Listener’s Buffy/Angel Rewatch (B1.07)
Buffy 1.07: Angel
- I’d love to know who this voiceover guy is in the first season… because he’s not very good.
- Fumigation party? YUCK.
- I realize Angel is dark and mysterious, but Buffy’s extra-deep interest in him is a little out-of-left-field.
- Why are we re-emphasizing Xander’s social awfulness yet again? The bad dancing, sniping at Cordy… unnecessary.
- Charisma Carpenter’s two or three scenes feel shoehorned into the credits. She really wasn’t part of the show early on; the writers put a lot of faith in people wanting her around as a character to give her so little to do early on.
- Aaaaaaand Buffy just invited a vampire into her house. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.
- David Boreanaz was SO YOUNG.
- Remind us again that Joyce owns an art gallery, writers, why don’t you?
- Two people walking up creaky stairs sounds much different than only one. Joyce isn’t THAT dense, Buffy, no matter how much you wish it.
- Knowing everything I do about Angel, so much of this episode is foreshadowing and subtext.
- Alyson Hannigan played the library scene very well. Her face acting has always been brilliant, but this is the first time we really see it.
- There was something of Captain Mal in the Master — “Their deaths will bring me little joy / sometimes a little is enough.”
- Hey, Buffy’s wearing appropriate clothing to school. Amazing.
- And now the big reveal… I think perhaps that could’ve been done a little better. Not bad, though.
- Xander’s carrying his skateboard, lest we forget that he rides one, as we saw in Episode 1.
- Darla is both more and less sinister here than the last time we saw her. Not sure why.
- That’s some very dramatic lipstick you’re wearing for a night at home, Joyce. Do you have a date later?
- The War of Independence wouldn’t be covered in the same unit as the Civil War.
- That wasn’t much of an invitation, writers — Joyce didn’t say “come in”; she asked Darla if she “would like to come in”. And it was a question, not a statement.
- First instance of the “barbecue fork” excuse.
- First instance of kinky vampires.
- I think we needed a little more from Angel before now for us to buy into how self-hating he is over the whole soul/remorse thing. It was a good way to dump a crapload of exposition, but I didn’t like Angel enough at this point to care about him.
- How did Buffy instinctively know that Darla was older? Did we know enough about slayer senses? Anita Blake can do it, but can Buffy?
- Vampires with guns. Nice. That was actually very unexpected, which I think was slightly foreshadowed early on but not enough to spoil it.
- Darla has two guns, vampiric senses, vampiric speed, and 400 years or so of experience. How in the world did she miss Buffy with the guns?
- Again, we didn’t have enough to care this much about the Master, but I really appreciated the way he went ballistic about Darla’s death at Angel’s hands. Good writing.
