Question What was up with the writing this season?

[The Scourge]

The writing this season was, in my opinion, extremely poor. There were scened of Angel entering homes where he wasn't invited in, Angel acted more like Mal from Firefly than the character we'd followed the previous 4 seasons with all of the quips/witty remarks.

Seriously, what was up with Whedon this season? Even the lighting/mood/atmosphere of the show was different and more Buffy-like.

 

[prophecygrrl]

Really? I didn't think so. Mid-season is when it really started getting good IMO, but even I thought the beginning episodes weren't bad at all either. I don't remember Angel entering homes he wasn't invited in, but my guess is Wolfram & Hart took care of the invitations beforehand. The end of the season was a bit rushed, but understandable given the circumstances.

 

[The Scourge]

I did start to like it more once I got to mid-season, but Wesley and Spike is what mainly held my interest up to that point.

I think the house Angel entered uninvited was Lindsey and Eve's place when they went to search Lindsey's place for information.

 

[Lyri]

I agree with prophecygrrl.

While I do think that the ending was a bit rushed, given the fact that they'd just been cancelled and needed to wrap everything up, I don't think there's anything bad I can say about the writing, or even that it differs to the earlier seasons. S5 had some great eps, in my opinion, including 'Origins', 'Not Fade Away', 'Destiny', 'Lineage', 'Shells' and 'Damaged'. I thought they were some of the best eps of the series.

As for Angel's quippage, I put that down to being around Spike again. Spike was like his annoying little brother, as, for those of you who have younger brothers or sisters, you know how hard it is to not get roped in when they start to tease you, and it turns into meaningless little squabbles. Now that they both had souls, and nothing else to turn their attentions to to get rid of the jealousy between them, they turned back into the school boys they were. It's been said time and again that Angel and Spike are immature, and nothing shows that more than when they're together. Which I found to be quite funny.

I don't think Angel was out of character this season. He's always had that dry, sarcastic sense of humor, and he came out with those one liners a lot. I don't think I can honestly say that S5 made Angel different to the other seasons. I just think that, now he had a solid, albeit evil, team behind him, he found time to relax.

---------- Post added at 02:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:04 AM ----------

I think the house Angel entered uninvited was Lindsey and Eve's place when they went to search Lindsey's place for information.

The argument for that could be that it wasn't their house. If they killed the owners in order to find some place to live that was off the Senior Partners' radar, then it wasn't their house and therefore Angel was able to enter without an invite.

Or, the spells that Lindsey cast to keep the Senior Partners from finding them voided the need for an invite.

 

[prophecygrrl]

I did start to like it more once I got to mid-season, but Wesley and Spike is what mainly held my interest up to that point.

I think the house Angel entered uninvited was Lindsey and Eve's place when they went to search Lindsey's place for information.

Oh right, I forgot about Lindsey's place.

I agree that were definitely some stinkers (I hate the Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco episode) and ones that got a little boring since I figure all the characters were just adjusting to being at W&H, but overall, as a season, I think Season 5 is pretty well done. Especially from "Damage" and on. IMO, the season needed more Cordy though.

 

[The Scourge]

Oh right, I forgot about Lindsey's place.

I agree that were definitely some stinkers (I hate the Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco episode) and ones that got a little boring since I figure all the characters were just adjusting to being at W&H, but overall, as a season, I think Season 5 is pretty well done. Especially from "Damage" and on. IMO, the season needed more Cordy though.

Yeah, the mexican wrestler episode was just plain awful. The only part of the episode I remotely liked was Angel's WTF face when the zombies wrestlers came out of the graves and ran past him to attack the demon.

I absolutely loved 'Hellbound,' 'Damage,' 'Your Welcome,' 'Smile Time,' and 'Not Fade Away.' The writing in these episodes was excellent and just made the sub-par episodes stand out more for me.

The good episodes were really good this year, and the bad episodes were really bad. It made for an uneven season.

Although, one thing about the writing for Not Fade Away did annoy me. After Harmony betrayed Angel to Hamilton, he gives her a letter of recommendation instead of staking her. What the heck gave the writers the idea that that made sense?

The argument for that could be that it wasn't their house. If they killed the owners in order to find some place to live that was off the Senior Partners' radar, then it wasn't their house and therefore Angel was able to enter without an invite.

Or, the spells that Lindsey cast to keep the Senior Partners from finding them voided the need for an invite.

I suppose those theories make sense. It's better than the idea that Joss forgot the fundamental rule about vampires that he put in his shows.

 

[Hale Caesar]

I thought the writing in season 5 was great. Maybe when I do a re-watch I will look out for this, but during my first watch I had no problems with this season.