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

[Evil Robert]

I did an Angel marathon a couple of years back. It was the first time since I watched Seasons 1-4 since their original airings (I didn't actually get the chance to watch Season 5 (other then the finale) until that marathon - 'cause real life et cetera completely killed any quality television viewing times in 2003-2004)

Spoiler: Spoilers for Season 4 of Angel

The funny things is with Season 4 I remember enjoying it a lot more during its original airing then I did in repeat. In the original airing I recall most of us where on the edge of our seats week to week (I had some epic chats with Top41), but watching it straight through on DVD completely killed it.

I remember all those massive conversations on this board about all the fan theories and spoilers and all that jazz. It was quiet an addicting season at that point even though history hasn't been kind on it.

I do remember we there where some WTF moments that where called out - like the Cordy/Connor stuff which was considered squicky at the time. Hell even the minor stuff like Fred (in one episode) managed to get a new haircut and styling in the middle of the apocalypse!

Still the overall storylines in the season where not bad in concept, actual execution could be better.

I think season 4 suffers from the sum of the parts being enjoyable but when put together as a whole, just didn't work. Possibly due to various elements having to be rewritten at the last minute due to Charisma Carpenters' pregnancy - IIRC Cordy (via entity that piggied back with her) was suppose to be what became the Jasmine role - thus Charisma playing the role instead of the need to hire Gina Torres)

I still consider "Inside Out" to be one of my favourite Buffyverse episodes ever, tying in events - as far back as Buffy Season 3 - into the main plot.

I dunno, I want to defend Season 4 due to those good memories back in 2002-2003, but I just can't either...

 

[RoJoHen]

Season 4 has a few different story arcs that work really well if you don't think too much about how they're supposed to fit together.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

So they have Spike killing people again. Don't know if it's an expectation reversal like he chooses to be evil even with the soul or if it's some kind of doppleganger misdirect. That was a great episode though with Buffy being psychoanalyzed by a vampire.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Spike is "under the influence." Remember earlier in the season he was kind of crazy? He's not in the best emotional state right now, and the First is taking advantage of it.

"Conversations..." is a great episode. Originally Joss wanted Amber Benson to return and talk with Willow but she felt that it would have been cruel to the fans for Tara to appear as the First and tell Willow to kill herself. So she declined and they brought back Azura Skye.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Is the First the same villain who appeared in season three and wasn't followed up? The one who tried to get Angel to kill Buffy and then try to sun burn himself?

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Yes.

The First Of All Evil is tired of sending it's lackeys to do it's bidding and is now taking the fight directly to the Slayer.

 

[gblews]

That was a great episode though with Buffy being psychoanalyzed by a vampire.

One of my favorite Buffy bits. The guy that played the vamp was perfect in the role. He was completely believable as a psychologist and also as a blood sucking fiend. Very droll performance.

Spike is "under the influence." Remember earlier in the season he was kind of crazy? He's not in the best emotional state right now, and the First is taking advantage of it.

Spoiler (for the thread starter)...

 

[Evil Robert]

"Conversations With Dead People" also had one of my favourite meta references in the Buffyverse - in the passing mention that Buffy's high school rebound boyfriend Scott Hope was gay (at that point Fab Filippo who played Scott was starring on "Queer as Folk").

Buffy didn't really do a lot of meta references, I think mainly due to Joss's writing style going more towards more witty quips and one-liners.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

^ I wonder if he and Larry ever had a secret love affair?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't remember Larry dying, was he one of the ones eaten by the Mayor?

I wonder why they went four years in between introducing The Evil and having it show its face again. Was Wheadon holding onto it for when he knew it was the last season?

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Like I said before, the First sent it's lackeys, meaning all the demons and monsters every Slayer has had to face up until now, to rid the world of good, and they have all failed.

I imagine that's what he was planning to do. Season 7 is all about the show coming full-circle.

I don't remember Larry's fate but I just thought that maybe they had a fling back in high school. I don't know. Just a thought.

 

[Christopher]

I wonder why they went four years in between introducing The Evil and having it show its face again. Was Wheadon holding onto it for when he knew it was the last season?

Most shows aren't planned out from start to finish. Maybe an individual season will have an arc worked out, but they generally come up with each season's plan one at a time. And there's a lot of improvisation too -- trying things out, seeing what works and what doesn't, adjusting as you go. When they did the initial "First Evil" episode, they probably had no idea whether or when they would return to it; it was just one of the many ideas they tried out along the way. The idea of going back to it as the ultimate Big Bad probably occurred to them considerably later on. If they'd actually had a solid plan all along to reuse the First, then we would've seen more mentions of it in between, seen its presence gradually build up. The fact that we heard nothing about it for three or more years suggests to me that they didn't settle on it as the final villain until fairly late in the game.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In season 3 it seemed like The Evil was going to be the big bad of that season. Buffy isn't Stargate, if an enemy survives an episode it probably means they specifically meant to use them again.

Do they retcon it so every single villain was ordered by the Evil? I hope it's not that simple. I'd buy subtly manipulating them to show up in Sunnydale, but if it was explicitly giving them orders it kind of diminishes them.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

I don't know for certain. It was more or less a theory.

 

[Evil Robert]

I never took the First Evil manipulating everything for four years to get to its own crescendo in 7th season. I just assume everything evil has a small part of the First Evil in it anyway, but not anything as far as manipulation on an epic scale.

Spoiler: I don't know how far along the original poster is, but some mid Angel S4 season spoilage

Considering at the exact same time on Angel, the powers surrounding the rebirth of Jasmine where telling the exact same storyline of manipulating all the events and actions surrent Angel and company over the past several seasons to get to the moment of Jasmine returning - I don't think anybody would be keen on the exact same plot ploy playing out on two shows at the same time

 

[Christopher]

In season 3 it seemed like The Evil was going to be the big bad of that season. Buffy isn't Stargate, if an enemy survives an episode it probably means they specifically meant to use them again.

No, it means they wanted the option to use them again. The makers of a show don't know in advance what ideas or character dynamics will resonate with audiences, or what scripts will turn out successfully rather than fizzling, so they try out a range of possibilities and see what clicks. They'll test out a bunch of potential recurring villains and develop the ones that work while letting the others fall by the wayside. They'll set up a range of possible romantic beats between different characters, then develop whichever pairing between actors proves to have the most chemistry, even if it's not the one they anticipated (which is why Arrow's Oliver Queen ended up with Felicity Smoak rather than Black Canary, and why Felicity was promoted from occasional guest star to series regular).

A lot of fans these days like to believe that showrunners somehow have every last detail of the entire run of the series planned out before the series even begins, but that would be an incredibly foolish and disastrous way to make a show. Nobody can know in advance what will work or what will fizzle out once it's actually shot and edited and aired. Nobody can predict every shift of circumstance like an actor's departure or an actress's pregnancy or a romantic-chemistry failure or a bit character developing a huge fan following. Or a writer simply hitting on a great new idea that didn't occur to them three or five years earlier. So a good plan is one that's flexible, that has a lot of possible directions built into it. Not just one fixed path from start to finish, but a set of branching possibilities and different routes for getting to whatever key points you consider essential.

 

[Forbin]

"Okay, I get it, you're EE-vil!"

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In season 3 it seemed like The Evil was going to be the big bad of that season. Buffy isn't Stargate, if an enemy survives an episode it probably means they specifically meant to use them again.

No, it means they wanted the option to use them again. The makers of a show don't know in advance what ideas or character dynamics will resonate with audiences, or what scripts will turn out successfully rather than fizzling, so they try out a range of possibilities and see what clicks. They'll test out a bunch of potential recurring villains and develop the ones that work while letting the others fall by the wayside. They'll set up a range of possible romantic beats between different characters, then develop whichever pairing between actors proves to have the most chemistry, even if it's not the one they anticipated (which is why Arrow's Oliver Queen ended up with Felicity Smoak rather than Black Canary, and why Felicity was promoted from occasional guest star to series regular).

A lot of fans these days like to believe that showrunners somehow have every last detail of the entire run of the series planned out before the series even begins, but that would be an incredibly foolish and disastrous way to make a show. Nobody can know in advance what will work or what will fizzle out once it's actually shot and edited and aired. Nobody can predict every shift of circumstance like an actor's departure or an actress's pregnancy or a romantic-chemistry failure or a bit character developing a huge fan following. Or a writer simply hitting on a great new idea that didn't occur to them three or five years earlier. So a good plan is one that's flexible, that has a lot of possible directions built into it. Not just one fixed path from start to finish, but a set of branching possibilities and different routes for getting to whatever key points you consider essential.

In most shows, yes, hence I brought up Stargate as an example. It had several surviving enemies that seem like they should be a continuing threat and never came back again. But in Buffy, that's been very uncommon. I can't think of another example besides Drusilla and maybe some of the minor vampires like Harmony and that southern vampire who knows when to walk away. And in all those cases they have clear in character reasons why they wouldn't show up around Sunnydale. This is the only case I can think of where a villain is an obvious major threat who intends to continue to attack Buffy, survives, and doesn't come back. It's a rare case for Buffy that a baddie survives the end of an episode and doesn't show up again.

I'm considering dropping the chronological view at this point. Are there any more crossovers or cases where you need to know something in one show to understand something that happens in another? I'm thinking of just finishing Buffy from here and then just watching Angel. These episode ending cliffhangers are getting ridiculous, like blacking out right when somebody is swinging an axe directly at Giles' head.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

In most shows, yes, hence I brought up Stargate as an example. It had several surviving enemies that seem like they should be a continuing threat and never came back again. But in Buffy, that's been very uncommon. I can't think of another example besides Drusilla and maybe some of the minor vampires like Harmony and that southern vampire who knows when to walk away. And in all those cases they have clear in character reasons why they wouldn't show up around Sunnydale. This is the only case I can think of where a villain is an obvious major threat who intends to continue to attack Buffy, survives, and doesn't come back. It's a rare case for Buffy that a baddie survives the end of an episode and doesn't show up again.

I'm considering dropping the chronological view at this point. Are there any more crossovers or cases where you need to know something in one show to understand something that happens in another? I'm thinking of just finishing Buffy from here and then just watching Angel. These episode ending cliffhangers are getting ridiculous, like blacking out right when somebody is swinging an axe directly at Giles' head.

Regarding returning baddies... spoilers!!!

And for dropping the alternating episodes.? Definitely stick with it. Some of the most major crossovers are yet to come.
I am not sure if they were released in perfect synchrony, but you should watch them in release order to be specific.

 

[RoJoHen]

Actually, yeah, this is a pretty important season to watch them chronologically. There's some pretty serious crossover stuff about to happen.