While I may not agree completely with the OP, surely you can understand that the argument in this thread is that they liked s1-3 because Angel was their favorite character. I know that many people won't agree, myself included because Buffy is mine, but there are many people whose favorite character of the show is, for example, Anya or Spike and feel that the show got better once they were a permanent cast member. So I think everyone has favorite characters that they connect with. Which is reasonable.
Angel made Buffy watchable
- Thread starter telperion66
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While I may not agree completely with the OP, surely you can understand that the argument in this thread is that they liked s1-3 because Angel was their favorite character. I know that many people won't agree, myself included because Buffy is mine, but there are many people whose favorite character of the show is, for example, Anya or Spike and feel that the show got better once they were a permanent cast member. So I think everyone has favorite characters that they connect with. Which is reasonable.
Fool for Buffy
I'm just being a big nerd again
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Of course this is true, but "Favorite character" is a huge step down from "made the show watchable." I think saying any one person in particular or storyline or relationship or whatever making the show watchable seems pretty far fetched to me. I mean how can you even like a show if you only like one aspect? Perhaps the op should be less dramatic.
His character was a lot different? Really? So falling in love with someone is different than trying to kill them? Interesting...😉
Anyway I love Spike as a villain, but I love how he grows throughout the show much more.
The Bronze
Rogue Demon Hunter
I now can't stop picturing Angel taking the place of Dick Van Dyke in that Mary Poppins scene 😀
ChaseRules
When it comes to dating I the Slayer.
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I sorry but I think it the opposite . Buffy was a great show & if you take out Angel it still is a great show. Honestly I don't see how Angel made Buffy watchable 😕
thetopher
Member of the Church Of Faith
Or singing Barry Manilow with a massive backing orchestra at the Bronze.
(in the audience) Buffy: I'm fairly traumatized right now.
(on stage) Angel: I know, right? Fantastic. 'At the Copa... Copa Cabana...'
Mr Trick
Scooby
Sort of. But to me Angel just isn't a big enough part of the show (partly why he needed his own show) to make that much of a difference. I love Spike as a character, but he alone would not be enough to make me like the show.
Another thing you have to remember is that DB improved a lot as a actor post-S3 of Buffy. And the character was very bland during the first season. I don't think either actor or character would have had it to lead their own show based on that first season.
He wasn't what made it watchable for me, but I think he did contribute with something to both the show and to Buffy the character which was lost once he left. But I'm more drawn to his type of character than the brash Anyas or Spikes of the fictional world, so I definitely felt that his departure left a void that was never filled (unlike Cordy's departure I mean), and for me it left the show a bit unbalanced.
Mr Trick
Scooby
But would you say that Buffy as a show would have been un-watchable without Xander? We all have our favourites of course. But Buffy as a show is very much an ensemble.
I wouldn't have watched it because literally the reason I watched the show was Xander. I'm not into vampire shows, so I wouldn't have watched it if I didn't fall in love with Xander because of The Zeppo and Spander fics.
But I wouldn't say it would be un-watchable. People would watch it and still fall in love with it.
The fact that BtVS is an ensemble show is a very big reason to why it's so popular.
Mr Trick
Very different than your typical Vamp show though.
I think DB improved between s1 to s2. By s2 he was plenty good. He continued to become more comfortable with his character as they gave him more to do. And remember that the PTB decided DB could pull off his own show in s2 during the filming of IOHEFY. So apparently by then they thought he had the stuff necessary to sustain a tv show in s2.
BuffyElevated
Scooby
I definitely don't agree that Angel was the reason the show was "watchable". He definitely added a great presence to the show and its storylines but Buffy and the complexity of her character (as well as the rest of the cast and all their journies) is what made the show watchable for me.
Antho
Scooby
DeepBlueJoy
Lion Faced Kitteh
Funny, I think season 3 is the strongest, followed by 5 and 6. 4 and 2 are weak, and 7 is just... ooc, though I love the sharing of the strength motif, I am not fond of the potentials being dumped onto Buffy or the horrid ways the main cast interacted.
Still, the show touched people and changed lives... it's still changing lives.
As for Angel making the show? BS. Boreanaz was a pretty boy who learned to act on the show. They had great chemistry, but you only have to watch Prophecy Girl to know who the star was, who was strong, vital and busy saving the world, right from the start. Heck, as males go, Xander had more centrality in ep 1&2 -- he and Willow, supported by Giles were Buffy's moment by moment support, even though they weren't the love interest. They were there from the beginning to the end. Angel was important, but he wasn't her life and he certainly did NOT make the show.
Buffy, in the form of Sarah Michelle Gellar made the show.
Buffy's one heck of a character, and Sarah's one hell of an actor. I think they caught lightning in a bottle when they cast her. A failed movie turned into a legendary series. One we're still talking about, in spite of flaws and pratfalls. And no, it wasn't because of Angel, though I don't believe Buffy ever forgot her first love, he wasn't her reason for being.
She started a hero, and became a true champion.
The show wasn't about her love life. That just trivializes it... if this were simply a show for teen girls, pining for their one true love, no one would be talking about it 21 years later. How many shows that started 21 years ago still have the kind of following Buffy has? Theses written about it?
Buffy is so much more than a TV show. It created a whole new universe! I cannot imagine my life without the BUFFYverse.
I love Spike. Other people love Angel. A few even imagine Buffy with Xander, Faith or even Willow... but while the relationships between the characters matter a great deal, it is friendship, not romance that is central to Buffy's survival and growth (as well as much of her pain).
Buffy, the individual, is more than just a girl in love, who happens to fight monsters. She's a complex, funny, smart, amazing character, who survives in spite of the short brutal life fate has planned for her.
Buffy, the series, is a metaphor for life... struggle, growth, transcendence, falling and getting back up again. Becoming.
Angel was a fleeting dream that became a nightmare. Then it became a case of unfulfillable longing. I'm sorry, but continuing that longer than the one season would have been a farcical and unbearable miasma. A 16 year old dreams of her 'mysterious lover', it's all fantasy and giggling with Willow. A 17 year old consummates it, and it works out or it doesn't (it didn't). An adult woman finds a way to make things work, or she moves on. Angel didn't even let 'them' decide. They didn't even consider looking for a cure for the "stay celibate forever or let the monster out" scenario. No, he decided for her, because it was HIS decision to make... which treated her like a little kid (not even a teenager), and certainly not a partner.
He and Joyce getting together and talking, was the adults getting together and making choices for the 'child'. Thank God, he didn't stick around to share that 18th century mindset!
No way was is any of that a workable relationship. Celibate forever? Sorry, that's insanity. No, I am with Faith... sex matters. Particularly, in a young, vital woman like Buffy. From the sexual being we see Buffy become as time went on, she couldn't have been satisfied by just "gazing soulfully into her dead lover's eyes." Then it would become Twilight. (shudders). Buffy was more than that! She needed more than that.
An Angel/Buffy holding pattern would have turned Buffy into a soap opera of unfulfilled desire, that Wes and Cordy mocked so hysterically on his show!
Instead, we got Cordy/Angel holding pattern on his show, once they tried the romance thing, before which, he rocked the monk life and actually focused on saving people. I'm glad he left Buffy. David got to grow into a decent actor and we got 3 great years of Angel, the series. Angel staying would have turned the Buffy series into the Angel melodrama of unfulfilled passions going nowhere, and rapidly stopped being about Buffy or . That didn't happen on his show b/c before the show actually addressed the relationship difficulties, Cordelia ascended and Angel sank.
Still, the show touched people and changed lives... it's still changing lives.
As for Angel making the show? BS. Boreanaz was a pretty boy who learned to act on the show. They had great chemistry, but you only have to watch Prophecy Girl to know who the star was, who was strong, vital and busy saving the world, right from the start. Heck, as males go, Xander had more centrality in ep 1&2 -- he and Willow, supported by Giles were Buffy's moment by moment support, even though they weren't the love interest. They were there from the beginning to the end. Angel was important, but he wasn't her life and he certainly did NOT make the show.
Buffy, in the form of Sarah Michelle Gellar made the show.
Buffy's one heck of a character, and Sarah's one hell of an actor. I think they caught lightning in a bottle when they cast her. A failed movie turned into a legendary series. One we're still talking about, in spite of flaws and pratfalls. And no, it wasn't because of Angel, though I don't believe Buffy ever forgot her first love, he wasn't her reason for being.
She started a hero, and became a true champion.
The show wasn't about her love life. That just trivializes it... if this were simply a show for teen girls, pining for their one true love, no one would be talking about it 21 years later. How many shows that started 21 years ago still have the kind of following Buffy has? Theses written about it?
Buffy is so much more than a TV show. It created a whole new universe! I cannot imagine my life without the BUFFYverse.
I love Spike. Other people love Angel. A few even imagine Buffy with Xander, Faith or even Willow... but while the relationships between the characters matter a great deal, it is friendship, not romance that is central to Buffy's survival and growth (as well as much of her pain).
Buffy, the individual, is more than just a girl in love, who happens to fight monsters. She's a complex, funny, smart, amazing character, who survives in spite of the short brutal life fate has planned for her.
Buffy, the series, is a metaphor for life... struggle, growth, transcendence, falling and getting back up again. Becoming.
Angel was a fleeting dream that became a nightmare. Then it became a case of unfulfillable longing. I'm sorry, but continuing that longer than the one season would have been a farcical and unbearable miasma. A 16 year old dreams of her 'mysterious lover', it's all fantasy and giggling with Willow. A 17 year old consummates it, and it works out or it doesn't (it didn't). An adult woman finds a way to make things work, or she moves on. Angel didn't even let 'them' decide. They didn't even consider looking for a cure for the "stay celibate forever or let the monster out" scenario. No, he decided for her, because it was HIS decision to make... which treated her like a little kid (not even a teenager), and certainly not a partner.
He and Joyce getting together and talking, was the adults getting together and making choices for the 'child'. Thank God, he didn't stick around to share that 18th century mindset!
No way was is any of that a workable relationship. Celibate forever? Sorry, that's insanity. No, I am with Faith... sex matters. Particularly, in a young, vital woman like Buffy. From the sexual being we see Buffy become as time went on, she couldn't have been satisfied by just "gazing soulfully into her dead lover's eyes." Then it would become Twilight. (shudders). Buffy was more than that! She needed more than that.
An Angel/Buffy holding pattern would have turned Buffy into a soap opera of unfulfilled desire, that Wes and Cordy mocked so hysterically on his show!
Instead, we got Cordy/Angel holding pattern on his show, once they tried the romance thing, before which, he rocked the monk life and actually focused on saving people. I'm glad he left Buffy. David got to grow into a decent actor and we got 3 great years of Angel, the series. Angel staying would have turned the Buffy series into the Angel melodrama of unfulfilled passions going nowhere, and rapidly stopped being about Buffy or . That didn't happen on his show b/c before the show actually addressed the relationship difficulties, Cordelia ascended and Angel sank.
AlphaFoxtrot
Scooby
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The show hit its peak when he became a main, and did begin to decline in enjoy ability after he left. Granted, I'm not willing to say that was only him, a lot of changes happened in season 2 and 4, and the adult seasons, the problem wasn't with Buffy. I mean, by that logic, Seth Green was... Darnit, that's not as absurd as it sounded in my head.
Mr Trick
Scooby
True, but don't forget for most of season two Boreanaz was playing a villain. His performance as Angelus was very different from what he had been doing as Angel. I agree he improved during season two, but not enough to convince me of his greatness at least not as Angel.
RomanticSoul
Frell Me
I think the loss of Angel was only significant in so much as Buffy losing her 'sounding board' and them never giving her a replacement for that. While Buffy shared with Willow and Giles to an extend, Angel let us know the 'inner Buffy'. Buffy is not share girl, never was even before the show started. She's very internal/introvert. At least once she became a slayer. Buffy's past was revealed to us through Angel (Becoming flashback, ice skating to escape her parents fighting) and Angel was often the sounding board for Buffy's current problems/fears (Ted, Helpless, Forever). That's what IMO was missing post high school. Because Buffy is an internal character you need someone with Angel's role in order for the audience to understand the character to a degree. It's not Angel himself just the role he played IMO. The whole reason he is in 'Forever' is that that sounding board was needed so the audience knew Buffy's current feelings. There was no one else on the show for her to share with.
So then are you critical of Angel for leaving? Or do you think that he should've stayed and allowed Buffy to live a life of celibacy like Buffy said she would do because she loved him? You criticise him for leaving her (btw he did not make the decision to leave with Joyce, he heard Buffy's mother out and decided later) but then you say that him staying and Buffy and him living a life of celibacy is insanity. The two arguments are antithetical don't you think?
Ethan Reigns
Scooby
Buffy was what made Buffy watchable. This was the part SMG was born to play and she was perfect in it.
Angel was the Byronic hero, the tall, handsome stranger with a mysterious past that is a standard character in a lot of romances. But Buffy is not a romance story, it is a story of someone who is exceptional learning to use her skills to change the world. This is similar to people who are "natural " athletes or musicians who nevertheless have to practice diligently and hone their craft because an advantage at birth is just that - a starting position. These athletes and musicians may have love interests but in comparison to the development of skill, these interests are often impediments to development and not always welcome parts of their story.
Angel's own series was a better platform for his development than Buffy could ever be because Bangel was caught in the "true love but unable to consummate" trope, one that is rarely used because it is unpleasant and does not lend itself to entertainment and most importantly for story purposes, it is also stagnant. Angel was interesting when he showed up but you can't write a watchable story around a stagnant relationship.
The absence of Angel or a revamp (see what I did there?) of his story would have necessitated a number of changes but the story we got with Angel was not the only one that could have been told or even the optimum one. Personally, I don't always appreciate the relationship angst and soap opera characteristics of a story like this. Getting Angel his own show was a great decision - he could maintain interest and have further relationships of a number of varieties even if the shadow of Buffy hung over all of them.
BtVS changed after Season 3 where Angel departed because Buffy is not an Archie / Jughead / Veronica / Betty story where nothing ever changes and they are teenagers for decades (sort of like Beverley Hills 90210). Buffy is a story of someone who keeps growing and changing as would be expected in a story that starts in Grade 10 and continues into university and after. The relationships all change with the passage of time just like real relationships.
What is watchable is the consequences of the choices each character makes. That is the concept that the rest of the story revolves around.
Angel was the Byronic hero, the tall, handsome stranger with a mysterious past that is a standard character in a lot of romances. But Buffy is not a romance story, it is a story of someone who is exceptional learning to use her skills to change the world. This is similar to people who are "natural " athletes or musicians who nevertheless have to practice diligently and hone their craft because an advantage at birth is just that - a starting position. These athletes and musicians may have love interests but in comparison to the development of skill, these interests are often impediments to development and not always welcome parts of their story.
Angel's own series was a better platform for his development than Buffy could ever be because Bangel was caught in the "true love but unable to consummate" trope, one that is rarely used because it is unpleasant and does not lend itself to entertainment and most importantly for story purposes, it is also stagnant. Angel was interesting when he showed up but you can't write a watchable story around a stagnant relationship.
The absence of Angel or a revamp (see what I did there?) of his story would have necessitated a number of changes but the story we got with Angel was not the only one that could have been told or even the optimum one. Personally, I don't always appreciate the relationship angst and soap opera characteristics of a story like this. Getting Angel his own show was a great decision - he could maintain interest and have further relationships of a number of varieties even if the shadow of Buffy hung over all of them.
BtVS changed after Season 3 where Angel departed because Buffy is not an Archie / Jughead / Veronica / Betty story where nothing ever changes and they are teenagers for decades (sort of like Beverley Hills 90210). Buffy is a story of someone who keeps growing and changing as would be expected in a story that starts in Grade 10 and continues into university and after. The relationships all change with the passage of time just like real relationships.
What is watchable is the consequences of the choices each character makes. That is the concept that the rest of the story revolves around.
DeepBlueJoy
Lion Faced Kitteh
I think they should have talked. He basically made it a done deal and did it 'for her own good'. It's OK for him to break up with her for himself. It's not really OK for her to decide what is good for her. Maybe she was being overly romantic to think she could live a life of celibacy (I do think so) but adults who have relationships decide things together and DISCUSS things... otherwise it's not really a relationship, it's a dictatorship.
If he'd said "I can't do this, it hurts too much" that wouldn't have been patronizing, that would have been honest. But just as he decided to lie to cordy when she came back and decided to go to Wolfram and Hart and wipe his friend's minds without their consent or knowledge, he decided for her. That was patronizing and autocratic. It's not a healthy way to relate. His leaving was a good thing. HOW he did it was not.