I... Help the Helpless?
Well the waiting is over, or so I thought, having viewed the (taped) season premiere of Angel last night. It started off in witty Joss Whedon fashion, and soon I was back in Sunnydale enjoying the type of fantasy-drama fans of the show(s) have come to expect. Only, it's not Sunnydale, it's LA, and a lot of these characters haven't paid their dues (i.e., been developed) enough to warrant anything other than recurring status. I'm pointing to Gunn and Fred, both of whom could likely be replaced by potted plants and the show would have much more time to concentrate on its core characters (Angel, Wesley, Lorne) and spend some time on new ones. As it is, the first episode, while good, was a little shaky, but as Amy Amatangelo suggests, the second part will be what we want. Note: her observations are pretty much aligned with mine, but she commits the inversion of Poor-Listener Of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" Error (heretofore known as the PLOPFCNE) in one of her quotes. If you don't know what I mean, that's okay.

And what is it we want? As I've said, this isn't Sunnydale, so there's no Willow, Xander, Giles, Cordelia (lamely explained to be in a coma when actually she's just done with the show), or... Spike? Yes, he is the reason I was intent on watching season five of the show, but he didn't appear until the last two seconds of the episode, so instead I spent the entire show going, "Hmmm, pretty good, but they are running out of time for Spike..." I suppose one more week isn't that much. At least the trailers look good.