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Buffy & Angel

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 4:59 pm
by Glemp
CLEAR! BZZZT! COMMUNITY LIVES! MWAHA-HAHA-HA!

Ahem.
So, I'm asking this here because I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of Buffyverse fans here, but I don't want to accidentally spoil myself looking on Buffy-specific sites.

So I'm working my way through Buffy, and I've reached the start of Buffy D, just after Angel splits off (yes, I'm aware that my series notation is weird). What I'd like to know is how necessary watching Angel is beyond wanting to know what happened to the characters from Buffy A-C. I'd rather follow Buffy, but if there are things up ahead that only make sense if I watch both I'd prefer to know now.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:09 pm
by WearsHats
For the most part, the two series were separate. There were only a couple of crossover episodes. The plots to those were self-contained, so you wouldn't miss too much if you skipped the Angel half. And at least one was actually two self-contained episodes which were linked by a common thread. (There were flashbacks to the old days with Spike and Dru in the Buffy episode, and then the Angel episode had more flashbacks that shed further light on what happened back then and why.) Oh, and there was a time or two when something in Angel referenced something in Buffy, but you really wouldn't miss much there, either. (Likewise, there's a reference late in Buffy to something that happened in the comic books of the time, but that's just a bonus for people who read the comics.)

I do feel that the series went kind of downhill after Buffy graduated, but it's still well worth watching, overall. Anyway, that's another matter. (Likewise, Angel evolved quite a bit from year to year. So don't expect the tone of the initial episodes or even the first season to be indicative of the series as a whole.)

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:39 pm
by DrinksTooMuchCoffee
Spike eventually ends up on Angel too, unless I'm totally hallucinating memories. It's been a while since I saw it. :)

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 8:04 pm
by WearsHats
Yeah, he does. Harmony shows up, too, for a while. And a couple of others make the jump. But what happens on Angel tends to stay on Angel. If you just watch Buffy, you won't be lost. You'll miss what happens on Angel, but you won't be left confused on Buffy, wondering where the heck that plot point came from.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 10:49 pm
by Zathyr
There may be times where you feel left out, though, in watching one and not the other. Although watching each episode from the two series by air date would be ... cumbersome. Just take heart that if you do feel like you're missing something important to the story, you're really not.

I recently rewatched Buffy start to finish. Well, relatively recently. It was last year. But yeah it was because I realized I never saw the musical episode and wasn't sure what else I had missed. It was kind of neat seeing some of Joss's "hat tricks" as he calls them - actors/actresses that he re-uses as different characters in different shows. Like that guy who was in that one episode of Firefly and was also in that one episode of Buffy and I think he may have been in an episode of Angel as well. You know, that kid, and then he grew up? Yeah, you know. Plus that other guy. Also I completely forgot Nathan Fillion was in Buffy for a while, and Felicia Day (though I had no idea who Felicia Day was back when she was on Buffy).

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 11:28 pm
by Just Karen
There are crossovers in the first season of Angel; after that one was on a different network so until the final season crossovers were verboten.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 9:20 am
by RocketScientist
How much of a Whedonverse nerd am I that I knew who Zathyr was talking about? I can't remember the actor's name off the top of my head, but he was a vampire on Buffy, and old friend of Zoe & Mal's on Firefly, and a recurring character in Season 5 of Angel.

I agree that you don't need to watch Angel. I watched all of Buffy before I started watching Angel. And Angel was definitely my least favorite Whedon show. By a lot.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 9:51 am
by Just Karen
Angel wasn't a bad show, imo. It ended poorly - though not as poorly as Dexter or (as I understand) HIMYM - but poorly in the same vein as the webcomic "Venus Envy" "ended" for a while.

Still, not anywhere near as rewatchable as Buffy is. Though (spoiler alert) Angel isn't the only character from Buffy to move over.
► Show Spoiler

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 6:20 pm
by RocketScientist
Well, being my least favorite Whedon show doesn't make it bad. It's better than the best of a lot of things. I just like Buffy, Firefly, Dollhouse, and Dr. Horrible a lot more. It seems like they made a completely different show in practically every season, so it's really uneven. But I love most of the characters and the actors. They keep it very watchable. (J. August Richards is on SHIELD now, WOO! :woot )

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 11:47 pm
by Liesmith
You can certainly wait until finishing Buffy until you start Angel without it diminishing your enjoyment of Buffy. I think they compliment each other very well, and I recommend watching a season of Buffy, then watching the season of Angel that was airing at the time--assuming you want to watch Angel at all.

I watched both series as they aired (Gina Torres was on Angel for a season!), and loved them both. Recently, I did a full rewatch of Buffy, and it held up extremely well once I got past the 'monster of the week' first season. Then, I started a full-rewatch of Angel, and couldn't make it very far. Jumping back a couple decades to see the beginning of Buffy, then watching the characters grow through the final season was one thing...but doing it all over again with Angel was tough.

It'd be like if Tarol was writing goblins, then simultaneously started writing a spin-off after the Warcamp battle to follow the exploits of the "respawned" Drow adventuring party. If he did both comics concurrently, and they ended at the same time, you'd lose a little enjoyment of the spin-off if you waited to start it until you finished reading Goblins. You'd suddenly go from reading something written by an artist with years of experience honing his craft...to reading something by the same artist with significantly less experience.

In terms of the plot effects between each show, I think there are one or two episodes of each where a character from the other show will show up (or send a package) with a Deus Ex or MacGuffin. If you watched the shows as they aired, these plot points didn't seem so out of the blue.

This isn't a spoiler, just something neat: There's a subtle crossover in one episode where Buffy gets a call, and the person on the other end doesn't speak, and hangs up after a few seconds. Within the episode, it's a brief moment that doesn't relate to anything. That same evening on Angel, it shows him calling someone, trying to work up the courage to speak, then hanging up. The only thing that makes it a crossover is Buffy's voice on the other end saying "Hello? Hello?" I like the clever little things like that.

Also, Angel has Amy Acker as essentially the [American] human version of The Doctor. So, there's that.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 10:16 pm
by WearsHats
Sorry to briefly hijack the thread, but I'm up in the middle of the night (today's test was so disorienting...) and I suddenly found myself half remembering a running gag from one episode of, I think, either Buffy or Angel. It involved a party full of teenage girls. Our heroes were trying to talk to them as part of the investigation of the week. But whenever they mentioned a certain name the girl would get up and leave, disgusted. It seems that the entire room thought that name was slang for a depraved sex act. Except no two people could agree on what it actually involved. "Eww. He asked you for that? And you'd only just met?" "Wait, what is it?" "That's where..." "No, no. You're thinking of something else. It's where... " I think, at some point, someone looks it up on Urban Dictionary. Or maybe it's just that when I watched it with a friend he said there would be an Urban Dictionary entry by the end of the day. Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 3:01 pm
by Liesmith
Hmm...I don't actually remember an episode like that...was it maybe something else like Charmed or Supernatural?

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 9:04 pm
by WearsHats
I don't think so. This was while I was in college. Somewhere in the '97-'01 range, probably around '99. Buffy and Angel were the only shows I followed regularly at the time. Never watched Charmed or Supernatural. (Well, I saw a couple eps of Supernatural last year.) I suppose it might have been something my roommate was watching or something like that. I don't know. Memory is pretty fuzzy. It wasn't the main plot of the ep, though. Just a minor running gag.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 10:06 pm
by Zathyr
Urban Dictionary was created in '99, so if it was referenced it'd have to be that year at the earliest. I suppose maybe you and your friend were watching a repeat, though?

It's not conjuring up anything very clearly with me. I kind of remember an early episode where the kids were at The Bronze and ... maybe something like that? Cordelia and crew getting offended? Maybe? My mind is hazy.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 1:14 pm
by RocketScientist
Nope. Lizzie & I don't remember it, either. She said it sounded vaguely familiar, but not from Buffy or Angel. Doesn't really sound like Supernatural to me, either, but there have been so many episodes of Supernatural that I don't remember half of them. If it really is Buffy or Angel, I'd guess Angel. A lot of episodes of Angel kind of had my eyes glazing over.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 2:32 pm
by Liesmith
The closest I remember was "Maybe it's 'M'Fashnik'...like 'mmm cookies' ".

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 3:45 pm
by RocketScientist
That was a Dawn episode, though, so probably too late in the Buffy series to be what he's thinking of.

Krysti doesn't think it's a Charmed episode, either. Lizzie votes for a CSI/NCIS type of show.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 9:33 pm
by Liesmith
► Show Spoiler

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 10:12 pm
by Zathyr
I was about a "..."

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 1:02 pm
by Glemp
Hi, guys? Just to remind you, I specifically made this thread here so as not to be spoiled (currenty at D03 "The Harsh Light of Day"). If you want to talk spoilers, please ask a Mod to split off the thread.

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 3:36 pm
by Sita
► Show Spoiler
First thought was "What the Hell?!". Second was "Please don't let this be a 'jump the shark' moment..."
► Show Spoiler
Oh, and the question of conversation earlier sounds vaguely familiar to me too, but can't say from where.

edit: didn't see post above, had this page open then got distracted. put the spoilery bit of my response to the quote in a spoiler tag :)

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:45 pm
by Liesmith
Glemp wrote:Hi, guys? Just to remind you, I specifically made this thread here so as not to be spoiled (currenty at D03 "The Harsh Light of Day"). If you want to talk spoilers, please ask a Mod to split off the thread.
Sorry, that was inconsiderate of me. Luckily, I didn't spoil anything that would make any sense whatsoever until after it happens, at which point you'll probably say something like "Liesmith, you magnificent bastard...I read your post!"

YMMV IANAL

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:22 pm
by RocketScientist
Liesmith wrote:
► Show Spoiler
So, so many. First episode I was "wait, what?" Subsequent episodes I was "OK, how did...? but then...? And why do they...? WTF is going on here??!! Much questiony-ness! Want 'splaining!" :lol: (Aforementioned text makes more sense after seeing the relevant episodes.)

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 12:07 am
by Liesmith
Spoiler-free:

I was honestly afraid to re-watch the show when I did my recent run-through of the entire series for the first time since it aired; the first season or two are so different that I thought I wouldn't be able to endure them. As I went through it though, I could see the overall shape of the story much more clearly, and see the very subtle foreshadowing Whedon had in place. Some of it was so subtle that I completely missed it when the show originally aired.
► Show Spoiler
tl;dr Buffy is an awesome show and I might start watching it again but I don't have time for that and YOU DID THIS TO ME BY BRINGING IT UP AGAIN WHARRGARBL

Re: Buffy & Angel

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 3:40 pm
by RocketScientist
You're welcome. :D And I agree with every point you made in your spoiler.

How is it going Glemp? Are you enjoying it still? Did you decide whether or not to watch Angel?