Scooby Gang vs. Angel Investigations

Which team had the better relationship?

  • Scooby Gang

    Votes: 8 61.5%

  • Angel Investigations

    Votes: 5 38.5%
  • Total voters
    13
Samuel Reyes

Samuel Reyes

Chilling in SunnyD
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Which team had the better relationship?

For me it's Angel Investigations. At the start of Buffy they felt extremely close but after Season 3 they started developing relationships with other people and never seemed quite as close again. Barely anyone outside of their significant other seemed to mourn Oz and Riley leaving, for instance, and after Xander and Anya broke up, Buffy and Willow went to comfort Xander without a second thought to Anya being out of the picture. Basically if you broke up with that person, you were out, whereas when Fred and Gunn broke up, they were still friends with everyone else. When they turned their back on Wes in Season 3 it was for a legit reason (his betrayal) rather than out of petty spite.
 
Scooby Gang.
Mainly because of how Cordelia treated Wesley S3 post Connor abduction- i.e not giving a crap.
Never would've happened with the Scoobies.

Also, in general they had more conflicts/arguments but seemed to be able to get back together despite their differences, bearing in mind there were some members who didn't really like each other- Xander/Angel, Buffy/Cordelia, Giles/Spike, Anya and most of the group (for example).
But in AI everyone liked everyone else for the most part, so there was no internal tension (barring Angel firing everybody for a good, long while) until Fred picked Gunn over Wes in S3 , followed by Wes's betrayal. Then everything fell apart and didn't come back together for about a year.
When the AI team split up they really split up.
 
Scooby Gang.

People in Angel Investigation are not family or friends, no matter how much Cordy wanted and tried to make them to be.
 
AI, mostly because I prefer Angel as a show. But also because that first (half a) season with Angel, Cordy and Doyle was so well done, almost perfect. Doyle's death left such an impact and it was great to see the original AI team referenced all the way at the end of S5. I felt real pangs of sadness watching You're Welcome.

Bringing Wesley in for the remainder of S1 (and the show) was another great choice. I think AI interacted well and I liked the more grown-up themes of their friendships. I don't think Angel, nor the rest of AI, would have reacted so badly to Wesley's betrayal if they HADN'T cared so much about him, and each other.
 
I'd say AI. It felt more realistic. You got a real sense of the loneliness from the characters on Angel, not just Angel himself. Fred dealing with the trauma of Pylea, being away from her Texan home life when she moved to LA. Or Gunn with his natural outsider quality from his background and tough life. Or Cordelia being ostracised from the good life when her parents lost it all. All of it works well, and naturally, to make a most eclectic group of people who manage to have a shared connection.

Whereas with Buffy, these are similar kids who went to the same school together, had a fairly typical and similar family life. The drifting apart they had in later seasons was actually very well done, I thought. As anyone who's been friends with people beyond high school knows, some drift away. These are people you know through a shared requirement (school) unlike Angel. Although it makes me love Willow even more when she tells Buffy this is what she wants to do with her life. I think Alyson would have been great as a main cast member on Angel.
 
I just cast the tying vote. AI was a company where people knew they would have to deal with each other every day just to get a paycheck. That meant relationships had to be maintained for professional reasons. The scoobies never had relationships clouded by financial considerations other than the purchase and operation of the Magic Box and Giles writing a check to Buffy in Season 6. The scoobies stayed together because they wanted to be together. For this reason, my vote was for the scoobies. Also, the scoobies never joined Satan's law firm.
 
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