Classic Review: Angel 1x01, "City Of"

Full disclosure up front: I am not a fan of season 1 of this show. Like almost all of Joss Whedon's shows,Firefly being the strong, strong exception, the show takes time to find its footing. I really believe that he and fellow creator David Greenwalt just really, really wanted David Boreanaz and the character of Angel to have a spinoff.
They didn't quite know where to go from there. I think a lot of shows start off in similar fashion:

Creator X: This is a great idea!

Creator Y: Yes it is! Now what do we do with it?

Creator X: I haven’t the slightest idea!

Whedon and Greenwalt appear to have found themselves in such a predicament, so the show starts off as sort of a detective procedural. If the detective is a 243 year old vampire with a soul, trying to atone for centuries of ugly death.

 Did you know Josh Holloway from Lost is in this episode? He's one of the vampires Angel kills at the bar in the teaser. I love it when fandoms collide. 

Moving on! I love the little subversions that Whedon likes to use. We open on Angel, drunk in a bar. He's obviously talking about Buffy:

"She was a really, really pretty girl. No she, she was a hottie girl. She, she had - I mean - her hair was... You know? - -You kind of remind me of her. Because, because – you know – the hair. I mean – the hair."

Boreanaz plays this very well, and he plays the turn when he gets to be the hero and save the girl even better. I love the action sequence here, and those sleeve stakes remain some of the coolest props ever.

I might never mention it again, but I adore the opening credits of this show, and Darling Violetta's theme, "Sanctuary (Theme From Angel)". It remains one of my favorite theme songs ever; haunting and gorgeous and incredibly fitting for this show, even in the beginning.

How does Angel not hear Doyle when he enters the room? I heard it about 5 seconds before he came into frame. (Oh, Glenn Quinn. Don't do drugs, kids.)

I love Doyle's retelling of Angel's life, or unlife, as it were. Here, I'll reproduce it for you in full:

"Once upon a time there was a vampire. And he was the meanest vampire in all the land.  All the other vampires were afraid of him, he was such a - bastard. Then one day he’s cursed – by gypsies. They restore his human soul. And all of a sudden he is mad with guilt. You know: ‘What have I done?’ You know, he’s freaked."

Angel: "Okay. Now I’m sleepy."

Doyle: "Yeah, well, it’s a fairly dull tale. It needs a little sex, is my feeling. So sure enough: enter the girl. Pretty little blonde thing, (whistles) Vampire Slayer by trade. And our vampire falls madly in love with her.  Eventually the two of them, - well, they get fleshy with one another. Well, I guess the technical term is perfect happiness. But when our boy gets there,  he goes bad again. He kills again. It’s ugly. So when he gets his soul back for the second time, he figures hey, he can’t be any where near Miss young puppy eyes without endangering them both. So what does he do? He takes off. Goes to LA.  To fight evil - and atone for his crimes. He’s a shadow, - a faceless champion of the hapless human race. – Say you wouldn’t have a beer of any kind in here, would you?" 

So, Doyle comes in with his Irish accent and his adorableness, and basically tells Angel "You're going to eat one of your damsels in distress one day if you don't start forming some sort of connection to humanity." Angel, as usual, looks dumbfounded and confused by this notion. Because the last time he formed human connections...well, that didn't work out so well, now did it?

And now we come to the introduction of what is without question the crux of the show's beginning, and one of the most important elements of the series as a whole, which is the visions. I'll let Doyle explain who they come from and what they're about:

"I’m honestly not sure. They don’t speak to me direct. I get - visions. Which is to say great splitting migraines that come with pictures. A name – a face. I don’t know who sends them. I just know whoever sends them is more powerful than me or you, and they're just trying to make things right."

So Doyle comes to give Angel his first mission: Tina, a waitress in a coffee shop. That's literally all Doyle gives him to go on, the name of the waitress and where she works. And that she's pretty and in trouble.

When Angel gets there...well, we understand why he says he's not good with people. It is disastrous, and Angel is awkward and really, really screws it up. But she allows him a meeting when he bats those pretty eyes. It's obvious that this girl is in some sort of trouble, though, as she mistakes him for somebody working for a man named Russell. But Angel finally remembers at least SOME of his people skills, and we get this: 

Angel: "I don’t know anyone named Russell."
Tina: "You’re lying."
Angel: "No I’m not."
Tina: "Then why were you watching me?"
Angel: "Because you looked lonely. - And I figured that we have something in common."

It's a great example of Angel trying to find some common ground with someone, anyone. Angel's a very solitary character; even when he was with Buffy it sometimes felt like he wasn't all there. And it's nice to see him begin to draw out a little bit. It doesn't hurt that David Boreanaz actually sells the emotion here, which he didn't always quite land for me in Buffy. 

Tina says she's having relationship issues and just wants to go home to Montana. We get the feeling that Russell is a very bad boyfriend. She has the typical story, really. "I came here to be a famous movie star. They weren't hiring." It's a very stereotypical Los Angeles story, which makes sense because I'm sure the creators wanted to make sure to establish the different setting from the parent show.

The party scene is very fun, as Angel is approached by an agent who gives him his card and proceeds to hit on him and announce his relationship with a landscape architect in the same breath. And then...enter Cordelia Chase, the only regular cast member from Buffy to make a full-time leap over to Angel. Cordelia's arc on Angel is one of my favorites in all of television and I will probably be talking about her at great length in the months to come.

Cordelia is very much the same character at the series' outset that she was on BtVS, set on being an actress and covering up what we find out is very typical LA living arrangements by saying she's staying in a condo on the beach in Malibu. Even though she and Angel were never particularly close, she still feels the need to make him think her life is better than it actually is. Oh Cordy.

Well, it was nice seeing you, but I've got to get mingly. I really should be talking to people that *are* somebody.

I also love Angel's response, to himself, after she walks away: "It's nice to see that she's grown as a person." Just you wait, buddy.

In the fight/car chase scene that follows with Russell's goons, who've nabbed Tina, we come to see an important element of Angel's character: he won't kill a human if he doesn't have very good reason to. But the scene itself isn't too important, it's just more setup.

Setup for what? Why, for this scene between Tina and Angel in Angel's apartment, that's what! We finally get to hear a little more about this Russell guy, who "likes pain. He talks about it like it's a friend of his.". Do you see the writing on the wall yet? 

So Angel gets confirmation that Russell is a murderer (he killed Tina's friend), and Tina chooses that moment to..well, look on the counter in front of her and see the note Doyle gave Angel with Tina's information on it. She runs from him, out into the sunlight, and when Angel tries to follow his shirtsleeve catches on fire and he morphs into vamp face. Seeing this, she understandably freaks, and hightails it out of there. Good acting in that scene from guest star Tracy Middendorf. 

And we get more in the next scene, in Tina's apartment. Russell has found her, of course, and after he tells her that of course he didn't kill anyone and blah blah blah, and when she tells him she wants to go home, he says "Done." She tells him about Angel and how "he turned into something. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen". So, predictably, Russell vamps out too and drains her. There's a nice cut to Angel, looking devastated as he stares at her dead body on the floor.

Angel meets up with Doyle and tasks him with helping him track down Stacy, the man who abducted Tina from the party. He never got Russell's last name, so it's not like he can look in the phone book for Stacy's boss, so this makes sense. Doyle, of course, tries to push Angel to talk about how he failed with Tina, which leads to this beautiful bit of Whedonesque dialogue:

Angel: "Doyle, I don’t want to share my feelings, I don’t want to open up. I want to find Russell and I want to look him in the eye."

Doyle: "Then what?"

Angel: "Then I’m going to share my feelings."

And then we cut to Russell's BEAUTIFUL mansion, they put such an emphasis on the beautiful pool and the sunlight reflecting off of the house. Only for us to cut again, and we're in a heavily curtained room where Russell is meeting with his lawyer, another of my favorite characters, Lindsey McDonald (played by Christian Kane, here a bit green and unsure what to do with himself). He works for Wolfram and Hart, a law firm. An eeeeeviiiiiiilll law firm. Russell wants Cordy, blah blah predictablecakes.

It's been a while since I've seen this episode, and I'd forgotten how generally...unJossian it feels. Whedon has a very distinct style and a very distinct voice, and aside from that line and a couple later on, and certainly a few of the directorial choices (that iconic scene at the end of the teaser, which would remain a staple of the opening credits throughout the shows run.), it really doesn't feel like one of his episodes. Even though it is, as he gets sole writer/director credit. 

There's another cute scene here that establishes more of Angel's sense of history -- he tells Doyle he's seen 14 wars "not including Vietnam - they never declared it".

I love how quickly Cordelia gets that Russell is a vampire -- she's a Sunnydale gal, after all. And she's great in her first scenes in the mansion with him. Charisma Carpenter is really good at playing bright and bubbly while also conveying that she's scared shitless.

And I love her joy when Angel rides in to the rescue, stepping out of the shadows like some vampiric Batman...Vampman? Anyway, it gives Charisma Carpenter a chance to deliver this:

"You don’t know who he is, do you? Oh, boy! You are about to get your ass kicked!"

Yes, this show was funny, right from the beginning. Witness Doyle driving that beautiful car right into the gate and being completely flabbergasted when it doesn't budge an inch.

I don't know how Angel tracks Russell down so fast, but I'm glad he did, because, speaking of the show being funny, we get this:

Russell: "But you’re a civilized man. We don’t have to go around attacking each other. Look at me: I pay my taxes. I keep my name out of the paper, and I don’t make waves. And in return I can so anything I want!"

Angel: "Really. Hmm. Can you fly?" 

For 2000, the SFX of Russell immolating as he falls out of that building holds up surprisingly well.

And here we get a bit of the show's mission statement and premise moving forward, even as the other episodes in this part of the run are standalone. Cordelia tells Angel he should charge people for saving their lives, and hire her to work for him. Of course, it's "just temporary" for her. And then Doyle and Angel finish us up for the hour with a conversation that, as I said, is a bit of the mission statement:

Doyle: "You know there’s a lot of people in this city that need helping."

Angel: "Hmm. So I noticed."

Doyle: "You game?"

Cut to nighttime LA superimposed over their faces. Cut to Angel looking out over the city.

Angel: "I’m game." 

It's been a long time since I've watched that episode, and the first time I've ever blogged about ANY television beyond quick entries on LiveJournal. I hope you guys enjoyed rewatching, or watching for the first time, with me. If you have any *constructive* criticism or comments, I would love to hear it.

So, for the first time on Let's Talk TV...what did everyone else think?