Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel - First Time Viewer

It's been awhile since I've watched the shows, if I recall correctly B4/A1 have the most instances of having to jump from one show to the other. I think largely after season 1 of Angel and season 4 of Buffy, you could probably watch full seasons side by side rather than jumping from show to show within a season.

For example, in the only crossover that I remember from Buffy season 5 to Angel season 2, The crossover elements were all in the old timey flashback sequences with Angel, Spike, Drusilla and Darla. The modern-day segments of the story didn't have any connection that I recall.

If I'm recalling correctly, the only real element that flips back and forth between the two shows regularly is Faith. She is the only character that I would legitimately call a recurring supporting character for both series.

 

There was also

Spoiler

the Darla/Drusilla arc

on Angel, which was then heavily recapped/spoiled during a later conversation between one of those characters and a Buffy character over on Buffy.

Plus, there were a fair amount of crossovers between Buffy: Season 7/Angel: Season 4. Whedon, Marti Noxon and Jeffrey Bell knew that Buffy was ending, and there was great concern that Angel would be cancelled at the end of the season (which very nearly happened), so The WB and UPN softened their "no Buffyverse crossovers with the competition" policy from the previous year as an act of good faith to the opposing network and as a favor to Whedon.

 

Angel appears in one scene in Buffy season 5. Giving any more details would be a huge spoiler.

 

I don't know. To me, it still makes more sense to watch each on its own. Aside from the flashback episodes @Turtletrekker mentions, there just isn't enough weight to the crossovers that can't be chalked up to exposition white noise. And even those flashback episodes, work fine on their own.

On the other hand, unless you're following some very carefully thought out viewing guide (And none I've seen are close to perfect.), then there will be times where switching back and forth gets disruptive. I think the most obvious example of this is the last arcs of 5&2. Both are so fucking good that you'd really be doing yourself a disservice by not digesting each on its own. I see it as a luxury being in an era where you can do that.

 

Spoiler: Bufffy S7 / Angel S4

I was alluding to the crossovers between Buffy season 7 and Angel season 4 when I mentioned that Faith tended to jump back and forth between the shows. Even so, if I were to watch Buffy season 7 and then watch Angel season 4, I would note that Willow got a phone call from an effeminate sounding guy named Fred and headed off to LA for a little while. When she later returned with Faith ("Yep,I'm back in Sunnydale, all right") all of the necessary details of Willow's trip to Los Angeles are succinctly covered in the dialogue.

Then, when watching Angel season 5, the blanks of Willow's trip Los Angeles ("What's Fred's story?") would be properly filled in. (Or the other way around if you watch A4 first)

Really, outside of some B4/A1 shenanigans (Pangs/ I Will Remember You, Oz's trip to LA), my preference would be to alternate between seasons rather than abide by a strict episode to episode continuity. My only real exception would be if you want to follow Faith's arc in strict chronological order.

 

City of... (Angel)

There's the Cordelia follow up I was looking for. I think this made a better season premiere than Freshman did. Granted on Buffy it is all about Buffy, but considering the gang got back together and Cordelia wasn't even mentioned or seen, it was almost convincing enough to do the switch back and forth with the two series.

This was a pretty good start for Angel. For one, I love that theme song. Buffy's is pretty good, but I thought this one carried the theme and the tone of the show very well, which is kind of that Film Noir aspect (Kinda like Jessica Jones). That chello was just the icing on the cake there too. As for the first episode, we got your typical exposition for Angel's origins, but then it was a very much timely story about a rich guy praying on young women. I loved how Smart Cordelia was to figure out everything though, taking her knowledge of the Hellmouth with her. It's interesting that in the first season I didn't really like her. As time has gone on, I'm glad Carpenter stayed on in Angel and the way her transition happened was a lot better than the way Buffy's transition to College happened. The guide I'm using came from this site and the two episodes should have been reverse.

https://josswhedon.blogspot.com/2012/04/buffy-and-angel-episode-viewing-order.html

 

Agreed. Angel's theme song is epic as hell.

Angel showrunner David Greenwalt was supposed to take over Buffy from Whedon in early Season 1 (Greenwalt had previous showrunning experience, whereas Whedon was a newb), but Whedon decided to stay on instead. To make this up to Greenwalt, when The WB approached Whedon about developing a spin-off for Angel Whedon offered the spin-off to him. Greenwalt's response according to the special features? "Okay, but only if I can take Cordelia with me."

Oh, I forgot to mention something about Graduation Day. They filmed the school blowing up somewhere between 1 and 2 am. Unfortunately, they forgot to tell the town ahead of time. Entire neighborhoods woke up. Car alarms went off. The town was pissed.

 

That's hilarious. You can only do a scene like that once too.

Good story about the show runner and Carpenter. Like I said, there was no indication that Cordelia was going to leave, while at the same time it seemed like her arc on Buffy got pretty stagnant. Allowing her to go to LA rejuvenated the character, and her figuring out the entire thing with Russell being a Vampire was really cool.

 

Honestly never noticed that before until you pointed it out although it's pretty obvious now. Could be an easy fix if they ever bothered to remaster Angel in HD (properly not like the pretty bad job done on Buffy).

 

Read through the Joss order post. That’s a really good viewing order, a little better than the one I’ve used for years. And as I said before yes you can watch both separately and get plenty of enjoyment out of each, but there’s just something about watching together and all the little nuggets and treats and minutia of the characters and where they are in life and why they’re acting the way they do that can be lost while watch separately.

 

I think what I'm going to do is try it for a season and see what happens. I am still thinking about the whole information overload that might happen with having to follow the arcs of both shows, but then again if I see one episode of Buffy or Angel, I might get curious about what the other show will have. That just happened here with Angel's premiere and Buffy's Season 4 premiere. They were seperate shows, but dealing with the whole Cordelia factor made watching one right after the other a little necessary. I'm thinking stuff like that might calm down as I go and now that Angel is firmly established.

 

I've never actually watched the two shows together in order, so I don't think I've ever actually seen the crossover episodes together, and I never had trouble following any of them. So seeing the different halfs of the crossovers, was always a "Oh, so that's why that happened/where that came from" situation. Most of my viewings were on the syndicated runs on TNT for Angel and FX for Buffy. I didn't come into the shows first run until like Season 5 or 6 for Buffy and 3 or 4 for Angel.

 

I’m curious if anyone besides me didn’t like Angel? I’m more referring to the tone of the show rather than the storylines. I watched the first season a few years after finishing Buffy and just wasn’t into the dark seriousness of Angel.

 

I don't think the tone changes to much after season 1 but the settings change at least two more times and the show does get better. Much better.

Jason

 

For me, while Angel was certainly darker than its parent series (akin to Xena and Deep Space Nine) it never lost its sense of humor. And while horrible things did happen to characters I love, they never happened just for shock value.

I've struggled with severe depression for nearly twenty years (although the last four years have gone well since finally finding the right meds and dosage) and watching Angel was my escape. Horrible things kept happening to the Fang Gang, but they kept loving and caring and trying no matter how bad it got. It was really inspirational and empowering.

Whereas I find most of the UPN/Marti Noxon years of Buffy to be verging on misery porn. Bleakness for the sake of bleakness with horrible things happening to the characters I love purely for shits and giggles. And characters tearing each other apart emotionally because, unlike the Angel crew, they're apparently incapable of having adult conversations unless it's a season finale. And then they go right back to being assholes to each other next season. Noxon was clearly watching David Greenwalt and Jeffrey Bell's work on Angel and taking notes, but she learned all the wrong lessons.

In my opinion, anyway. Your mileage may vary.

 

Living Conditions (Buffy)

That might be one of the worst episodes I've seen since maybe early season 2? So you're telling me that Buffy gets randomly put with a roommate who turns out to be a demon? That is a little too coincidental I think. Just as I'm kinda liking her after the premiere they go and make her really annoying in the very next episode. Not only that, but I think about the time this episode aired and how Cher's Believe was the next "My Heart Will Go On". If I was a fan of BTVS and I watched this episode when it aired, I think I would break my radio the second I heard that Cher song again. Maybe that was the point, but man that was still annoying in this episode.

The only good thing about this episode is it matches Willow and Buffy as roommates. That should have happened last episode, honestly.

 

I agree with you assessment on this episode. If the point was to make Buffy and Willow roommates then it would have been a better move to have her first roommate be a victim of the demon--would have had more emotional impact as well.

 

Ok, I'm watching Angel's second episode and I'm already thinking about just going through Buffy at once and then going back to Angel. This is already starting to get overwhelming and now that the shows are established it doesn't really feel like that big of a deal anymore. If I did it this way, what are the absolute must episodes to see through each series. For example, I'm not looking for Buffy picks up the phone and it's Angel but Angel doesn't reply type scenes. I'm looking at true crossovers like Pangs and Will You Remember Me. That should keep things to a minimum I think.

I'll still watch Angel, but like I said I'm watching the second episode and while it's good, I feel like the mood isn't quite right after watching Buffy.

Lonely Hearts (Angel)

Pretty decent second episode, investigating an Alien like demon and meeting Kate the cop. It's a series that is still trying to establish it's characters, even though Angel still wants to sit alone while Doyle and Cordelia doesn't want that.

Watching this episode though, there really isn't a connection to the Buffy episode so when I started this thread wanting to see Buffy, here comes this new series and I'm being told that you will get the most enjoyment watching both. Only issue with that is on binge watching, when I've been getting 2 or 3 episodes in a night, by the time I'm done with both these seasons I'm going to be heading out on Vacation. Also when the arcs come up and I'm switching that's going to be hard to say I need to put this arc on hold to see what is happening on the other series.

I bought Buffy a few weeks ago and Angel is on Hulu. Who knows, if I get the funds I might get Angel too. Still, maybe in time I will enjoying switching back and forth when I'm fully aware of this universe and looking out for the Easter Eggs. Until then, I think I'm going to watch Buffy straight through, and I'm so sorry for changing my mind twice in a period of 24 hours.

 

Oz has a crossover trip to LA coming up, and then there is Pangs and I Will Remember You for season one. And even Oz's trip to LA is more about the MacGuffin than the character beats.

Season 2 has the flashback crossovers in Darla and Fool For Love. After that, I don't think there is anything you need to worry about until the stuff with Faith and Willow in Buffy season 7 and Angel season 5.

I'm sure that theenglish or OCDGeek can point out anything I may have missed.

 

Living Conditions is a guilty pleasure of mine. I don't think it's partially good in a critical sense, but I just love the absurdism of it all. It's the whole roommate from hell/odd couple trope taken to the literal extreme. Plus who doesn't want a wily dairy gnome named Sid? I think TPN states it best when he says this is one of those episodes that really depends on one's personal experience. For me, it wasn't Cher but Matchbox 20. GAAHH!!!!

But Buffy having her soul slowly siphoned off by someone she's partnered with may be of thematic importance. And she beat the evil away only to be connected/partnered with Willow in the closest physical - literal - way that they've ever been in their relationship. Yet...

I certainly don't like it anywhere near the same way I like Buffy. I would say, at worst, I'm fairly neutral about it. Whereas Buffy is one of my two or three favorite shows of all time, Angel is just a show that I've seen and enjoyed but don't think much about on a daily basis. I mean, I usually watch Buffy in its entirety once every 18 months or so. The last time I watched Angel was when Andy passed ... ... ... And oh my God that was ten years ago! Maybe it's time?