Customer Reviews

Angel: Season Three

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Warning: Lots of spoilers.

Season Three of Angel remains, in many ways, my favorite of the show's run. The shows are persistently good, but if I had to put my finger on a specific reason I like it so much, it is that the cast meshes together perfectly. By the end of the season, there would be major--at the time seemingly impossible to mend--rifts between some of the members of Angel Investigations, but the core group was the best to date. Angel, restored to the group as their spiritual if not technical leader, has recovered his sense of purpose. Cordy (whose presence is missed mightily in the Fifth Season--I hope she and Joss Whedon patch up their differences and work her back into the show where she belongs--Note: their differences, apart from the official rhetoric, apparently revolving around her leaving the show for a few episodes near the end of this season, and her delayed announcement of her real-life pregnancy in Season Four, causing significantly rewriting--my gut feeling is that she will be back after a period of "punishment") has completely accepted her role as the contact to the Powers That Be, and both works hard at becoming a more important member of the team and manages to work a compromise to deal with the extraordinary physical toll the visions are taking on her (by becoming part demon--a gigantic step that one could hardly imagine the Cordelia of the first three years of Buffy making). Wesley and Gunn are both taken by the new resident of Hotel Angel, Winifred aka Fred, the scientifically brilliant but psychologically traumatized young woman they had rescued from Pylea. And finally, Lorne, formerly known as The Host, moves in when his karaoke bar has to close. It is a great group, and the interaction between all of them is extraordinary. And the romance! Well, the potential of romance. Fred is initially smitten with Angel, her rescuer. Wes and Gunn gradually fall in love with Fred. And Cordy and Angel are both quite obviously growing closer and closer to one another.

Against this background of interpersonal relationships, Angel unexpectedly becomes a father. Darla, with whom he had had sex in Season Two in a futile attempt to lose his soul, returns to LA, in an exceedingly pregnant state, all the more remarkable for the fact that vampires cannot reproduce sexually (they reproduce through that biting thing). The result is a cute baby Angel dubs Connor, which is all well and good until he is kidnapped and taken to a demon dimension, where he grows up to be an uber angry, obnoxious kid bent solely on revenging himself on Angel, who he has been taught to hate by the man who kidnapped him. In the entirety of Buffy/Angel, the Connor story line might be the least popular in the history of the show. Still, it doesn't keep this from being a very good season indeed. Unlike most years of Buffy/Angel, Season Three is carried less by the season-long story arcs than by the individual episodes. There are some great shows, and many marvelous moments. The most harrowing might be the torturous decision that Wes has to make, and the enormous payment he has to pay for attempting to obey the dictates of conscience.

One of my favorite moments in the season occurs when the writers engage in one of the great in-jokes in TV history. On Season Six of Buffy, Buffy is so broke that she has to take a demeaning job slinging hamburgers and frying processed chicken product patties at a fast-food joint called Doublemeat Palace. It is probably the most biting joke at the expense of the fast-food industry in the history of TV (especially ironic given the fact that Sarah Michelle Gellar's career began as a very small child in a famous series of commercials for Burger King explicitly attacking MacDonald's). As a result of the Doublemeat Palace episodes, MacDonald's and other food outlets ceased advertising on Buffy. Meanwhile, on Angel, Wesley is researching a prophecy and is striving to solve the last piece of the puzzle. To do so, he needs to consult an idol in the shape of a statue, but when he goes to the coordinates, he sees not an imposing statue, but a personified plastic hamburger (think the Hamburgler from MacDonald's). The image of a dumb plastic hamburger person being a powerful and all knowing entity is funny enough on its own, but knowing about the conflict with the fast food industry on Angel's sister show gives the scene an entire different dimension.

The show ends on a spectacularly chaotic note. Angel, unlike Buffy, has tended to end each year with far more loose ends. Every season ends with as many questions raised as answered. Of no season closer is this truer than this year. The final episode sees Angel and Cordy, both obviously with strong feelings for one another, agreeing to meet on the beach near Malibu to "have a talk." (No mention is made about that nasty little curse afflicting Angel, which I found curious. No curse and Angel would have been back with Buffy.) But Cordy is unexpectedly called upon to become a Higher Being and ends the season by ascending into the Higher Realm, and Angel is bushwhacked by Connor and, in one of the most nightmarish moments in the show, encased in a metal cage and lowered to the bottom of the Pacific. The season started off with everyone feeling pretty good about things, but ends with Cordy no longer on Earth, Angel on the bottom of the ocean, and Wesley recovering from a near-deadly wound and utterly alienated from all his friends. And all of this sets up the utterly remarkable fourth season.

Initially, I bought the season 3 ANGEL DVDs just to keep the collection complete, not being too enthusuastic about it. I hadn't seen the whole season on TV and some of the episodes I had seen of this season, "Provider" and "Dad" just to name a couple, are among the WORST of the series, in my opinion.

That said, in retrospect, there's a lot in this season that sets things up for season 4 and for that reason, it's worth having as a reference if for no other reason.

There are also some gems here. "Loyalty", "A New World", "Lullaby" among them, Darla's touching moment of conscience before she sacrifices herself to save her son and protect him from herself, the introduction and the promise of Connor - Angel's son - to the series. I think Connor's story line went badly astray later, but there were some fine performances here.

I liked Holtz as the villian of the season, because he wasn't evil so much as misguided and fanatic... a father seeking revenge on the vampires that destroyed his family. His final revenge on Angel, to steal Angel's beloved child and turn Connor against his own father, was both poignant and heartbreakingly tragic. The three episodes following Angel's loss of Connor, his discovery of Wesley's betrayal, his attempt to kill Wesley, and tragic finale in which his hope for reconciliation in his relationship with his son are horribly dashed as Connor sinks him to the bottom of the ocean in "Tommorow" (even though Angel tells him no matter what he does, Angel will aways love him) are some of David Boreanaz's best performances.

I thought Sahjahn - the time traveling demon that brings Holtz forward in time, was a riot! His manipulations to contrive the prophesy to save his own ass was masterful.

Wolfram & Hart are both enacing and humorously inept at times. Lilah is delciously wicked, and the the start of her conflicted and twisted affair with Wesley is both unexpected and perfectly understandable.

The development of Wesley's character to the dark, tragic outcast, for believing the false prophesy and faciliting Holtz' final revenge on Angel was very well done and made Wesley one of the most interesting character of the season.

The not so good...

Although the end of the season, and Angel's reactions and interplay with Connor are excellent but... he acts like a big GOOFBALL for part of the season in a totally out of character and regressive way.

I like Angel when he's true to his mission, thoughtful, intelligent and heroic. For a large part of this season, he was completely out of character; materialistic, immature (he's 250+ years old acting like an insecure lovesick school boy) and not the smart, confident warrior and leader he always had been. Which brings me to...

Cordelia. The transformation of her character from fun, brash, down-to-earth, and vulnerable sister-figure with a heart of gold, to saintly, floaty/glowing paragon of virtue and wisdom and potential romantic interest for Angel (after years of sisterly behavior) bored and annoyed me to distraction.

All the sudden (literally), Cordelia became the wise one, the leader, the one that everyone else turned to for advice. It was almost Angel had a lobotomy whenever Cordelia was arong and his character diminished in relation to hers, and it turned me off. But what's saddest is that it made Cordelia go from a character I liked and sympathized with to one I couldn't care less about. Her final ascent in "Tommorow" was eye-roll worthy. The only saving grace here is after the disclosures of season 4, some of the otherwise improbable behaviors and events (i.e.: in "Birthday") make more sense.

A few minor details...I never bought the romantic intensity between Gunn and Fred. I didn't like Holtz's protege, Justine, and Groo, while nice to look at and a more convincing love interest for Cordelia, really is kind of pointless being in as many episodes as he is. Again, these are small details.

anyway...while season 3 was not my favorite, I'm pleased to have the DVDS and I'm enjoying them than I thought I would. There about half the episodes that I won't watch except points for later episodes, but if you're a fan of the show, I definitely recommend buying them.

We do not receive ANGEL on our swiss channels, we have to look for ANGEL on the cable. It's no where on our regular channels.. so for those who do not have the cable !!! bad luck!

The BUFFY series are (also on the cables) programmed at good time, around 8:30 pm, for ANGEL, it's at about 5:30pm.. which is a real bad timing, or most people are at work, at school...

Well it seems as if it was to make BUFFY a more popular serie than ANGEL... and it works ! As Buffy is programmed at a large diffusion time, everybody knows the Buffy serie and pretty less ANGEL.. for those who have the cable, they mostly prefer ANGEL than the Buffy which seems mostly for kids which makes it anoying to have it programmed at the larger viewers timing.

Lucky you who can watch it... we are still on season II.. snif

This season is by far the best season of Angel. There are many reasons for that, I'll go through each one individually.

The first reason is the continual story arc. I hate it when there are just a lot of stand alone episodes, like in season 1 and some of season 5. I want to watch a show where if I miss one episode, I've missed important information. I like wanting to watch the show every single week. I like being attached, and stand alone episodes just dont do that for me.

Another reason is the element of surprise. There are many episodes that are very surprising in this season. You want to know why? Because this show has excellent writers. They know how to make a jaw-dropping hour of television. I dont want to give anything away, so I'll just say the most surprising plot twists are at the end of episode 12 Waiting in the Wings, episode 19 The Price and episode 22 Tomorrow. No, wait, those episodes all had a shocking ending, but I missed about 7 episodes. The whole second half of the season is filled with cliffhangers, and I loved every minute of it.

The third reason that this season is the best is that romance is thrown back into the show. Romance had been seriously lacking on Angel. Probably because of Angel's curse and the death's and additions of characters. Something that kept me hooked this season was the triangle between Gunn Fred and Wesley. Although I was kind of disappointed with who she choose, even though her choice is also a great guy. The other romance was between Cordy and Angel. Im a Buffy/Angel shipper, but I gotta admit that Cordy and Angel just seemed so right together. Of course Joss had to throw them a couple of curve balls though. He never lets a couple on any of his shows stay happy, but it sure makes for some interesting stories.

And my final reason why this season is the best of Angel is just two words: Amy Acker. She becomes an essential member of the cast starting with the episode Fredless. She quickly became my favorite character and just like with Willow in Buffy, I found myself crying whenever she would cry, especially in Carpe Noctem. Which is a particularly funny episode, that is my favorite of the season. Amy Acker really shows her acting range as Illyria in 5th season, but she still shines in this season and practically steals the show away from everyone else. I'm so glad they brought her back from Pylea.

The special features of this season are the best of the Angel series so far. There is a screen test with Amy Acker and Vincent Kartheiser. Both in what seems are lost scenes. Well, Vincent's scene as Connor would never have happened on the show, but it was entertaining none the less. The outtakes are extremely funny, but they didnt do too good of a job with censoring the f words. The beeps were kind of off. They seemed to have at least one blooper with every cast member, unlike in the Buffy season 5 and 6 bloopers. I liked it. The deleted scenes from Waiting in the Wings and Birthday weren't that interesting. The one from Waiting in the Wings was just a dream of Wesley and Fred doing ballet and the Birthday one was just a continuation of the Cordy! theme song.

Overall, I was very satisfied with both the season and the special features. You'll be making a mistake if you dont go out and buy this right now.

Angel Season Three was one of the best of the stellar show's five seasons. While it wasn't quite the best (wait for fall 2004 and the release of the season 4 DVD and you'll see what i mean), but it did mark the show's divergence from the shadow of its sister show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It also shifted the focus from the more stand-alone episodes of the previous two seasons to the more structured storyline that would continue into the excellent fourth season.

The season opens with Heartthrob, an episode that has Angel dealing with the death of Buffy, as well as facing an old friend from his demonic past, who returns as an enemy out for vengeance against Angel for killing his lover. The episode finally allows Angel to put Buffy behind him and move on. The season's main arcs are introduced in the next few episodes, dealing with the worsening of Cordelia's visions, the deepening feelings of Cordelia and Angel for one another, Darla's pregnancy with Angel's son (a birth by two vampires, an unprecedented event), the Wesley-Fred-Gunn love triangle, and the reappearance of the 18th century vampire hunter Daniel Holtz, who makes a pact with the demon Sahjhan to return in the 21st century to avenge his family, who Angel brutally murdered before being re-ensouled.

The season is incredibly well-written, showing Angel coming to terms with fatherhood and growing to deeply love his son. It shows Wesley sinking slowly into darkness as he is forced to betray Angel in an effort to do the right thing. It shows Lilah Morgan of Wolfram and Hart finally begin to show glimpses of inner conflict. And it shows Holtz, a potrait of a man consumed by hatred, with nothing left but a thirst for vengeance which he will do anything to satisfy.

Although the best part of this season is the main story arc, there are several excellent stand-alone episodes, including That Old Gang of Mine, where Gunn must finally choose between Angel Investigations and his old gang; Billy, where, infected by a demon who Angel freed from hell to save Cordelia, Wesley stalks Fred through the hotel with an axe; and Waiting in the Wings, where Cordelia and Angel fall under a spell and are possessed by the spirits of dead lovers and eventually save a ballerina who has been pulled out of time.

Season Three of Angel showed that the show could survive on its own, and since the show has surpassed the show that spawned it with the stellar fourth and fifth seasons. It's a shame this show got cancelled. But this is what the miracle of the digital video disc is for.

What I admire about Angel the Series is that each year (until recently) the show has expanded and delved into more complex and darker territory. Season 1 was a basic introduction to Angel (and his constant struggle to find his place in the world), Season 2 dealt with the effects of depression and hopelessness, and Season 3 was the most ambitious yet as it shifted from being a show focused on friendships and became a show about family. It's not just that the writers decided to give Angel a son, they were also smart to realize that by this point Angel and his group of heroes had become a tight-knit family of their own - with a real family's dysfunction, love, and pain.

However, Season 3 is ultimately about Angel's son, Connor, and the responses he inspires in the main characters. From the moment Darla (Angel's former vampire lover) shows up, impossibly pregnant, the reality of Angel's offspring is treated with skepticism, horror, joy, and fear. Will his son be a vampire? Or some other sort of abomination? Well, he turns out to be just a normal baby, who unfortunately inspires all of Angel's friends and enemies to imagine many sorts of outcomes for little Connor which lead to betrayal and heartbreak.

S3 is uneven (there a few episodes I can cheerfully never see again), but taken as a whole, it fits together nicely. Many people were annoyed by the addition of baby Connor (myself included) but by the time I realized that Angel's son was on the fast track to becoming the most screwed-up character in the Buffyverse (and that's saying something) I quickly started to like him. (Casting the wonderful Vincent Kartheiser to play the teenage version of Connor also helped.) In the end, I view S3 as a great prologue to S4 (AtS's best season) which beautifully sets up the show's defining themes of selfless love, free will, compromise, and loss. I'm excited to watch these episodes again, knowing what will come after.

(One addtional note: Unlike the other Angel DVD sets, I'm hoping that the S3 DVDs will have the "previously on Angel" montages. The show doesn't feel complete without them.)

Just like the show it was spun off from, Angel achieved greatness in it's third season. Beginning with Angel (David Boreanaz) mourning the death of his former lover Buffy, the vampire with a soul finds his old love Darla (Julie Benz) pregnant with his child, while the evil law firm of Wolfram & Hart begins to dismantle everything that Angel and his crew have built around them. Evil seductress Lilah Morgan (Stephanie Romanov) has her own plans as well, and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) faces a destiny that she, nor viewers who have watched her since she was on Buffy, would have never expected. As the season comes to a close, the love triangle between Wesley (Alexis Denisof), Fred (Amy Acker), and Gunn (J. August Richards) explodes, and the super cliffhanger season finale has to be seen to be believed. The cast of Angel excels in this season more than ever (I firmly believe that this is the best season of Angel) and the casting of Vincent Kartheiser as Angel's estranged son Connor is perfect. Andy Hallet is plain loveable as the green skinned, karaoke loving demon Lorne, and Boreanaz is at his brooding best. All in all, season 3 of Angel saw the show step out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's shadow and stand on it's own as one of the best prime time TV dramas on the air.

It showed up about a little over a week then the estimated time of delivery, but it showed it and it was cool :) A couple of the disks were slightly scratched and wouldn't read in any of my older dvd players but seems to work fine on the newer ones.

As an avid Buffy fan dating back to season 1, I was instantly a rabid Angel fan through Seasons 1 and 2...like to the point that I'd work my social life around it. Somewhere in Season 3, that changed. Because the show did. The show actually changed towards the end of Season 2, when that whole (funny, but distracting) Pylea arc happened. Angel lost his role as the Dark Avenger and became more of a pathetic character. Instead of the respect that S1 & S2 Angel provoked, S3 Angel inspired a lot of empathy and sympathy...not a great thing for a heroic character. Don't get me wrong...some great things happened in S3. The addition of Fred (Amy Acker) kept the show's pulse beating, and Darla (Julie Benz) gave some of her best performances. Probably the best writing of the season involved transforming Wesley (Alexis Denisof) from the bumbling, intellectual side-kick into the tragic hero. This lasted throughout seasons 4 & 5 as well...Wesley never again knew happiness or simplicity, he was a dark character from S3 on. I bought this season, partially because I want a complete set, and partially because there were a few damned good episodes in there (Fredless, Lullaby, Birthday, Waiting in the Wings.) Season 4 I will buy, but only because I'm obsessed with Faith (Eliza Dushku). Otherwise, Angel didn't make me a "fan" again until Season 5...just in time for the network to cancel the show.

Does anyone know when #4 (5, 6, etc) is coming out... it's been almost six months and usually there is the "pre-sale" and I haven't seen it... just curious if anyone had an ear to the wall?