Just got done another marathon viewing of Angel Season 4. Minus Home. I’ll get to Home again when I have my friends holding my hand. But the research, the research was important. Needed the Big Picture. So many thoughts. Reviews to do, fics to write.
Speaking of fics, finally has a table of contents. I always forget how hard LJ is to navigate, even if you’re familiar with it. So here ’tis:
You know, I don’t read AU fanfic. Of course, I don’t really read much fanfic, period, but I have no taste for AU at all, I’m the original Canon’s Bitch. The original author determines what the story is, and if I don’t like it, I don’t have to keep reading/viewing/etc. That’s how I feel. I even suffered five months of Post Traumatic Stress syndrome after the AtS episode “Home” because that’s how I feel.
But you know what I can’t deal with, and will never be able to deal with so much so it just simply never happened?
“I just want everything back to the way it was.”
“It’s never going to be, you know.”
O.K., kids. Let’s review
This review contains 95% less obnoxious Angel+Baby Connor squeeing than the last. I promise. But I just have to start the post by noting their relationship, because of course the episodes “Loyalty” and “Sleep Tight” mark the tragic turn of Season 3, when Angel loses his child in Holtz’s devastating act of eye-for-an-eye vengeance.
So, ahem:
So I was about to start a recap post of Season 3 AtS that I’m supposed to write for a Season 4 marathon I have coming up, when it occurred to me that I already *have* a Season 3 review obligation and who can do justice to Season 3 in one post anyway? So this is as good an excuse as any to finish my Season 3 AtS reviews.
It’s here! My Season 1 Bewitched DVD set. 36 episodes! Boy, TV has changed a bit in the last 40 years, hasn’t it?
Well, that goes without saying. I happened to catch one of the old B&W episodes of Bewitched on my parent’s cable while I was out of town, and it was one of those *annoying* episodes where Samantha comes up with a great idea for one of Darren’s ad campaigns and he passes it off as his own without batting an eye and the episode ends with them hugging and her saying how she doesn’t want his job, she just wants to be the PerfectLittleAverageHousewife for her big super-star Ad Exec man.
WTF??
You’d be nobody without her, buddy.
It made me think twice about buying the DVD set instead of being patient and waiting for Netflix to notice it’d been released. But I’ve liked this show for a LONG time and have only caught episodes here and there in a totally RANDOM order and I wanted to see it in the order it originally aired for once. Plus, only $27.00 bucks.
I think what ultimately makes this show tolerable is despite the episode-ender “important lesson” lip-service to “You-man, me-little-wife”, the show ultimately subverts that message because Samantha’s heritage and strong personality won’t allow her to be an “obedient wife”. Not to mention the support she gets in her liberation from her family, which to a person look askance at the life she is trying to live (and not just the denying her magic, but also the submissive housewife routine as well).
I’m not saying this is a feminist show, ’cause I don’t think it is, at least not consciously. But it’s one of those shows like I Love Lucy that gets its energy and charm from the Wacky!Disobedient!Wife gimmick and says a lot about the transition in attitudes that were going on in pre-1970’s America.
The real reason I like the show is I have a soft spot for supernatural family stories.
Well, duh.
Grab a flower and feel the power!
Oy, I can’t believe my last review was in November, and now it’s March. But what can I say? I got busy. With fanfic. And it’s ironic that, when I got distracted for five months, the next episodes up for review were the first to feature my beloved Unholy Family. Darla shows up at Angel’s door with a “bun in the oven”, and Season 3 finally takes on its shape.
(Warning: spoilers to the end of Season 5 AtS)
Author Nancy E. Shaffer 