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Angel
Lineage
original air-date: 11-12-03
This week's
lackluster episode is a big letdown from last week's snappy
masterpiece. Perhaps because the plot focuses on two British
characters the writers thought it would be appropriate to
have an overall dry stiff feel to the script.
The beginning
might fool the unsuspecting audience member into believing
he is getting more John Woo than Merchant Ivory. The action
gets going with a warehouse meeting between Wes and someone
who is either a Nigerian e-mail spammer or arms runner. Things
go awry when a masked ninja (think black Power Ranger gone
bad) shows up. There is then a nauseatingly cliché
slow motion shot of Wes diving with two guns blazing. Guns
have never worked well on Angel. And neither has ripping
off famous action films.
Things
go even more awry --- and a-dry --- when Wes' father Roger
shows up. The elder Wyndham-Price reports that the Watcher's
Council has re-formed, and he's here to evaluate his son for
reinstatement.
In the
meantime Roger handily helps out by disarming a bomb inside
the ninja, which is really a cyborg (maybe Angel can watch
tapes of the Six Million Dollar Man to see how Steve
Austin tackled the Fembots...). Hmm...can you smell coincidence?
At least Roger does the audience a favor through a conversation
that reveals the subtle complexities of the mind wipe, i.e.,
Wes does remember Lilah and Evil Cordy.
Much less
subtle is the expositional exchange between Angel and Eve
about the mindwipe. One almost expects one of the them to
turn to the camera with a "Got that everyone?"
And why
is Eve such a busybody this week when she's conspicuously
absent at other times? At least she's fun to look at (if you
like'em sassy), and her elevator scene with Spike is one of
the episode's brighter spots (though by far Spike's best moment
is his Buffy inspired comments on human robot interaction).
A lot
of the episode feels forced: The difficult father-son relationship,
Angel chewing out Wes, Lorne's pleasantries, and some fourth
quarter cyborg fight scenes that seem, well, pointless. Wes
seems too out of sort, and the episode improves significantly
about two-third of the way in when he reverts to normal. And
as we know, normal for Wes includes a deep love for Fred (for
God sakes why?!) despite his detour into Lilah-bia. This love
sets up both a startling climax followed by a cheesy revelation.
The story
leaves open the question of who sent the cyborgs. Given their
past idiot actions, one would be reasonable to suspect a re-formed
Watcher's Council. But technology, like guns, doesn't fit
well in the Whedonverse. Sure, the Buffybot and the "50's
Dad From Hell" robot (pure fun from John Ritter) were
notable exceptions. Even a few of Warren's toys had humorous
effects, e.g., invisible Buffy. But the writers, who are apparently
now obsessed with masks (Mexican wrestlers, ninja cyborgs),
need to tread very carefully.
Maybe
it's better if we don't find out who sent the cyborgs and
just mindwipe this episode.
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