Angel: The Short Reviews

This is a collection of reviews of 'Angel' episodes that I originally wrote to be posted to the newsgroup uk.media.tv.angel, together with my votes for natalie's five-star polls. I reproduce them here for your reading pleasure! Season four is currently airing on Sky one on thursday evenings, at 9pm. It's also airing in the US on the WB, on wednesdays at 9pm.

Since I cough get most of the episodes before they're shown on UK TV cough, the reviews have started appearing here first. It's even got to the point where a couple of other websites (notably the Council Of Watchers) have asked if they can link to me, which does wonders for my ego, I can tell you. Anyway, if you have any comments or criticisms, please get in touch, either by email, or by signing my guestbook.

There are lots of missing entries because I only started writing reviews when S1 was mid-way through its run on terrestrial TV, and S2 was simultaneously mid-way through its run on Sky; hopefully I'll fill in the gaps as time goes on. If you're interested, the episode which inspired me to start writing was 'Happy Anniversary' - which means that either the episode was worth it after all, or that it's an even bigger crime than you first thought, depending on your point of view. :-)

A note on the ratings: I rate episodes out of five, because that's how I'm used to doing it when I post to umta. As a general guideline, I think that anything that gets a 4.5 or higher is pretty much a classic. 4 means good, solid, satisfying work; 3 is adequate, but ultimately disappointing; and less than 3...well, it's not a good sign.

Some other things:

• A chatty discussion of one of the big issues in S2 is here, but don't read it unless you've seen all of S2, or you don't mind spoilers.

• A more in-depth analysis of Pylea. If you don't know who, what, or where Pylea is, I suggest you don't read it, though.

• See also my review of the Buffy season five finale, 'The Gift'.

• An overview of the first eleven episodes of S3 can be found here.

• Slightly unnervingly, it has become apparent that none other than Tim Minear lurks on umta (as well as pretty much every other newsgroup and posting board that mentions 'Angel', as far as I can tell; alt.tv.angel, salon.com, mightybigTV, you name it, he's reading it), which means that there's an even chance that some of my reviews have actually been read by somebody who works on the show. I very much doubt he takes any notice of what he reads, but even so; as natalie has been known to say - 'scary biscuits'. I've been archiving his posts here, although I'm a little behind the times right now.