It should be said before I begin this review that I’m a sucker for exposition and revelations. I love the Council of Elrond in The Lord of the Rings, I love the bits where the Master explains his evil plan in Doctor Who. So I probably enjoyed this episode substantially more than those of you who aren’t immediately excited by a bunch of folks sitting around and working out what the heck has been going on for the past season of Angel (or even further back).

While I did have some reservations about the evil plan — I was happy for it to extend back to when Cordy ascended in the first place, but not so much for it to go further — one has to consider that a being that has proven itself to be outside of time in some ways (i.e. the dimensional fiddling about the Beast’s origin) isn’t going to be limited by just manipulating the past few months.

But enough about the fun revelations, because the big strength of this episode was the direction. There was some clever stuff here. As well as some good scene transitions, we also had yet another cool fight scene, between Angel and Skip. This season of Angel, I think, wins ‘best fight scenes’ hands down. I challenge anyone not to cheer when Angel wraps up the chain in slow motion and smacks Skip in the head with it. Wesley’s sharpshooting was also pretty impressive (and, of course, in character — he’s been deadly accurate with ranged weapons right back to season 1).

Again, it was also fun to have Angel back. I hadn’t realised how much I missed him. His exausted request that everyone incapacitate Skip was very funny. “Before he wakes up would be nice.” And his sad but resolute willingness to kill Cordy — and not to let any of the others nearby when he did it — was perfect.

But enough of the fun. We have a dull, dingy Cordy-Connor plotline to wrap up. Never has it been more painful to watch them together — as evil-Cordy completely annihilates Connor as a character. This despite the last ditch efforts of the Powers that Be, via Darla. It’s been a while since we saw either of them — Darla is welcome, but if the best that the ‘PTB’ can come up is an ex-vampire spouting lines from Return of the Jedi then they should just go home.

I had quite a bit of sympathy for Connor by this point, but I have to admit now that he’s not the brightest spark — and probably pretty much gone as a character now. Say it with me, people:

“If someone is ritualistically killing virgins — especially virgin girls — they’re EVIL.”

Thank you.

I’ve been generally positive about this season of Angel, but the fact is, it’s been wearing. Doom, gloom, and the loss of the happier sides of Wesley and Cordelia has resulted in one pretty depressing season — even if it has been well written and realised sometimes.

So it’s an incredible relief to get a (largely) standalone episode, with Gunn suddenly transformed — and believably so — from gloomy, grumpy ex-boyfriend of Fred to sharp, witty action hero. And doesn’t he just get the best day ever? He gets to put his movie knowledge to good use, he gets to have one of the best fight scenes on Angel ever with two stick-wielding blokes, and he gets… well, that would be telling.

Seeing Gunn so relaxed gives J. August Richards a chance to shine, and shine he does — and not just the top of his head. The character’s description of the past year — a “turgid demon soap-opera” is pretty much what we’d all been thinking, but comes across better than Fred’s repeated “Isn’t their relationship kinda…. icky?” lines. He also benefits from having Gwen as a foil, and she gives his character some much needed support.

This story also gives Gwen’s story some nice closure, and cements her as a very successful addition to the Angel world. Plus, her last scene with Gunn could be the sexiest thing ever done in the series. And I’m counting Angel and Cordy in ‘Waiting in the Wings’.

Meanwhile, of course, back at the Hyperion, things are still a little peculiar — though it looks like the characters are beginning to wise up. It’s nice to hear that Angel agrees with me about the Beast-Master’s ‘voice’ and how lame it is. It’s even more nice to see Angel putting all the pieces together, and proving that he’s deserving of his leadership of the group. I tried watching specifically to spot the point where Angel works it all out, but I’m none the wiser — perhaps when Cordy starts her hypothetical “I’m the Master” routine? But surely everyone has to know by the time Lorne comes in with his cape. Perhaps the whole inscription thing was just a test to see if Cordy would try to stop them? Surely no one could have missed the coffee-moving.

So in short, one of the better episodes this year by virtue of its simplicity, the intelligence granted to (most of) the characters within it. And a very good ending.

And, one assumes, the end of evil-Cordy. Thank goodness for that.

Well, I’m off to Canada at the end of the year. Isn’t THAT exciting. This will allow us to visit the site of many impressive television shows — The X-Files, Max Headroom… Well, that’s all I can think of. Actually, I’m told that it’s in fact the skiing and the scenery that will be more impressive.

In other news, Jackson and I are considering moving Grapefruit to a new server with a proper domain name and server-side scripting. This would make everything even cooler and allow all sorts of exciting things, like web-comments on reviews/blogs, searching capabilities, and more.

Now that exams are finished I’m hoping to see some more films, too. It’s not too good when Grapefruit becomes just a small factory churning out Buffy and Angel reviews. Though of course I’m behind on those too — that’s next on my list.

Thanks to Andy of course for his engrossing animated series. Though I’d just like to point out that he can no longer bag my spelling on the end credits of Igor Episode I, given his amusing typo in episode 12.

Does anyone know where I can buy fireproof pants?

Daily TAOKJ will resume now as I’m just about to finish this one. Except when I have to go to work, which is usually Sundays and Fridays. I apologise for the delay. I was trying out this new ‘study’ thingy.

In just a few short hours, the World Wide Developers Conference hosted by Apple Computers will start, and many exciting new pieces of software and hardware will be announced. Despite the unfortunately horrible time that this converts to in sunny Melbourne, I shall be up to watch the excitement unfold.

In less than a day and a half, my Astrophysics and Optics exam will start. This fills me with something rather different to excitement.

Luckily when I wake up tomorrow, this damned uncertainty will be banished and I will be able to sit comfortably in abject TERROR. Woo.

Not long now. As of this Saturday we will once again have a full complement of staff, meaning more than one day off a fortnight. Until then however, I will remain intolerant of any critisism regarding my lack of productivity so don’t even think about it.. I’m miserable enough as it is.

Those skeptics out there can stay relaxed however because I plan to find a whole new bunch of fun and exciting ways to waste time. Like watching Farscape. I have just finished watching season 1 and I love it. Can’t wait for season 2.

Anyway don’t expect an entry anytime soon, if ever.

Don’t expect anthing.

Mid-season Buffy continues to blur together (Buffy’s line “Usually blows around May” is appropriate in more ways than one), and trying to avoid repeating myself is making these reviews unavoidably shorter. Everyone does pretty much the same thing as last episode, with the exception of Wood, who becomes more integrated into the group. It’s better than the ubervamp arc and there’s some good structure to the episode but it’s still pretty ordinary.

I liked Spike better in this one. He’s acting pretty soft at the moment. He’s trying to be good but he’s uncomfortable in his new role as a good guy and there was some interesting tension when he met Wood that’s been missing from this season. I can see why Angel had to mope about for so long to convince people that he’d changed.

They’re collecting quite a few potentials. Probably should get themselves a hotel like Angel. There’s a lot they could learn from him.

Buffy should stop fighting the system. Everyone needs more power and the price wasn’t that high. Maybe she hasn’t seen how crap her potentials are.

One’s initial impression of this episode is that it is remarkably similar to the previous four episodes, but on closer inspection it is easy to see that in fact it’s almost identical. Buffy continues stubbornly in her own direction, makes speeches and fails to do anything significant. Her fighting skills are average (She had trouble beating the demon girl even with Spike’s help) and she still mopes about thinking of Spike. Andrew continues to be useless but manages to break up the episode with geeky jokes. Anya says her one funny line in the episode and does nothing else. Xander, displaced from the position of loser by Andrew, is a bit lost in the middle of the group, like Dawn as mentioned a couple of episodes ago. Xander has dating trouble again but that’s the perils of living near the hellmouth.

It takes a lot of blood to open that seal to let out only one super vampire. The First should buy a herd of cows and keep it open. The First seems to taking things easy. There’s a small attempt to get Andrew back on side and set principal Wood against Spike. Hardly seems to be the actions of the First evil in my opinion. If the First was as effective as I thought it should be, I’d share Giles’ concerns about the lack of action and frequent dating in the face of an apocalypse. However the gang knows that an apocalypse isn’t the end of the world and so continues to do their own thing. Giles’ sensible concerns appear to be unfounded and are ignored. Still, souls are hardly a water tight prevention against evil acts.

And finally, Wood turns out not to be evil, despite my hope to the contrary. The gang could do with some more muscle and hopefully he’ll take down Spike so he could be useful. Plus it saves Buffy having to make excuses for missing work.

All I’ve get stopping from a month of holidays is one exam next Thursday. Unfortunately, it’s not a free-for-all gamecube-playing catch-up on-sleep holiday. I’m supposed to use the time to get a large proportion of my thesis done. At least that’s what my supervisors say. HAHAAHHAHAHA! And Tom thinks I’m going to write Buffy reviews when I have Enter the Matrix. Suckers. I will beat an agent. I am the one. Niobe is an anagram of one and IB. My mind just needs a bit more freeing. Anyway, I’d better get back to my ‘study’ now.