Why I've Come To Like "Angel" Better than "Buffy"

[sonak]

BTVS was always the more popular and ground-breaking show, plus spin-offs are rarely as popular as the original. Still, I've come to enjoy "Angel" more for the following reasons:


1. More interesting main character. 240-year-old vampire cursed with a soul on a quest for redemption is more interesting than "hot blonde woman deals with frustrations in school and in her love life"

2. Better setting. Supernatural detective agency vs. high school, college, or wherever. Plus L.A. vs Sunnydale

3. Wolfram and Hart as series-long over-arching antagonist vs villains of the season on BTVS

4. Angel is more adult and darker in tone. By avoiding the high school setting, Angel was able to tell more adult-relevant stories, plus avoided the drift from a mid-series shift in settings after graduation from high school on BTVS. Angel was also grittier and more noirish in tone, with a darker message of the "no big victories" and that the fight against evil is always going on

5. Angel at its weakest(perhaps season 3 or 4 depending on your view) was better than BTVS at its weakest (season 6)



This is all of course just IMHO. And I will say that BTVS probably has the better supporting cast(Giles, Willow, Xander, Oz, Tara, etc. vs. Gunn, Fred, and Cordelia? no contest)

[RoJoHen]

I think a lot of people feel the same way. I love Buffy, but I think Angel is definitely the better show.

[saturn5]

I would say Buffy is the better show not least because it simply has more eps. I think they compliment one another, Buffy is a little lighter but they're both terrific.

Buffy is a figure whom i think is a lot more identifiable with, her life journey is one we can to an extent sympathise with and take as our own. Put simply Buffy is also a lot more fun. I think season 6 of Buffy is the only time Angel actually becomes superior to it because it was too dour.

So if you want to make a poll, Buffy by a nose (and a cute nose it is)

[neozeks]

Angel is to Buffy as DS9 is to TNG, in a lot of ways. And seeing how DS9 is my favourite Trek, I agree with you. But not by too much, mostly due to Angel's S3 (especially) and S4, which I thought were quite dissapointing after the total brilliance of S2. I haven't watched the second half of S5 yet, that's where I'm currently at in my first time run through the Buffyverse.

S6 is my favourite season of Buffy, though, despite all it's flaws. And posibly my second favourite Buffyverse season, after AtS S2. Go figure. Probably because I think it's the darkest and least formulaic season of Buffy.

[sonak]

neozeks wrote:

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Angel is to Buffy as DS9 is to TNG, in a lot of ways. And seeing how DS9 is my favourite Trek, I agree with you. But not by too much, mostly due to Angel's S3 (especially) and S4, which I thought were quite dissapointing after the total brilliance of S2. I haven't watched the second half of S5 yet, that's where I'm currently at in my first time run through the Buffyverse.

S6 is my favourite season of Buffy, though, despite all it's flaws. And posibly my second favourite Buffyverse season, after AtS S2. Go figure. Probably because I think it's the darkest and least formulaic season of Buffy.

the second half of Angel season 5 is terrific, especially the closing arc.

I agree with the TNG-DS9 comparison

[Chemahkuu]

The only things I ever liked about Angel were Winifred, Illyria and Spike. Season 5 is one of the only ones I rewatch whereas Buffy I can more or less put in any of the discs and watch through.

[Caligula]

sonak wrote:

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BTVS was always the more popular and ground-breaking show, plus spin-offs are rarely as popular as the original. Still, I've come to enjoy "Angel" more for the following reasons:


1. More interesting main character. 240-year-old vampire cursed with a soul on a quest for redemption is more interesting than "hot blonde woman deals with frustrations in school and in her love life"

2. Better setting. Supernatural detective agency vs. high school, college, or wherever. Plus L.A. vs Sunnydale

3. Wolfram and Hart as series-long over-arching antagonist vs villains of the season on BTVS

4. Angel is more adult and darker in tone. By avoiding the high school setting, Angel was able to tell more adult-relevant stories, plus avoided the drift from a mid-series shift in settings after graduation from high school on BTVS. Angel was also grittier and more noirish in tone, with a darker message of the "no big victories" and that the fight against evil is always going on

5. Angel at its weakest(perhaps season 3 or 4 depending on your view) was better than BTVS at its weakest (season 6)

Agreed on all points, save for where BtVS was at its weakest. No way in my mind was Season 6 the weak point. Several of my favorite episodes come from Season 6. No, for the weak link, you'd need to travel ahead one more year... which brings up Reason #6:

6. Angel went out with a bang, not a whimper. "Not Fade Away" is a MUCH better series finale than "Chosen." And Angel's fifth season is overall a much stronger season than BtVS Season 7.

[mimic]

I love them both, but Buffy wins out largely because I find Buffy's highs far outstrip Angel's highs. However, Angel was a more consistent show.

[Mr Light]

I always preferred Angel over Buffy. A superior show in every way! And once you get past Season One, it was consistently good too. S2-5 had very few stinkers in it. Can't say that about Buffy!

[Joe Washington]

I totally agree with you, sonak. Buffy isn't a bad show but I felt more of a connection with Angel and its characters. When there were times I felt like throwing the TV out of the window when watching this show, it's always because I hate seeing my favorite characters go through crap and pain which is why I wasn't the biggest fans of Season 3 and 4. A way of seeing those seasons would be as the dark part of the journey the characters had to go through to get to the place they are in, in Season 5. Though Season 5 wasn't meant to be the final season, it felt right that it was.I enjoyed the addition of Spike and Not Fade Away will always be one of my favorite series finales.

[Wereghost]

Mr Light wrote:

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I always preferred Angel over Buffy. A superior show in every way! And once you get past Season One, it was consistently good too. S2-5 had very few stinkers in it. Can't say that about Buffy!

Season one had its merits too. The opener was a bona fide debut and subverted one or two clichés (He desn't save the girl, doesn't stop short of killing the villain etc.) and the rest of the season had highlights like the Faith two-parter and To Shanshu In LA (David Greenwalt on feverish top form.).

As for the comparison, my ten Desert Island DVD Packages would include Buffy season three and probably season four. Angel seasons two, three and five would probably follow shortly on the list, along with Buffy season five.

Angel had some truly visceral and Shakesperean moments in season two, but arguably it was season three that saw the show really come into its own as a dramatic entity. Just as the premise of Angel is the transition from "adolescence" to bona fide adulthood, the first episode of season three represents a significant rite of passage for the show, symbolised by Angel dealing with the death of Buffy. As the season progresses, we venture into pretty deep territory, covering universal themes of identity, self-definition, love, betrayal, friendship, loyalty, alienation and morality. It has perhaps the best character arcs of the entire franchise - Angel's fatherhood, Cordelia's maturation, Wesley's martyr complex, Fred's kooky-to-badass transition, Gunn's integration to the mainstream, the revelation of Lorne's innate decency etc.

Really, though, I don't see the two shows as having been in competition but rather as complementing each other. At ther respective bests, they're both wonderful in very different ways.

[Shurik]

I also prefer Angel to BtVS.

[Lord Garth]

One of the best parts about Angel is that it redeemed Wesley.

The Holtz storyline was painful to watch, in a good way, meaning it was hard to watch what happened to Connor. That said, Connor was annoying in the fourth season and when I see him all I can think of is Peter Campbell.

[stonester1]

I see Angel as the Buffyverse's DS9 to Buffy's Next Gen. Love them both, but love DS9/Angel a bit more for just those reasons.

[23skidoo]

I was never able to get info Buffy that much. I got turned off by a few things; I never really warmed to SMG as the lead (I know she was too young at the time but I'd have rather seen Kristen Bell in the role), and I felt the whole Willow is gay angle was overplayed (I didn't object to the introduction of gay characters, I just didn't like how it was handled in BTVS), and just on the whole I felt the show, I dunno, "strutted" a but too much (as in the show became more about being cool for the sake of cool - or Whedonesque for the sake of being Whedonesque - rather than being about the story). Angel I thought was the superior show, both in terms of tone and performances. I regret not being able to get into it sooner - I literally started watching it regularly in its final months, but I'd been so turned off by BTVS I'd ignored Angel for the most part. Except for the Smile Time episode which was good for a laugh; evidently only Angel and Farscape were able to get away with episodes like that (Farscape turned Crichton into a Looney Tunes character; same diff); if Star Trek or Doctor Who tried that, blood would flow in the streets.

I see Bones quite often, and I've been meaning to start watching Angel again.

Alex