Angel: Season 1 - Angel of Mercy

Throughout Season 3 of Buffy, Buffy and Angel tried to find a way to be together without risking Angel to lose his soul again. They had to put up with anger from Buffy's friends, temptation from Faith, and the pain that comes from two people in love who cannot be together. Ultimately, Angel made the decision that it would be better for both of them if he left Sunnydale and did not serve as a distraction and/or danger. Also, in Season 2, David Boreanaz proved that he could carry his own show when his depiction of Angelus wowed Joss Whedon (in the words of one of my friends, Whedon's reaction must have gone something like, "Holy shit, he can ACT!"). So now we have Angel, a show about dealing with adult life, redemption, and brooding. Whereas Buffy used monsters and demons to point out that school is hell, Angel shows us how adult life can be scary and unexpected. Buffy was a more classic hero, a soldier for good who goes out to defend humanity, Angel is about atoning for past sins.

Like the first season of Buffy, Angel's first season is its worst, with a much more episodic format. Whedon even said that his original plan for the show was that of anthology, with Angel as a supernatural detective. Like I said with Buffy, no season of Angel is bad, but the rest of the series is so much better. There are some great episodes this year, such as "I Will Remember You", "I've Got You Under My Skin", and "To Shanshu In LA", but we also get the two worst episodes of the series ("I Fall To Pieces" and "She"). And when compared to some of the phenomenal story arcs that show up in later years, episodic story-telling falls short.

That's not to say that the seeds of bigger stories aren't planted this year. Wolfram and Hart, a seemingly twisted law firm that is so much more, is slowly built up as the Big Bad for the entire series (unlike its parent show, not every season of Angel ends with a huge climactic fight against a villain that has been plotting something since the beginning of the year). Character arcs are begun, and in the case of Doyle, completed, and the final twist of the season starts a series of events that drive the plot all the way through Season 4.

So who besides Angel are the big hitters on this show? Cordelia Chase is the other major Buffy character to start out as a regular; after her father's tax fraud was discovered in Season 3 of Buffy, Cordy's family lost all their money, and she could no longer go to college, so she decided to come to Los Angeles to make it as an actress. Of course, like most people who share that dream without ever having done anything before Hollywood to try and achieve it, her efforts are in vain. A chance encounter at a party brings her and Angel back together for a time, but she joins up with him permanently when he saves her from a vampire in the pilot. For the first few episodes, she is, for the most part, the same shallow Cordelia that we came to know for the past three years, albeit with a slightly broken spirit. However, her path on this show is much different, and she is set upon it by the third regular, Allen Francis Doyle.

Doyle, who was modeled after Whistler, a character seen in Buffy's "Becoming, Parts 1 and 2", is a half-demon who has been gifted and cursed with visions from the Powers That Be (a group of omniscient, and most likely omnipotent, beings who watch over the world). These visions show him people who are or will shortly be in trouble and are in need of assistance. Claiming that his latest vision sent him to Angel, Doyle volunteers to help the vampire with a soul in his strange mission to help victims of demon activity in LA. Sadly, Doyle didn't last too long on the show (Whedon and co. don't talk about him too much, but I'm pretty sure that there were some remarks about drug use, and actor Glenn Quinn died of an overdose around the beginning of the fourth season). Midway through the season, he passed his visions on to Cordelia, setting her on a path to become a moral and courageous fighter.

Doyle is replaced by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who tried to reinvent himself as a rogue demon hunter (what's a rogue demon?) after being fired by the Watchers' Council due to his poor handling of Faith. Like Cordelia, he starts off like he was on Buffy, but as the season and show go on, he experiences one of the most dramatic character arcs I've ever seen. By the end of the year, he has gone from bumbling goof to a somewhat competent fighter. His knowledge of demonology comes in handy for his work at Angel Investigations (the group needs to make money somehow), and he can hold his own against vampires as well.

Since arriving in LA, Angel has been living in an underground apartment, going out every night, and dispatching vampires and demons when he can find them. Without a big villain to fight against, he is out to redeem the crimes he committed as Angelus, one person at a time. But when he encounters Wolfram and Hart, he finds his nemesis.

Wolfram and Hart passes itself off as a law firm. However, if one were to look into its client base, you would find that they tend to represent demons, vampires, and other less-than-upright citizens. Representing the evil corporation archetype, the firm is an agent of a group known as the Senior Partners, the evil version of the Powers That Be. This year, we meet a few of the lawyers, including Lindsay McDonald, who becomes a rival to Angel, Lilah Morgan, and their boss, Holland Manners. The first few appearances of the firm shows them as nothing more than a well-funded place of evil, but by the end of the season, we learn that they have many plans that involve Angel and the end of the world.

When our heroes aren't taking on the soulless corporation, they are dealing with other issues that adults deal with when they venture out into the real world, like trying to find a good apartment ("Rm w/ a Vu"), dealing with one night stands ("Expecting"), and trying to earn a living.

Season 1 of Angel has a few less-than-stellar episodes, but it serves as an excellent set-up to a great series. Some of the show's staples, such as flashbacks to Angel's time as Angelus, when he and Darla terrorized Europe, are began, and we see the origins of characters who are almost unrecognizable by the end of the series (assuming they make it that far; sadly, Kate Lockley, a detective who serves as a contact for Angel, doesn't stick around for too long).

Up next: Extravagance and family in Sunnydale...