BABE! Congratulations on being in the HOT SEAT!!!!
I can't believe how long you had to wait before you were nominated. Crazy.
OK, now, knowing your great love of all things Angel and your passion for the stories, I have made up some questions specifically JUST FOR YOU!
I just have a feeling you are going to love these.
*wink wink wink, nudge nudge*
I can't wait to read your answers!
I know! I've been dying to get in this thing forever! I'm so glad it's finally my time!
Oh excellent, I'm so glad you thought of these questions with me in mind *wink wink*
When did you get hooked on BtVS?
What is your favorite BtVS season and why?
What is your favorite Angel season and why?
You've said that you liked season 4, but not how it ended with Jasmine taking over. How would you have liked that season to end?
Do you think they should have killed off Cordy at the end of the season? If not, how do you think she could have fit into season 5? Do you think it should have been Cordy who was evil and not another being controlling Cordy's body? How would you want them to justify Cordy's change in character to evil?
Are you happy with Vincent Kartheiser playing Connor, or do you think they could have made it better with a different physical type?
What are your feelings about Dawn? What do you think they could have done to make Dawn's part in season 5 better?
Do you think that they should have brought Buffy's dad in to help after Joyce died? Do you like how they blew off his legal and financial responsibility towards Dawn?
Do you think they should have had Giles stay for season 6 (if ASH hadn't wanted to move back to England?). How do you think that this would have affected the show?
About Angel, do you wish they had kept Doyle, or at least brought him back in some form, if the actor hadn't died?
Did you prefer Eve or Lilah? Which one would you rather have seen as the liason to the Senior Partners in season 5 of Angel?
How did you like Illyria? How did you like all of Illyria's one-on-one scenes with Wesley at the end of season 5? What did you like or dislike about them? What might you have liked to seen done differently? If the show had gone on for season 6, would you have liked Wesley to live or die as he did in the finale?
Who do you think Buffy should choose: Angel or Spike? Why? When do you think she should choose?
What do you think of the Spangel ship?
Do you think they should have brought Drusilla back to visit her boys in season 5, or season 6, if they had a season 6?
1. I got hooked on Buffy when I was 10, I think. It had just started airing on BBC2 over here, and they showed the first two episodes as a double feature, around 11pm at night. I snuck up to my mum's room during a dinner party and watched it alone. I felt so rebellious!
Then I felt scared out of my mind, because I didn't know vampire lore, and thought they might be able to get into my house.
Darla scared me the most, her vampire face was just so wicked-looking
2. My favourite Buffy season is Season Seven, which I understand is very rare for a Buffy fan to say, but I really do just love it.
I like the the themes of redemption, and how Buffy became so hardened and closed off, even though she was trying so desperately to reconnect with Dawn and her friends.
I loved the potential army, a group of scared little children expected to fight a war, expected to just accept that they were likely to die. I liked them when they whined, it made them more real. If they'd all just been as accepting as Kennedy and Amanda were, it would have been too clean cut and fake for me.
I also though they were a lovely reminder of how the Scoobies and Buffy used to be. Reluctant, scared, goofy etc. They've all grown into such fierce, dignified warriors now, it was good to get a perspective on how far we'd come with them.
The Spike/Buffy love story was also something extrememly poignant and beautiful to me. I never agreed with Spuffy in season five and six, because it was damaging to Buffy and Spike was incapable of any real change, he'd always be evil deep down as long as he had no soul, no matter how hard he tried.
I enjoyed the 'ship for what it was, a big, dangerous, sexy mistake, but I was proud of Buffy when she cut it off, and I felt like I'd been proved right when Spike's evil urges took over and he nearly raped her.
When he came back with a soul, he was a different man, and I don't understand why everyone was so up in arms about them being romantic with each other. I mean, if Angel was a different person to the man who murdered Jenny, tortured Giles, tried to destroy the world twice, nailed puppies to walls and stalked Buffy and her mother, so much so that the fans can accept Buffy falling back into his arms in season three, then why isn't Spike afforded the same respect?
I also loved the First. A villain you'll never entirely get rid of. I liked it's psychological approach to messing the Scoobies up. I liked that it just adapted to whatever the situation was. One plan didn't work out? Fine! It'll just settle for tearing the group apart, or destroying Buffy's self esteem etc.
3. My favourite Angel season is Season Four. It's wonderful, dark, epic and full of shocks.
I loved evil pregnant Cordelia, sitting up in her room, masterminding the demise of the people around her. Not a person suspecting her. The crazy dresses she wore, the way she carried herself and spoke, she was almost operatic in terms of villainy. Very regal and superior. A very evil "Queen C".
Faith's return was also a total blast, I will always adore the scene in Release where she freaks out in the shower and busts up the wall with her raw, bloody knuckles. Faith is still a messed up girl, we all know it.
I loved how they just turned everything on it's head at the very end, by having all this apocalyptic imagery and death and mayhem suddenly lead to what was basically Utopia. Such a great twist, and Gina Torres has such presence. I'm glad they chose someone so excotic and statuesque for Jasmine. If it had been some stick thin blonde bimbo, I would have felt a little annoyed.
Angelus was great too, but we didn't see enough of him. Awakening was an amazing episode (although I'm still mad about that little "Buffy" Angel uttered during his "moment of happiness" with Cordy)
4. Oh Maria, I don't know WHERE you could've gotten the idea that I didn't like the Jasmine arc *winks*
In honesty, I really don't think they could have ended it any other way without it being something of an anticlimax. Say they created a big final apocalypse replete with non-pregnant evil Cordy and minion Connor, where would they go from there? How would they stop Cordy? How could they top it the following year?
Jasmine was a neat twist that no-one saw coming, but also raised a lot of wonderful questions about the nature of free will and whether wolrd peace is attainable realistically.
5. I'm very glad they didn't kill Cordy at the end of season four, I felt You're Welcome was the perfect way to say goodbye for her. Had they killed her at the end of the season it would have just been too abrupt, with no chance for anyone to get a last glimpse of the REAL Cordy. We would always remember the evil Cordy dying and that's it. That's not how I'd want my girl to be remembered.
If they had kept her around for season five, there would have been a wealth of things they could have explored, Cordy's anger at Angel for taking the deal, trying to deal with what Jasmine had done to her. Most importantly, who actually WAS now. So much of her development was tied into the things that were manipulated by Jasmine, the visions, the demonisation, the ascension. They all turned out to be a sham, so does that mean all her growth meant nothing.
I'd have liked to realise that no, even though they were all lies, doesn't mean she didn't take something important from them. She became a good person, a selfless human, and now she learn from this situation too. That even bad things can have good effects.
I'm glad something was controlling Cordy. Cordy would never in a million years have willingly surrendered to evil. Eve back in her high school days, she didn't have that in her. Cordy was never hateful, she was just blunt and mean. She doesn't have it in her to be truly evil. There'd be nothing that could turn her against Angel.
6. I liked Vincent as Connor. I thought he had the qualities of Julie Benz and David Boreanaz, Julie being small and lithe with lovely eyes and fine lips, David being glowering and intense with that brow.
I thought it was a smart way to go, having him be more gymnastic-looking in terms of body type. If he'd been this big hulking jock-type boy...well, I might have fancied him more, but it would have been a little predictable. Plus VK looked better doing all those flips and wire kicks.
7. I really love Dawn. She's had it really rough, and while she did piss me off a few times in season six, I could see where it was all coming from. Her mom died, her dad dumped her, her sister died, then came back emotionless and detached from her. Her closest friends are actually her sister's friends, everyone treats her like a spare part to be dealt with. No-one utilised her. I'm sure she could have been helpful a lot of times, with her talent for absorbing knowledge so quickly and her naturally inquisitive nature. Look at how useful she was in season seven!
I'm so glad she didn't become a potential though. God how stupid and obvious would that have been?
In season five, I think they possibly could have written her a little more mature a few times, but other than that, she was just great. Michelle really had great acting skills back then.
8. I think to have brought Hank Summers back into the picture would have negated the whole point of Joyce dying and Giles returning to England, which was having the girls pretty much with only each other, and learning to grow up and interact successfully with each other.
I do see where it seems odd that Hank just became such a deadbeat Dad, because he used to be quite involved with Buffy and Joyce, the weekend visits, the trips to LA. But I think it was probably monk invention. How would Buffy be the Key's sole protector if she was just running to her Dad for help? Glory would have torn through Hank Summers like wet paper.
9. If ASH had still wanted to stick around, I think they still should have at least reduced his influence on Buffy, maybe given him a storyline outside of the Scoobies. Something to keep him out of Buffy's life as she tried to grow up and become more self-reliant. I know it was dictated by outside show influences, but I'm personaly glad Giles flew away to the UK. Buffy would have just kept on looking to him to help her do things, and never would have grown up.
10. Doyle I never truly gelled with. He was fun enough, and Glen Quinn had beautiful eyes, but something about him seemed too bland for me. Wesley I liked more, because I had a connection with him previously. I loved Doyle's heroic death though, so sad. The look on Cordelia's face as he dies always KILLS me.
I do think, if Glen hadn't died, it would have been great to have him be Cordelia's spirit guide in "Birthday" and such. A little blast from Cordy's past.
11. Oh Lilah of course, she just had such presence and snark, and I still don't understand why they replaced her. Madness.
Eve I did like, but she just couldn't fill Lilah's Blahniks. They didn't quite develop her enough, and they tried to make her snarky and knowledgeable all the time. I think it would have been cooler to play her innocence more. She's an immortal and a creation of the Senior Partners, why not have her be very unassuming and shy, but with a buttload of knowledge and power buried inside her?
12. I loved Illyria, she's one of the few things I like about Season Five of Angel. I think she sort of kicked the season into high gear. I was also glad to be rid of Fred, she irritated me profusely. She's just another Willow, maybe a little less annoying, but still. She became such a Mary Sue in season five, able to do anything with her wonderful lab, everyone in love with her, considered so perfect that she was selected for Illyria. The Fred worship wears thin sometimes for me.
Illyria was just badass. She was so alien, so out of place with her surroundings, so clever but so frightfully uneducated of the world as it is now. Plus she had cool hair.
I liked her scenes with Wes, because we got to see how Illyria views things, how she used to be. I loved her way of speaking, a thousand words when just one will do. Wesley sort of annoyed me though, because he was pining after Fred, and I can't abide Fred-pining.
I think if the show had gone on to season six, I would have still had Wesley die in Not Fade Away, the cast seriously needed some trimming by that point, and with Wes, Harmony and Lorne gone, they could probably afford to have Charisma back! Yay!
13. Buffy should choose Spike. He's a companion to her, he's grown with her, he's "seen the best and the worst of [her]" and there's this connection there, and companionship and equality, that she just doesn't get with Angel.
Angel belongs with Cordelia anyway, so that's a problem solved.
Buffy and Angel were high school romance, they eventually realised that realistically they don't work as a couple.
Spike and Buffy, and Angel and Cordy work as couples. They grew out of companionship, they accept each other for everything they ARE and not everything they want each other to be.
Buffy should choose as soon as possible, just to shut up the Bangels.
14. I love Spangel! I think there's definitely something there. Joss knows it too. They play so well off of each other and have such a hilarious chemistry. I'd love to see an on-screen exploration of their relationship.
I don't understand people who vehemently deny there being any kind of romantic/sexual relationship between Spike and Angel. Are they scared of their heroes being impure and gay? *shrugs*
15. Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes! Dru is always wonderful whenever we see her, and I would have loved to see what the Angel people would have come up with for her costume this time around. I was always a fan of her black revivication dress from "What's My Line?" and her red flowy overcoat and dress in the latter half of season two. It was just great!
I'd like to see how Spike and Angel deal with her. Could they actually kill her? She's such a huge part of both of them. Would they let her go? Would they try to give her a soul?
So many possiblities! Whatever they did, I'd have loved to have seen her back. If they killed her, I've always envisioned her going up in flames and cackling and twirling as she burns.