Buffy & Angel Statistics - Overview

[thalia_seawood]

I've decided to create a post that will stay on top of my livejournal for a while. Here I will track how many episodes of Buffy and Angel I've watched.


Note for all new readers of my livejournal
I'm new to the Jossverse, i.e. I'm watching Buffy and Angel for the first time.
This means I'm relatively unspoiled. Even when I have some big spoilers (e.g. there are three big plot points I know regarding Spike), I usually don't know any of the exact circumstances.
I love getting comments, but please be careful not to leave messages that contain big spoilers.

I plan to write LJ entries for all the episodes. All entries I've written so far can be found in my memory section:
My impressions for Buffy are here.
My impressions for Angel are here.

Status for Buffy watching - Status 28th September 2006
- Season 1: complete (LJ entries exist for the final episodes)
- Season 2: complete (LJ entries exist for all 22 episodes)
- Season 3: complete (LJ entries exist for all 22 episodes)
- Season 4: complete (LJ entries exist for all 22 episodes)
- Season 5: complete (LJ entries exist for all 22 episodes)
- Season 6: complete (LJ entries exist for episodes 1 - 14)
- Season 7: complete

Status for Angel watching - Status 28th September 2006
- Season 1: complete (LJ entries exist for all 22 episodes)
- Season 2: complete (LJ entries exist for all 22 episodes)
- Season 3: complete* (LJ entries exist for episodes 1 - 6, 17 & 18)
- Season 4: complete
- Season 5: complete

* I didn't watch 3.12 The Provider since I was advised against it. *g*
Also haven't seen 3.14 Couplet yet. We'll see if I can face Cordelia getting together with Groo while secretly loving Angel...

Comments

[ruuger]

You're catching up on me with Angel - I'm only up to episode 5 of S3 :)

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

Am sure it will take me the entire month to get through season 3. I'm taking it slow; also real life is busy.

[spikeylover.livejournal.com]

Thanks for doing this!

[rayakina.livejournal.com]

Dear, where do you take that energy from? ;-) I really should start watching the series again and reading simultaneously your interesting posts... Makes me long to watch them again!

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

No idea. I feel quite exhausted most of the time. Writing actually makes me feel better.
Also: I've already written 138 reviews. It would feel silly to stop now. After all, there only 99 more reviews to write. :-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Very relieved you didn't watch Provider. Trust me, you're better off. Also, now you're about to hit on the big turning point of the season, the fabulous Wesley trilogy.

[spikeylover.livejournal.com]

Fresh new post, but since you are so far along. Is it just me, or does BTVS flesh out characters better than ATS does? I just never warmed up or disliked characters the same way on ATS as I did on BTVS. I can't figure out what the difference is since many of the same writers frequent both shows.

Any ideas or maybe you don't feel the same? I know they did a bang up job with Doyle, and I quickly got into him, but not so much with the rest. ( while with BTVS, I'm constantly either adoring or wanting to kick the asses of nearly every character they create--sometimes both.)
I noticed that you didn't get into Lindsey either, (DEAD END) and I wondered if this was something you are experiencing?

Anyway, I did a post on this on my journal:

http://spikeylover.livejournal.com/206298.html

[elisi]

I know this question wasn't aimed at me, but I remember the_royal_anna once stating the difference between the shows very well (not spoilery):

I've always loved Angel differently to the way I loved Buffy. Once upon a time I said that Buffy was character-driven where Angel is theme-driven, that sometimes in Angel it felt like the characters were subservient to the story. And now I start to see that that was the point of Angel; that it was about characters trying to be bigger than the story they were in. It was a battle, character versus story, and the answer was always that you could only fight your story so far. That in the end you'd have to seize your story, whichever point of that story you'd find yourself at, and make it yours. I think that's what Angel leaves with me. It's your story. Tell it.

Does that make sense?

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting point of view. Am still mulling it over.

I'm only halfway through Angel so I can't fully judge yet:
My impression so far is that Angel has to deal extremely often with prophecies, i.e. with preordained destiny. Buffy as to deal with this too (end of season 1, end of season 5), but she defeats prophecy every time - at a high price, of course.
As a contrast, Angel appears to be mired in prophecies; he struggles, but cannot escape them.

(Very cool icon, btw. Especially since I cast Angel as King of Swords in my tarot post here (http://thalia-seawood.livejournal.com/54791.html).)

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

Yes, so far I prefer watching Buffy.

The problem Angel has is that the characters aren't written as consistently, IMO. E.g. Gunn could be a brilliant character, but all episodes focusing on him so far are *very* mediocre.

I love Cordelia in season 1 and 2 - and then she all of a sudden is supposed to become Angel's love interest.

"Dead End" suffers from similar problems as the Cordelia/Angel love story in season 3: The writers *tell* the audience how they should feel and nothing is more off putting to me than this kind of approach.

Angel has some brilliant episodes, even bad episodes usually have their hightlights. The writing is simply not as consistent as on Buffy.