Angel - Season 1 impressions (episode 9)
Nov. 17th, 2005 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thalia_seawood Hero
I'm posting my views for this episode out of order because I had a strong reaction to it. My posts on Angel, ep. #8 and Buffy, ep. #9 will follow tomorrow.
Definitely my least favorite episode for both Buffy and Angel. I loathe the plot with a fiery passion. I read some reviews of the episode on the internet and it seems that most people loved it. So as with my early Wesley love or strong Kate likeage I may be in a minority.
The episode starts so well: The first scene with the spoof on the traditional Angel introduction is wonderful. In fact, all the scenes starring Cordelia were great.
Seems that Cordy gets superactive when she's worried. Officially, she's worried about money, but you can see quite clearly that she's also worried that Angel might not be okay after having seen Buffy again.
I also liked Angel confiding in Doyle. Didn't the Power That Be tell him, though, to keep what happened secret?
So what's my problem with this episode? I *wanted* to like it...
Well, I'm not keen on episodes that deal with racism and use lots of Nazi analogies to get their message across. I guess it's because I'm German, but I'm so very, very sick of it. It upsets me.
It took me awhile to figure out why I react so strongly and after mulling the issue over and over I came to the following conclusions:
- In TV shows, the topic racism often equals Nazi Germany. The effect of this that there is no big effect: If you aren't from Germany, you can be all nonchalant. The evil doesn't touch you. It happened 60 years ago in another country to which you have no ties. The evil is personified by another nation in another time period and has nothing to do with you. You think you could never be that way.
- Everyone can see that the demons in Hero are evil and disgusting. There's no complexity there. However, I believe true evil is complex and fascinating and everyone can be drawn in by it in certain circumstances. If you take up such a difficult subject in a TV show, you have to take this into consideration.
Autobiographical Side Note 1: When I studied abroad I had to listen to racist slurs by some English guys who thought they were totally superior to Germans. They occasionally greeted me with "Heil Hitler" when I entered the room - one of the highlights in my existence so far. And yes, I mean that in a bitterly ironic way. When I tried to talk to them about it, it turned out that they thought they were superior to me simply because of our nation's history. English history = good; Germany history = evil. All very simple. My discussion with them went nowhere and they only left me alone when I got so mad after several tauntings I slapped one of them and told him to shut up or else. - This taught me that sometimes, violence can be a solution. :-)
Autobiographical Side Note 2: When you grow up in Germany and have contact with people who are now around 80 or older, you will be dealing with people who lived in the Third Reich. Many of them will have voted for Hitler, some of them may have been active in the NSPAD, others will "only" have been following along. These people don't have "EVIL" stamped on their foreheads. In fact, they are no different from other people: They have their good sides and their bad sides.
Our neighbours were an elderly couple and I liked them tremendously. They were so caring around one another. They were married for over 60 years and when she finally died, her husband died only two months later. They took care of me sometimes when I was a child and they were always great to me. Never condescending or phony or intrusive like some people are around children. He was also really good with animals, especially wild birds. They just came to him and sat in his hand. (Nope, I'm not making this up.) - When I was around 15 my parents told me about our neighbours' past. They were big followers of Hitler when they were young. I never judged them for it, because I loved them - and who am I to be judge their lifes.
The reason for my autobiographical side notes: This is such a complex and sensitive issue that I hate it when things are presented in black and white and you aren't forced to think. Hero makes you suffer (Doyle's death), it doesn't make you think.
DS9 did a good job with the topic of racist oppression by giving us the Cardassians: Gul Dukat for instance could be equaled to a Nazi officer. He has run prison camp and helped oppress another nation, the Bajorans, who used to be peaceful and to whom religion is very important.
But most viewers like Gul Dukat: He's fascinating. He has a big family and loves his children. He can be extremely charming. Occasionally, he can be a great ally. And yet we know this man has done things that we would consider to be morally very, very wrong.
On the other hand, you have the Bajorans who clearly are the victims. But here we also get shades of grey, e.g. Kai Winn's morals are equally questionable as Gul Dukat's. :-)
In Hero we all of a sudden get a bunch of big, bad demons that kill half-blood demons to restore purity. There's no appeal to their evil.
The victims are equally stereotypical. I simply never cared much for their fate. (We even get the stereotypical kid that doubts the hero and then builds a connection to another main character.)
Something else I didn't quite like was Doyle's backstory. I wanted it to be more radical: His refusal to help would have shocked me more if the demon who was requesting help had been closer to him and/or if he had seen at least once of which acts the evil demons were capable. The way it was portrayed you think: 'Yes, Doyle, what you did wasn't good, but you had no idea these demons really were so vicious. Especially since you were so new to your demon heritage anyway.' It was too easy to excuse what he did, IMO.
Doyle's death:
I was so annoyed by the plot that I didn't really care at the moment. Drat! I wanted to care!! And I expect I will later on when it all sinks in.
I guess it also helped that I had seen Doyle's death coming: I had seen some later episodes and I knew they were Doyle-free and Cordy was the one having the visions.
In addition, there's also the death of Jenny Calendar in Buffy so I knew Joss is willing to pull off something like that.
I also made the mistake of checking the little guide that came with the DVDs and there it's mentioned that Angel and Cordelia grieve about the "death of a friend". Not hard to guess who it could be...
I liked Doyle *a lot*, but somehow his story (suppressed demon heritage) wasn't that intriguing. In a way, his story line was completed successfully in nine episodes.
I was happy that he fulfills the role of the "Promised One" and not Angel. I had been hoping for this.
I'm posting my views for this episode out of order because I had a strong reaction to it. My posts on Angel, ep. #8 and Buffy, ep. #9 will follow tomorrow.
Definitely my least favorite episode for both Buffy and Angel. I loathe the plot with a fiery passion. I read some reviews of the episode on the internet and it seems that most people loved it. So as with my early Wesley love or strong Kate likeage I may be in a minority.
The episode starts so well: The first scene with the spoof on the traditional Angel introduction is wonderful. In fact, all the scenes starring Cordelia were great.
Seems that Cordy gets superactive when she's worried. Officially, she's worried about money, but you can see quite clearly that she's also worried that Angel might not be okay after having seen Buffy again.
I also liked Angel confiding in Doyle. Didn't the Power That Be tell him, though, to keep what happened secret?
So what's my problem with this episode? I *wanted* to like it...
Well, I'm not keen on episodes that deal with racism and use lots of Nazi analogies to get their message across. I guess it's because I'm German, but I'm so very, very sick of it. It upsets me.
It took me awhile to figure out why I react so strongly and after mulling the issue over and over I came to the following conclusions:
- In TV shows, the topic racism often equals Nazi Germany. The effect of this that there is no big effect: If you aren't from Germany, you can be all nonchalant. The evil doesn't touch you. It happened 60 years ago in another country to which you have no ties. The evil is personified by another nation in another time period and has nothing to do with you. You think you could never be that way.
- Everyone can see that the demons in Hero are evil and disgusting. There's no complexity there. However, I believe true evil is complex and fascinating and everyone can be drawn in by it in certain circumstances. If you take up such a difficult subject in a TV show, you have to take this into consideration.
Autobiographical Side Note 1: When I studied abroad I had to listen to racist slurs by some English guys who thought they were totally superior to Germans. They occasionally greeted me with "Heil Hitler" when I entered the room - one of the highlights in my existence so far. And yes, I mean that in a bitterly ironic way. When I tried to talk to them about it, it turned out that they thought they were superior to me simply because of our nation's history. English history = good; Germany history = evil. All very simple. My discussion with them went nowhere and they only left me alone when I got so mad after several tauntings I slapped one of them and told him to shut up or else. - This taught me that sometimes, violence can be a solution. :-)
Autobiographical Side Note 2: When you grow up in Germany and have contact with people who are now around 80 or older, you will be dealing with people who lived in the Third Reich. Many of them will have voted for Hitler, some of them may have been active in the NSPAD, others will "only" have been following along. These people don't have "EVIL" stamped on their foreheads. In fact, they are no different from other people: They have their good sides and their bad sides.
Our neighbours were an elderly couple and I liked them tremendously. They were so caring around one another. They were married for over 60 years and when she finally died, her husband died only two months later. They took care of me sometimes when I was a child and they were always great to me. Never condescending or phony or intrusive like some people are around children. He was also really good with animals, especially wild birds. They just came to him and sat in his hand. (Nope, I'm not making this up.) - When I was around 15 my parents told me about our neighbours' past. They were big followers of Hitler when they were young. I never judged them for it, because I loved them - and who am I to be judge their lifes.
The reason for my autobiographical side notes: This is such a complex and sensitive issue that I hate it when things are presented in black and white and you aren't forced to think. Hero makes you suffer (Doyle's death), it doesn't make you think.
DS9 did a good job with the topic of racist oppression by giving us the Cardassians: Gul Dukat for instance could be equaled to a Nazi officer. He has run prison camp and helped oppress another nation, the Bajorans, who used to be peaceful and to whom religion is very important.
But most viewers like Gul Dukat: He's fascinating. He has a big family and loves his children. He can be extremely charming. Occasionally, he can be a great ally. And yet we know this man has done things that we would consider to be morally very, very wrong.
On the other hand, you have the Bajorans who clearly are the victims. But here we also get shades of grey, e.g. Kai Winn's morals are equally questionable as Gul Dukat's. :-)
In Hero we all of a sudden get a bunch of big, bad demons that kill half-blood demons to restore purity. There's no appeal to their evil.
The victims are equally stereotypical. I simply never cared much for their fate. (We even get the stereotypical kid that doubts the hero and then builds a connection to another main character.)
Something else I didn't quite like was Doyle's backstory. I wanted it to be more radical: His refusal to help would have shocked me more if the demon who was requesting help had been closer to him and/or if he had seen at least once of which acts the evil demons were capable. The way it was portrayed you think: 'Yes, Doyle, what you did wasn't good, but you had no idea these demons really were so vicious. Especially since you were so new to your demon heritage anyway.' It was too easy to excuse what he did, IMO.
Doyle's death:
I was so annoyed by the plot that I didn't really care at the moment. Drat! I wanted to care!! And I expect I will later on when it all sinks in.
I guess it also helped that I had seen Doyle's death coming: I had seen some later episodes and I knew they were Doyle-free and Cordy was the one having the visions.
In addition, there's also the death of Jenny Calendar in Buffy so I knew Joss is willing to pull off something like that.
I also made the mistake of checking the little guide that came with the DVDs and there it's mentioned that Angel and Cordelia grieve about the "death of a friend". Not hard to guess who it could be...
I liked Doyle *a lot*, but somehow his story (suppressed demon heritage) wasn't that intriguing. In a way, his story line was completed successfully in nine episodes.
I was happy that he fulfills the role of the "Promised One" and not Angel. I had been hoping for this.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 06:19 pm (UTC)Operetta Nazis like the Scourge are my pet peeve in fantasy and sci fi, and the reason why I, like you, don't like this episode. But I suppose us being German makes us react differently, because if anyone else objects, it's usually because Doyle gets killed off. Which, as you say, is fitting. His story was completed.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 11:48 pm (UTC)Operetta Nazis like the Scourge are my pet peeve in fantasy and sci fi, and the reason why I, like you, don't like this episode.
It also doesn't help that the "German villain stereotype" can be found in so many action movies and that they always have such super-German names.
The English version of Schindler's List irked me as well, because the good Germans spoke flawless English whereas the evil Germans sometimes kept their original German lines or had an accent. That's one movie I prefer to watch in its synchronised version.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 06:23 pm (UTC)As regards the stupid idea of racism = German and the black-and-white-thinking of lots of people, I fully agree with you. Your autobiographical sidenotes are really interesting. And Gul Dukat is certainly a very good example!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 11:54 pm (UTC)Garak is similar in that regard. We learn that he used to be a torturer and a dangerous spy and still he's just such an intriguing, multi-dimensional character that it's impossible to simply hate or despise him.
That's why DS9 is my favorite Star Trek show: So many complex characters.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 09:48 pm (UTC)And something else? The fact that Glen Quinn (is that the Doyle actor's name? I can't remember...) died a couple of years ago makes it ten times more haunting.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-18 12:03 am (UTC)I have cried out my heart over the death of fictional characters in the past, so I know what you must have felt. It's hard when you love a character and bad things happen to him/her or he/she dies.
Yes, I read that the actor died 3 years after the episode was aired. He overdosed on heroin apparently, at least that's the account on imdb.com. Very sad. :-(