January 2001 Buffy and Angel Thoughts
by Michael Lee

Last May I wrote an end-of-the-season commentary on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and I thought I'd return to my two favorite shows currently on television as we're mid-season through the year. I'm going to discuss both series in some depth, so if you aren't caught up with the US episodes, there might be stories.

Both series are on top of their game at the moment. Angel, in particular, is amazing.

One of the problems with claiming that Vampires don't normally have "souls" is that it seems to give them an out, that they aren't really responsible. And likewise, that the only reason why Angel is "good" is because he has a soul -- but human beings can go to the dark side just as much as anyone else. I have some questions about whether that's really accurate in the Buffy-verse -- Spike isn't quite as evil now that he has a chip in his head. Is the chip somehow giving him a soul? It seems that way to me, especially as he falls for Buffy.

There's part of me that is concerned that demons are sometimes too common in the Buffyverse; a demon Karaoke bar makes it seem to me that everyone knows that demons walk the earth, and that it's totally common and well known. Though the Karaoke bar has led to several of the funniest scenes in the series to date.

I'm still a big fan of the cast of both series. I don't miss Riley now that he's gone. Though it's does mean that many of the main characters on Buffy is female, and the current baddie Glory is female. This is one reason why I'm glad that they've matured Xander significantly over the past six months or so, rather than continuing him on the path of moping about not being in college. Spike is great, but he's not part of the gang, is he? And I've always been a fan of Giles as my role model in the series.

And the Angel cast is great too -- they've all had outstanding moments over the year. I think Lindsey and Lilah, the lawyers at Wolfram and Hart, are great, and am pleased and not at all surprised that they survived the massacre. The return of Dru is well overdue, and she's even creepier with Darla than she was with Spike.

And the storylines are both moving on well -- I don't know exactly where they are going, thought I think both series are clearly going into interesting directions. They haven't followed through on everything -- Buffy hasn't followed through as much on discovering as much about her heritage as I would have thought, and Amy is still a rat, but I think finding out more about Dawn and Glory in the future make for some things I can't wait to hear more about. And Angel even more, as he goes exactly down the path that Wolfram and Hart wants him to. Clearly, he hasn't seen Return of the Jedi on how you are turned to the dark side!

Now that Buffy is several years old, and certainly past its half way mark, we've started to hear the strains from the outside of the series -- I've heard rumors that Anthony Stewart Head wants to cut back on the number of episodes he does so he has more time with his family in England, and of course the negotations to keep Buffy on the WB have been fairly high profile in the entertainment news, I think now is the time to cherish the series the most -- I hope it doesn't fade like Babylon 5 or the X-Files. Fortunately, we should start seeing Buffy on DVD and in syndication sooner or later, and it'll be around for a while longer, but it just a reminder to enjoy it while it is here.

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Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Michael Lee stepped into the MISFITS Website and vanished .... He woke to find himself trapped on the Internet, facing pages that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change the MISFITS Website for the better. His only guide on this journey is Professor Maxwell Misfittle, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Mike can see and hear. And so Mr. Lee finds himself leaping from site to site, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home. Michael previously wrote about his fifteen years in fandom. He wonders why there isn't a Twin Cities area Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel club.