On season 4 of Buffy...should I be watching Angel?

[JirinPanthosa]

I thought that Angel was on Buffy for the entire run and his spinoff series came after, but when I got to season four and Angel was no longer in the credits it was pretty obvious that was when Angel started. And now there have been all kinds of references to the other show. Do the shows stories' continuously affect each other? Should I be going back and forth chronologically as some have often suggested doing with TNG, DS9 and Voyager?

 

[Kemaiku]

Yeah, some of the finales cross over, but not many of the regular episodes past B4/A1 arc do so. They mostly revolve around Faith so that's a good clue to watch them in that order.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I didn't even know Faith was out of the coma. Ok, after I finish this episode (Something Blue) I'll catch up on Angel.

 

[Christopher]

The crossovers were frequent during Angel's first couple of seasons (corresponding to Buffy seasons 4-5), so for those seasons it's probably best to watch both shows in broadcast order. But once Buffy moved to UPN for its final two years, they became less common, so there's less need to maintain a strict viewing order there. But there are still interconnections.

 

[JD]

Other than the stuff with Faith, I don't remember there being to many direct crossovers. The only other one that comes to mind was an episode of Buffy where, I think it was Willow, left to get something from LA at the end and then popped on the next episode of Angel. My memory isn't that great though, so I could be remembering wrong. Both show recognized that the other existed, but other than a few specially cases, they were pretty independent of each other.

EDIT: I just saw Christopher's post, and it sounds like there might have been more connections than I thought. I've watched both shows several times, but never very close together, so there might be connections I missed.

 

[Christopher]

The connections were pretty common early on, since the shows aired back-to-back on the same night. For instance, I remember there was something with a ring that figured in a Buffy episode, with Oz going off at the end of the episode and then showing up in the immediately following Angel episode to deliver the ring to Angel.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The moment they introduced a gem that takes away vampire daytime restrictions I should have known they were really only interested in their production restrictions.

Did the two shows always air in the same night? In other words, will episode 5 of Buffy always match up with episode 5 of Angel? I'm afraid any episode list I look at will have spoilers.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

I'd recommend you finish Buffy and then start Angel, otherwise you might get mixed up with the storylines.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Don't bother with seasons 6&7. 5 is probably the last good season.

 

[Christopher]

The moment they introduced a gem that takes away vampire daytime restrictions I should have known they were really only interested in their production restrictions.

They always played fast and loose with the sunlight thing, e.g. having a vampire stand in the shade of a building on a sunny day, or in the shaded part of a room with daylight coming through the windows. I know from personal experience that that doesn't work. In high school, I had a medical procedure that required injecting a dye that made my skin hypersensitive to ultraviolet light -- basically a temporary, induced case of porphyria, a medical condition that's the basis for a lot of vampire mythology. I not only had to stay indoors for a couple of weeks, but the windows had to be covered the whole time, because even reflected or scattered UV light could burn me badly.

Did the two shows always air in the same night? In other words, will episode 5 of Buffy always match up with episode 5 of Angel? I'm afraid any episode list I look at will have spoilers.

For seasons 4-5 of Buffy and seasons 1-2 of Angel, yes, they line up perfectly. The Tuesday night lineup was Buffy at 8 Eastern and Angel at 9, so it alternates between them. There's one 2-week span in season 5/2 where there was only a new Buffy episode one week and only a new Angel episode the next, so it cancels out and they stay in sync.

The pattern breaks after that, since Buffy moved to UPN, keeping its Tuesday time slot, while Angel stayed on The WB but moved to Mondays at 9. They still ran mostly in sync, with Angel going first now, but there were weeks where the pattern was broken -- although the storylines overlapped a lot less, so it didn't matter as much. And Buffy's final season premiered a couple of weeks before Angel's fourth, but finished a couple of weeks after it did, even though they both had 22 episodes. So it was stretched out a bit more.

I'd recommend you finish Buffy and then start Angel, otherwise you might get mixed up with the storylines.

I don't agree. When the episodes debuted, they were back to back on the same night, so we saw them in alternating order, but we could still follow their respective storylines -- and the overlaps make the most sense in that order.

 

[kirk55555]

Don't bother with seasons 6&7. 5 is probably the last good season.

Season 6 is my favorite season of Buffy, and season 5 is one of only two I hate (the other bad season being Season 2,, at least in my opinion). I'd definitely recommend watching all of Buffy.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Don't bother. Other than two or three episodes the "crossovers" are negligible. And those two or three episodes stand on their own fine.

And each show will be more enjoyable if you focus on it's by itself.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Don't bother with seasons 6&7. 5 is probably the last good season.

Season 6 is my favorite season of Buffy, and season 5 is one of only two I hate (the other bad season being Season 2,, at least in my opinion). I'd definitely recommend watching all of Buffy.

Me too. The worst for me was 4. It was so messy.

Please don't skip 6 and 7!

Btw JirinPanthosa, how are you liking Buffy? Oh one more thing, when you finish, you will have to answer the question every Buffy fan is asked, regardless if you're male or female: Angel or Spike?

 

[DonIago]

If nothing else, I'd say watch Angel because while it starts out weaker than Buffy, in my estimation it becomes the better show. And a fairly unassuming character on Buffy (perhaps more than one) really comes into their own during their time on Angel.

 

[Dream]

I feel like switching between shows while watching a marathon is a HUGE hassle and a waste of time. It's easier to finished Buffy first, then move on to Angel.

 

[JD]

If nothing else, I'd say watch Angel because while it starts out weaker than Buffy, in my estimation it becomes the better show. And a fairly unassuming character on Buffy (perhaps more than one) really comes into their own during their time on Angel.

If you're talking about who I think you are talking about, his arc is one of my favorites in the franchise.

JirinPanthosa, are you planning on reading the post series comics after you're done with the shows? Joss is/was very involved with the Buffy ones. He wrote some Season 8 issues himself, and I believe he is "executive producer" for the entire series. I think he might have had some input on the first few storylines in the Angel comics set after the show, but I'm not sure how involved he was after that.

 

[.:: TSN ::.]

There are many viewing order guides online that highlight which episodes have crossovers. For example here:
http://josswhedon.blogspot.fi/2012/04/buffy-and-angel-episode-viewing-order.html

I would recommend switching between Buffy and Angel when appropriate.

 

[Christopher]

I feel like switching between shows while watching a marathon is a HUGE hassle and a waste of time. It's easier to finished Buffy first, then move on to Angel.

To each their own. Given the choice, I'd always prefer to rewatch a multi-series franchise in chronological order, the way it was originally aired and presented to its audience (as long as that's consistent with the intended story order). That's what I did with my Doctor Who/Torchwood/Sarah Jane Adventures binge-rewatch earlier this year. It worked pretty well (though it helped that I was watching online and didn't have to swap discs), although it did drive home the ways in which the shows didn't really maintain continuity all that closely. If I ever get around to a Hercules/Xena rewatch, I'll want to do that in broadcast order too, because there were a lot of crossovers and shared character threads that make the most sense in release order. (I would've liked to do The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman in at least roughly broadcast order as well, but Netflix stubbornly refuses to get seasons 3 and up of 6M$M and my library doesn't have them either.)

 

[Forbin]

I guess alternating Buffy/Angel for those 2 seasons would recreate the experience we had watching them first-run, and give you a good lock on the crossovers. Someone put up a guide to the crossovers at the time the shows came to DVD, and my wife and I found it very useful, so we didn't miss any.

Watching all of Buffy and all of angel WILL lead to confusion when there are crossovers.

The daylight thing: Joss said he liked to always have a ray of sunlight in the room when Angel was in a scene, to juxtapose his darkness with the light. Or maybe to emphasize his longing for redemption, symbolized by the sun. Or something like that.

Show quality (a totally subjective subject):
I loved Buffy in varying degrees, with season 7 being my least liked (IIRC, Joss was absent, the other writers were screwing up the characters). I wasn't too happy with S5 or 6 either, but they were better than the depressing S7.
Angel was great for the first two seasons, then got stupid and annoying. IMHO.

 

[Christopher]

^I thought it was season 6 that was the most Whedon-free and the most depressing, and that season 7 was considered somewhat of an improvement.