Courting Controversy

There is something I feel I must get off my chest. Confession can be therapeutic; perhaps more so in such a public setting as this blog. This particular secret is a murky one indeed, one I have hitherto been unable to communicate to any but my closest intimates. I lie awake at nights wondering if I am fundamentally a bad person. I hope very much that you can all help me get through this dark time, but first I really feel I must tell you the terrible truth: I prefer Angel to Buffy.

"How can this be?" you undoubtedly cry. Well, it's down to the fact that, though one was derived from the other, Angel and Buffy are two notably different programmes. The former is based more on long arcs (often based around individual characters who influence the plot: Darla, Holtz, Lindsey and Connor, for instance) while the latter is somewhat more episodic. This is not always the case, of course; Seasons Five and Seven of Buffy are more like Angel seasons, in that they have several episodes devoted to a season-long arc. Similarly, Season One of Angel is more episodic than the others; it's also by far my least favourite of the five seasons, despite a few standout episodes. This means that Angel is in some ways more consistent than Buffy; it doesn't have peaks and troughs in the same manner as its predecessor. This means it's easier to name, say, ten standout episodes of Buffy than of Angel, but also means that, on average, Angel's quality is a little higher.

In addition to this generally higher standard, Angel also tends to be notably darker than its parent show. Now, this is very much a matter of taste, but generally I tend to prefer darker tones ('Empire Strikes Back' as opposed to 'A New Hope'; 'Temple of Doom' as opposed to 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. One notable exception is that I don't consider Torchwood to be better than Doctor Who, but then again few things are). As an example of the darker tone, let's have a look at the last few episodes of Angel's third season (spoilers ahoy, of course). Angel's long-lost son returns from a hell dimension, makes a friend who then dies from an overdose, goes all Mr. Blonde on a drug dealer, is led to believe that his foster father has been killed by Angel (by said foster father, who is quite happy to die just to get in Angel's way), entraps his real father and lowers him into the ocean. Meanwhile, Cordelia breaks up with the Groosalugg and gets assumed up into Heaven (the two events aren't connected. I think.), Wesley growls and glares while being offered jobs by Wolfram and Hart and the always-entertaining Lorne heads for Las Vegas. In short, bad things abound for all and sundry (except the audience). Buffy certainly got dark (at the same time as all this was being aired, on another channel Buffy had just finished having rough sex with Spike, Xander had just left Anya at the altar and Tara had just gotten in the way of a stray bullet, causing Willow to go dark-haired and torture-happy), but Angel just took that darkness to crazy levels. After all, Joss Whedon isn't exactly known for happy endings.

Angel also features one of the most beloved characters in the Whedonverse, who has numerous essays and even a whole blog dedicated to his remarkable character arc. Though he appeared first in Season Three of Buffy, he was a bumbling authoritarian fool then; on Angel, he developed into a hardened, embittered warrior. This character is, of course, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Everyone seems to identify with Wesley; from his early bumbling good intentions to losing the girl he loves to a friend to his impossible decision over the baby Connor in the middle of Season Three. In my own case, it doesn't hurt that we look fairly alike. In any case, Wesley is my favourite character in the entire Whedonverse. Added to this, Season Five sees the arrival of one of my other favourites, and the most popular character in Buffy: Spike. Spike adds a whole new dynamic to the series; his sly digs at Angel are a joy to watch, while he also happens to be one of the coolest characters imaginable, with his long leather coat, slicked-back hair, wry wit and handy way in a fight. Though both of these characters originated on Buffy, the versions we see on Angel are different, more developed and arguably better. Besides, Wesley is in exactly 100 episodes of Angel, compared to 9 of Buffy, and a higher level of Alexis Denisof automatically makes anything better. It's science.

Good ol' Spike

Most TV programmes settle into a pattern somewhere in their first season. It may change around somewhat, but as a rule it stays vaguely recognisable. Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt, Tim Minear and others, however, laugh at such petty conformity to patterns while simultaneously throwing rulebooks out the window. Angel established a pattern in the first series – Angel takes in a client, usually a young woman, who is having demon troubles; Cordelia/Doyle has a vision involving said troubles; someone (generally Wesley) finds out about the demon and finally Angel kills it by beating it or glowering at it. There are some exceptions (particularly the standout 'Five by Five'/'Sanctuary' two-parter), but in general the episodes conform to this pattern. After this, however, the laughter and flinging of books commenced; it's very difficult to attribute a pattern to Angel from Season Two onwards. After a certain point, Angel Investigations barely even seems to be a detective agency anymore, what with all the woes of the staff. The real genius, however, comes with Season Five, where the entire programme is completely turned on its head, with Angel and company being given control of Wolfram and Hart, their (im)mortal enemies. The following season is a masterpiece of self-doubt, both exacerbated and punctuated by the addition of Spike; it's my favourite season of Angel. Admittedly, Buffy took pride in breaking up patterns as well, but it never really turned the entire programme on its head in the same way as Season Five of Angel.

A crucial part of Season Five's appeal is, oddly enough, the fact that the programme was cancelled at the end, leading directly to the wonderful ending – "Let's get to work". This means that, unlike the closed, resolved (albeit more or less note perfect) ending of Buffy, Angel ends with the promise of more, as it were. The After the Fall comic series continues the story from where the TV series left off, and proves that Season Six could have been spectacular. Yet even though After the Fall was co-plotted by Joss Whedon and is canonical, the fact remains that Angel the series has an open ending; every fan is left to conjure up their own theory of what happened to Angel, Spike, Gunn and Illyria in that alley. It resembles another television ending I greatly admire; namely that of Life On Mars, in which Sam Tyler's story is resolved, but the question of what happened to him is left tantalisingly unanswered (until the disappointing answer is unwisely revealed in Ashes to Ashes, of course). At first glance, the ending might seem frustrating, but the openness is the beauty of it; the fight never ends for these characters, and the ending emphasised that.

So, in short, I do consider Angel to be a more accomplished programme than Buffy. That said, of course, the latter is my second-favourite TV programme, so the distinction doesn't really count for that much. I do have the odd reservation with it, and there are episodes I'm not a huge fan of (what kind of sci-fi/fantasy fan would I be otherwise?), but in general I do consider it to be the best thing on TV. After all, name me one other dark, noirish fantasy series featuring an episode where the main character gets turned into a puppet and fights evil demon puppets who have taken over a children's programme? Exactly.

Clinching Proof