[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by hayley

I thought the ep "Shiny Happy People" where Jasmine first starts taking over the world with her joy was great.

Is that the one that begins with Fred running through LA searching for safety while "Wouldn't It Be Nice" plays? I love that scene.

I think my favorite arc on Angel was the fall of Wesley, and the Wesley/Lilah relationship. I loved seeing Wesley's darker side there.

Yes yes yes. Great stuff, and Mr. Denisof did an amazing job portraying it.

I really feel like the sixth and seventh season had so many missed opportunities, so many weird characterizations, and so many other problems, but it didn't really bother me as much as most- probably because I came to the show late and didn't have to suffer through it as it was playing in real time. I love certain things about those seasons- episodes like Fool for Love, Conversations with Dead People, Once More With Feeling, Tabula Rasa, Storyteller. I loved the Trio. I loved the IDEA of the First Evil, I just hated the execution and the screwups.

Again, yes yes yes, and I too love each of those individual episodes that you mentioned.

The strange about watching season six in "real time": I didn't dislike it so much at the time. The first part of the season had been so strong, that when the bad episodes started, I forgave them somewhat and figured they were just a hiccup, and things would get back on track soon. And then there were some individual episodes that gave me hope. But by the summer, looking back on the season as a whole, it just seemed really disappointing. The ratio of good/great/amazing episodes to ehh/ugh episodes seemed completely reversed from previous seasons. The bar had been dropped in a big way, and while some of the seventh did bring things back up a little, it very rarely achieved the same heights that the first five seasons did so regularly. And again, a lot of that has to do with just bad, clumsy plotting and seemingly uninspired writing. (One of the things I hated most about season seven: "Ooh, wait, do you think Giles might be the First Evil? Huh? Maybe? Maybe? Ooh! Wait... Nahhhh, just kidding! Haha! Phew!" What the hell was the point of that?)

I will also be ambivalent until the end of days about giving Spike a soul, but still having Buffy treat him like a subhuman. Either let him keep his soul (and his balls) and never have Buffy, or give him his soul, take his balls, and let him be a man Buffy can and will be with. Don't neuter him and then not even reward him in the end. It ticks me off a little.

Yeah, Spike's story just got too muddled and compromised in the end. I think a large part of this is that there was no real consensus among a lot of the writers about what attitude to take towards him, whether he would ultimately be good or remain inherently evil, how to portray him, where to go with his "soul-searching," etc. (I don't even remember, how did Spike get his soul? He skipped town at one point towards the end of season six, right? And then suddenly was back and kind of insane at the beginning of season seven, and had a soul for some reason?)

I'm glad to hear you like Andrew, Jyqm. So many hate him, and I love him.

I always found him entertaining, and I really liked the "Trio" for most of that season.

Question: As someone who watched all the seasons at once in a very short amount of time, what did you think about Jonathan as part of the trio, with such an increased role on the show? He was something of a cult favorite for long time during the second and third seasons, with his rather sparse appearances, almost always in danger or just being nerdy and off to the side for a very brief scene, and then I think fan reaction to his becoming a prominent "villain" was very mixed.

Random memory: Those damned Columbine kids really screwed up the ending of season three. The episode "Earshot" was never aired until the end of that summer, right before season four started, and the third season finale wasn't aired until several weeks after it was supposed to be, and then it was edited to cut down on a lot of the violence. It aired uncut and on time in Canada, though, so the episode became very heavily traded online during those few weeks.