[.ca] Angel: Season 3

From Amazon.com:
In the third season of Angel, the titular vampire with a soul was forced to stand alone thanks to the (temporary) death of his beloved Buffy and her show's move to a new network, with no crossover between the two allowed. He returns from seeking peace in a demon-haunted monastery to find the L.A. Angel Investigations team fighting supernatural crime in his absence. Fred is still haunted by the nightmare dimension from which they rescued her; Cordelia's visions get ever more painful and debilitating. The schemes of the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart become every more imaginative and dragon lady Lilah Morgan becomes even more of an enemy when lusting after Angel. Unbelievably, Darla, Angel's vampire sire and lover, turns up, pregnant with his child and is tortured by inexplicable motherly feelings as well as a raging thirst for human blood. For a few episodes things go pretty well--but Angel's enemies, both those he has made in his quest for redemption and those he made when he was unadulterated evil, are still out there. Stephanie Romanov comes into her silky own in this series, making Lilah Morgan all the more seductively evil because she is clear about the choices she has made; the satanic law firm of Wolfram and Hart are this show's most inspired creation. As the season moves to its close, Wesley (Alexis Denisof) has hard choices to make. The devastating climax is compulsive viewing, and this season also contains one of the most impressive single episodes of the entire show: in "Waiting in the Wings," writer, director and creator Joss Whedon comes up with a classic ghost story as Angel and his crew go to the ballet and find a performance that is literally timeless. --Roz Kaveney

Angel stands alone in excellence:
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.

Hitting it's stride:
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.

PERFECT!!!! THE BEST DAMN SHOW EVER!!!!:
what can I say..this season is just perfect...with a new cast member in the opening credits...Amy Acker(Winifred "Fred" Burkle), she adds some spunk to this season....this one is more better then the second season..which was 'aight with lots of good episodes but this one is in my mind much better...not the best season but its a good season...we have Angel(David Boreanaz) and his gang, Fred, Charles Gunn(J. August Richards), Wesley Wyndham-Price(Alexis Denisof) and Cordelia Chase(Charisma Carpenter)...this has more powerful moments then in season 2 and 1..its nail bitting and addictive and an adrenaline rush..it gets your blood pumping right as the opening credits hit..its great..the season starts off as Fred still trys to cope coming back..we get more of Cordelias visions she inherited from Doyle(Glenn Quinn) in season 1....throughout the season they become more and more realistic and the end episode where Skip(David Denham) comes and has Cordelia go UP..that UP in the sky was really cool...this season returns some familiar good and evil faces such as Darla(Julie Benz)..her and Angel have a baby named Connor which Wesley slits its throat...theres the Wolfram and Hart firm still cooking with Lilah Morgan(Stephanie Romanov)...shes hot and deadly and also Gavin Park(Daniel Dae Kim) who was in like one episode in season 2 comes back in and the lovable Lorne(Andy Hallett)...you cant hate this man..hes funny as hell..and also the return of The Groosalugg(Mark Lutz) who finds his princess Cordelia..but he finds out she loves Angel and then leaves at the last episode of the season...we see some new faces..like Holtz(Keith Szarabajka) as the vampire slayer who was chasing Darla and Angelus back in the day..he is mentioned in the episode Darla in season 2, he is revived by the Sahjhan(Jack Conley). then theres Justine(Laurel Holloman) shes like Holtz's woman...and then theres teenaged Connor the destroyer(Vincent Karheiser)..if you havent seen this season...Wesley (Denisof) steals the baby because of some prophecy about Angel killing Baby Connor, Justine (Hollomon) finds Wesley, slits his throat and takes Connor to Holtz. A showdown happens and Holtz goes into a hell dimension with Baby Connor. There is some good drama here with a lot of laughs and smiles..this will satisfy any Angel or Buffy fan..praise this DVD..trust me..you'll have a blast..I know I will

The best season yet of a remarkable show:
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.

Not the best season, but some good stuff and worth having:
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.