Angel 4.6 "Spin the Bottle"
Nov. 10th, 2002 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hermionesviolinNot as good as “Tabula Rasa,” but apparently just as funny because i was cracking up so much.
I have continuity issues, though. The spell cut off their memories at random places. Not pre-meeting each other. Not pre-meeting Cordelia. Not pre-Hellmouth. Angel was pre-vampire. Wesley was still in Watcher Academy. Yes it made for the funny, but i was annoyed. [Okay, looking at the episode summary, i see “Cordy, Angel, Wesley, Gunn and Fred revert to their teenage personas.” Okay, i’ll buy that.]
Second annoyance (or really the first, since of course one notices this before all the details): Could Joss please stop ripping himself off? BtVS S7 is “back to the beginning” which somehow gives them license to rip off all their old plotlines (“Help” = “Reptile Boy,” “Him” = “Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered”) and Angel has already ripped off Buffy (“Waiting in the Wings” last season ripping off BtVS S2 “I Only Have Eyes for You”). What happened to the Joss who said an animated series taking place back in high school would be no problem because he still has lots of stories to tell?
And last annoyance: What was up with the frame? Lorne telling the story was unnecessary and even at the end we saw no reason for it. At the end we see he’s talking to an empty club, which is uber-weird, and he must have been talking to the viewer to reference the literal flashback (“I know I’m still unconscious during this part, but look at those mooks” -- and actually that means he’s not even speaking in character, since as he said he was unconscious). So yeah, any word from Joss on what the point is of that?
Okay, now onto the random notes.
“Hello, salty goodness.” Shout out to Season 1! (It’s what Cordy says of Angel when she first sees him.)
“homoerotic buddy-cop drama” Shout out to every slasher and her cousin.
[Oh, and uber-geek girl did indeed look up "pugilist" after the episode. It means "someone who fights with his fists for sport; boxer."]
Major backstory to Fred. She was a total pothead. Didn’t see that one coming. The government conspiracy theorist i totally buy, though. And damn Wesley wants her. I think they overplayed the naive, even for young Fred, though. I mean, she was talking about her “naked helpless body” and all that in a tone where you think she must see the obvious double-entendre, but we see no evidence that she does.
“Fathers: don’t they suck.” It was cute the mirroring of Liam and Connor, but also, in Joss’s world, they seriously do.
Buffy: absentee
Willow: scary Jewish conservative
Xander: alcoholic and emotionally if not physically abusive
Tara: lied to her and told her that her mother and her magic were evil
Cordelia: cheated on his taxes, ruining his family when the IRS caught him
Wesley: from the hints we’ve been given, has high (perhaps unattainable) expectations for his son and is also perhaps abusive
No one else has any parents mentioned at all, except for Fred’s well-meaning parents. But they can’t be a part of her world. Only positive father-figure in the whole Whedonverse is Giles.
But i’m digressing.
Handy that Cordy didn’t get a vision until she got her memory back so we wouldn’t be burdened with plot tangents.
They were in love, huh? Boo. I’m still feeling that they’re not gonna continue the A/C loveline (with the emphasis on the were when Cordy answered him -- bastard, by the way, for asking her that when she was so obviously traumatized and fragile) but maybe i’m just delusional. We shall see.
Next week = “Apocalypse, Nowish” Hmm.
Speaking of episode titles, it’s interesting looking at the titles in advance and seeing what changes. Like tonight’s was originally “Dark Lucidity” (according to Psyche) and this week’s Buffy, titled “Conversations With Dead People” is “Don’t Look Down” there.
I have continuity issues, though. The spell cut off their memories at random places. Not pre-meeting each other. Not pre-meeting Cordelia. Not pre-Hellmouth. Angel was pre-vampire. Wesley was still in Watcher Academy. Yes it made for the funny, but i was annoyed. [Okay, looking at the episode summary, i see “Cordy, Angel, Wesley, Gunn and Fred revert to their teenage personas.” Okay, i’ll buy that.]
Second annoyance (or really the first, since of course one notices this before all the details): Could Joss please stop ripping himself off? BtVS S7 is “back to the beginning” which somehow gives them license to rip off all their old plotlines (“Help” = “Reptile Boy,” “Him” = “Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered”) and Angel has already ripped off Buffy (“Waiting in the Wings” last season ripping off BtVS S2 “I Only Have Eyes for You”). What happened to the Joss who said an animated series taking place back in high school would be no problem because he still has lots of stories to tell?
And last annoyance: What was up with the frame? Lorne telling the story was unnecessary and even at the end we saw no reason for it. At the end we see he’s talking to an empty club, which is uber-weird, and he must have been talking to the viewer to reference the literal flashback (“I know I’m still unconscious during this part, but look at those mooks” -- and actually that means he’s not even speaking in character, since as he said he was unconscious). So yeah, any word from Joss on what the point is of that?
Okay, now onto the random notes.
“Hello, salty goodness.” Shout out to Season 1! (It’s what Cordy says of Angel when she first sees him.)
“homoerotic buddy-cop drama” Shout out to every slasher and her cousin.
[Oh, and uber-geek girl did indeed look up "pugilist" after the episode. It means "someone who fights with his fists for sport; boxer."]
Major backstory to Fred. She was a total pothead. Didn’t see that one coming. The government conspiracy theorist i totally buy, though. And damn Wesley wants her. I think they overplayed the naive, even for young Fred, though. I mean, she was talking about her “naked helpless body” and all that in a tone where you think she must see the obvious double-entendre, but we see no evidence that she does.
“Fathers: don’t they suck.” It was cute the mirroring of Liam and Connor, but also, in Joss’s world, they seriously do.
Buffy: absentee
Willow: scary Jewish conservative
Xander: alcoholic and emotionally if not physically abusive
Tara: lied to her and told her that her mother and her magic were evil
Cordelia: cheated on his taxes, ruining his family when the IRS caught him
Wesley: from the hints we’ve been given, has high (perhaps unattainable) expectations for his son and is also perhaps abusive
No one else has any parents mentioned at all, except for Fred’s well-meaning parents. But they can’t be a part of her world. Only positive father-figure in the whole Whedonverse is Giles.
But i’m digressing.
Handy that Cordy didn’t get a vision until she got her memory back so we wouldn’t be burdened with plot tangents.
They were in love, huh? Boo. I’m still feeling that they’re not gonna continue the A/C loveline (with the emphasis on the were when Cordy answered him -- bastard, by the way, for asking her that when she was so obviously traumatized and fragile) but maybe i’m just delusional. We shall see.
Next week = “Apocalypse, Nowish” Hmm.
Speaking of episode titles, it’s interesting looking at the titles in advance and seeing what changes. Like tonight’s was originally “Dark Lucidity” (according to Psyche) and this week’s Buffy, titled “Conversations With Dead People” is “Don’t Look Down” there.