Angel. Series 3, episode 1



Well Angel returned to our screens this week. For those who don't know, Angel is a spin off from the "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" series, and is a bout a good vampire who helps people.



Anyway, episode one was a typical episode 1. I have found over and over again that "episode 1"s follow a certain pattern. They need to be interesting enough to keep the fans happy, but have enough information in them to allow new watchers to hop on board. So almost every character gets to have some time in front of the camera, and people have little speeches about what they did last season or about who they are. It's a bit like going to a party and finding the room full of people you don't know. But every time you go near a group of people you hear a conversation like, "So, Bill, how goes your Dry Cleaning business that you have been working on for the last year, and which you started when your wife, Laura, left you", "Oh, good. Thanks, John. It's just such a shame that Sarah" (John looks at Sarah) "won't join the company and user her amazing accounting knowledge. She's been so down since her father died" and so on. It makes it easy to get to know everyone, but you don't get any particularly good conversations!



So Angel had a lot of the Episode 1 about it, which means the story was a bit thin. Also, while on the negatives, the fight scenes seemed to be suffering a bit. Angel's first fight was with a bunch of demon monks, who were all obviously proficient martial artists, which made David Boreanaz look a bit weak, weaker than usual I felt. I could be being unfair here, though. One thing they did do, however, that I disliked immensely was to put cuts in the fight scenes during a move. This meant you would see a person start to throw a punch then jump (without cutting to a new angle) to the punch landing. I assume this was meant to give a feeling of chaos or speed. It just annoyed me.



On the positive side, Angel's new off-sider, Fred seems interesting. She is a new character who was rescued from a "Bad Place (tm)" last series. So far she's hiding in her room, writing on the walls. I think she will be a strong character in the series. Also, Darla, Angel's sire, is pregnant. As far as I can tell this is not possible in Joss Whedon's vampire mythology, so this may well be an interesting twist.



Overall, while I enjoyed the first episode, I am sure things will get better.