several times. Heh. Good luck with all of this. I always liked Bo the best, plus it means not having to open your car doors.
Now, I realise this is not the perfect time for in-depth analysis of your oeuvre (oh yes, I spent several years studying literature just to be able to use that word) but wanted to comment on "Paradise". Which I love, naturally.
What I seem to be finding with vids is that I have to really watch one at a time and, like, many many times, to fully 'get' it. So, watching Paradise just now, I realised something that I'd kind of understood before but not really added up: all of Angel's people have died. I don't mean, like, the final battle (because I fully believe that Spike, at least, will definitely survive, and Angel and Illyria probably.) But it just sort of hit home to me why the end could *never* have been as upbeat as the end of Buffy.
One of the great moments in Chosen was where Giles, Xander, Willow and Buffy all talk about how they're going to go to the mall the next day. There's a beautiful continuity - the old gang's still together and so, basically, everything's going to be OK.
But Angel's gang's all gone. His original gang is gone - Cordy and Doyle are both dead. Even the next gang along is gone - Fred's dead, Wesley's dead, Gunn's pretty close to being dead. What I got from Paradise was his realisation of that. The whole show, he's been trying to save them, trying to protect them. And what seems to happen in those last few episodes is that he gives up that idea; unlike Buffy, he can't save them, can't keep them alive.
Buffy, as a show about teenagers, is all about staying alive - because the rest of your life is yet to come. It presumes that staying alive is *a good thing*. Angel, in this sense, is a more 'adult' show - in that it's about adults, people who are 'done baking'. At which point it becomes more important to allow your life to be fully consumed for something you believe to be worthwhile than just to keep on surviving.
See, this is what I love. The show actually seems *better*, deeper, more profound, having watched your vid, than it did before.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 01:40 pm (UTC)Now, I realise this is not the perfect time for in-depth analysis of your oeuvre (oh yes, I spent several years studying literature just to be able to use that word) but wanted to comment on "Paradise". Which I love, naturally.
What I seem to be finding with vids is that I have to really watch one at a time and, like, many many times, to fully 'get' it. So, watching Paradise just now, I realised something that I'd kind of understood before but not really added up: all of Angel's people have died. I don't mean, like, the final battle (because I fully believe that Spike, at least, will definitely survive, and Angel and Illyria probably.) But it just sort of hit home to me why the end could *never* have been as upbeat as the end of Buffy.
One of the great moments in Chosen was where Giles, Xander, Willow and Buffy all talk about how they're going to go to the mall the next day. There's a beautiful continuity - the old gang's still together and so, basically, everything's going to be OK.
But Angel's gang's all gone. His original gang is gone - Cordy and Doyle are both dead. Even the next gang along is gone - Fred's dead, Wesley's dead, Gunn's pretty close to being dead. What I got from Paradise was his realisation of that. The whole show, he's been trying to save them, trying to protect them. And what seems to happen in those last few episodes is that he gives up that idea; unlike Buffy, he can't save them, can't keep them alive.
Buffy, as a show about teenagers, is all about staying alive - because the rest of your life is yet to come. It presumes that staying alive is *a good thing*. Angel, in this sense, is a more 'adult' show - in that it's about adults, people who are 'done baking'. At which point it becomes more important to allow your life to be fully consumed for something you believe to be worthwhile than just to keep on surviving.
See, this is what I love. The show actually seems *better*, deeper, more profound, having watched your vid, than it did before.