makes it to Los Angeles. There, he encounters Doyle, a demon who operates as a mouthpiece for the Powers That Be. The Powers give Doyle clues for Angel to follow to save the locals who most need saving. Angel is joined by Cordelia, who is struggling to find work as an actress and the three set up Angel Investigations. Angel Investigations is soon beset by very real tragedy that results in Doyle's demise and Cordelia becoming the conduit that Doyle had been. They are joined by Wesley, who has become a rogue demon hunter and Angel Investigations becomes a paranormal crime fighting team scouring Los Angeles and ridding it of demons.

Soon, though, the vampire with a soul and his companions help vampire hunter Gunn, who joins them shortly before they are beset with the consequences of Angel's past. In the course of their investigations, Angel Investigations butts heads with Wolfram and Hart, a powerful law firm which represents demonic clients and has an interest in the paranormal. Soon, the lawyers from Wolfram and Hart have set their sights on destroying Angel and Angel Investigations, all as part of a scheme to bring about the apocalypse. With the forces that Wolfram and Hart conjure, like resurrecting Angel's sire, Darla, they just might succeed . . .

Angel is an antihero tale and the wonderful magic of the series is that because it is heavily serialized the continual theme of consequences truly resonates. This is a show about living with the consequences of our actions and Angel, cursed with a soul, is now forced to live with the consequences of having a conscience after being one of the most sadistic vampires to ever walk the night. Throughout the series, Angel is forced to deal with the consequences of his subsequent actions, like trying desperately to save Darla from Wolfram and Hart and rescuing a nerdy woman from an alternate universe. The show is all about consequences and it is adult and strangely adolescent at the same time.

Angel - The Collector's Set is truly the way to go for anyone who is a fan of the series or who wants to become a fan of the show. Angel episodes are integrally tied together - seasons three and four are, in many ways, one big arc - and they build on one another. It's inconvenient enough to have to change discs; it's even worse to have to leave the comfort of one's house to go out and get the next boxed set!

And while the series starts out with a strangely episodic sense to it, it quickly becomes serialized with Cordelia and Angel dealing with the consequences of Doyle's death and Cordelia becoming a conduit to the Powers That Be. When it turns serialized and the show begins to make long story arcs that last several episodes or entire seasons, the show becomes richly focused on the characters. Because there are - over the course of the series - essentially six principle characters, each one gets developed quite well over the course of the 111 episodes. The characters of note are:

Angel - A moody vampire who works for the forces of good because he has been given a soul and cannot bear to slaughter good people any longer. This leads him to a fairly solitary life because bliss causes him to lose his soul. As a result, Angel is withdrawn and often pessimistic. He is brutish when he needs to be, but he tends to look at people as those he needs to shepherd and protect from the more destructive elements prowling the night. He finds himself a target of the machinations of the powerful Wolfram and Hart law firm and seeks to prevent the apocalypse they seem set on creating,

Cordelia Chase - Gifted with a demon sense that provides her with visions sent from the nebulous Powers That Be, Cordelia is an aspiring actress-turned-mercenary. She works with Angel to uncover clues that might well help save the world by tracking down destructive demons. She and Angel share a love that remains largely unspoken and unrealized and she works hard to contribute, ultimately giving up her privileged background for the more dirty detective work that the Powers seem to insist she take on,

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce - Formerly a Watcher, now a rogue demon hunter, he is a socially awkward, bookish fellow who has great intelligence, but low self esteem. Plagued by memories of an abusive father, Wesley joins the team as the research consultant who almost instantly makes himself invaluable with his knowledge of obscure demon information. As Wolfram and Hart begins to move the world toward the Apocalypse, Wesley begins to understand that Angel may be the key and that the vampire might not be a force of good when the end times come,

Charles Gunn - A Los Angeles inner city youth who has lived on the streets protecting his small gang from the nests of vampires that prey upon the people there. Gunn is a fighter and becomes the serious muscle of Angel Investigation when he joins the team, though he seeks to be more,

Fred (Winifred Burkle) - A nerdy physics student who was sent through a portal to another realm where she was on the run for years. In the alternate world, humans are slaves and cattle and Fred survived by outwitting the demons there. When rescued by Angel and the team, Fred returns to Earth as a reclusive young woman initially dominated by fear. Incredibly smart, she gives Wesley a run for his money, though she and Gunn become closer than anyone would have suspected,

and Lorne - A green demon who can read a person's destiny when they sing to him. He owns a nightclub for demons in downtown Los Angeles and aids Angel whenever he is cut off from his conduits to the Powers. Lorne is a pacifist and while he despises Wolfram and Hart, he tries to remain neutral through most of Angel's struggles.

Angel made a star out of David Boreanaz and this might well be the role of a lifetime for him. As Angel, Boreanaz performed a number of very physical fights (including swordfighting), did a lot of running and jumping and became everything one might expect from a young man who is a television action hero. But more than that, Boreanaz is given the chance to add some real emotion to the part by presenting Angel as a conflicted action hero who has a conscience and an intelligence. He is a trooper, to be sure, but he also has to navigate a precarious love that remains undefined with Cordelia. Boreanaz has great on-screen chemistry with Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia, and he is able to make the transition from brooding, brutish action hero, to quiet and contemplative antihero drown in the consequences of his actions. Boreanaz gives a wonderful and surprisingly human performance throughout.

It is Charisma Carpenter who makes the show worth watching, though. Carpenter transforms Cordelia from the bratty socialite that she was on Buffy The Vampire Slayer into a young woman who has both sophistication and a selfless quality that allows her to become what Angel needs her to be. Carpenter sells the viewer effortlessly on the transition and she continually brings something new to the show. In addition, she has a wonderful sense of comic timing and embodies Cordelia on this series with a great sense of wit. And yes, she has great on-screen chemistry with David Boreanaz which makes their love-just-below-the-surface work perfectly for the series.

Alexis Denisof (Wesley), J. August Richards (Gunn), Amy Acker (Fred) and Andy Hallett (Lorne) round out the cast. They are all good. All of the principles are perfectly cast.

And it's a wonderful show. What starts as a pretty standard action hero show with a vampire protagonist becomes a wonderful blend of witty lines and strange situations from the moment Angel first jumps into a car that is not his (but looks identical because it has the top down). As the series continues, always growing with a sense of momentum that the story and characters are going somewhere, the humor and wit take a back seat to a growing darkness and the overwhelming mood that the end of the world is truly near and it won't be pretty.

This series is a must for anyone who likes adult fantasy, science fiction or superhero series'. Anyone who likes a strong drama with an antihero and can tolerate and enjoy a supernatural element will find a lot to love about Angel - The Complete Collection!

On DVD there are several episodes with commentary tracks, deleted scenes, blooper reels and featurettes on the making of the show, the story arcs as the seasons progress and the stars of the show. I could always use more commentary and I find myself wishing more episodes in the series had it, but the ones that do are informative and/or entertaining.

For those on the fence, there is no better (and less expensive overall) way to own the entire series than this boxed set. You'll be glad you gave it your time and attention!

For more information on Angel, check out my reviews of the individual seasons (the discs are the same as the ones in this boxed set) reviewed at:
Angel Season 1
Angel Season 2
Angel Season 3
Angel Season 4
Angel Season 5

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |