Lazy Saturday: Angel-athon (oh, and Watch Dollhouse!)

So what have I done all day? Outside of running a few errands, not a whole heck of a lot. I did some shopping, in preparation for our "Tres de Mayo" party tomorrow. Two days before the Cinco, but whatcha gonna do?

After the food & booze acquisition, I've spent the remainder of my afternoon/evening watching season 1 of Angel DVDs. Angel, if you don't know, is the spin-off series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by Joss Whedon. I came late to the party with Buffy, catching a few episodes of it in the 5th or 6th season. After that, I got hooked pretty quickly. I continued to watch all the episodes as they aired, and caught up with the reruns on FX. Then, I got the whole DVD set, and have watched them all at least twice.

I know, sick right? But the odd thing is, outside of a couple of episodes, I never watched Angel. But having seen all of Buffy several times, I thought it would be fun to catch a little of the Buffyverse that I haven't seen. So, I bought season 1 of Angel, and this is my second weekend of watching. The first several episodes were watchable, establishing the noble ensouled vampire (David Boreanaz) in Los Angeles. He's joined by Buffy's snooty former classmate, Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), and a half demon, Doyle (the late Glenn Quinn).

The earliest episodes of the series are watchable enough, but it took me quite a few to feel this was a show. At first, it seems kind of pointless, and directionless. Some of the crackling Whedon dialog is there, but it didn't quite gel at first. Oddly enough it isn't until Quinn's final episodes (the former Roseanne star apparently had a drug problem, and was fired) that it started to really work for me. I warmed to the character of Doyle, and then he's suddenly written out.

Exit Doyle, enter Wesley (Alexis Denisof), another refugee from Buffy, and the show has really started to grow on me. Also the passing of Doyle's clairvoyant "gift" to Cordelia sort of gives her character a purpose. It's still not as compelling as the parent series, but it's interesting enough to keep me watching the rest of the disks, and to check out season 2. What the experience has taught me has more to do with a different show than it does with either Buffy or Angel.

Whedon's newest show, Dollhouse, is--as they say--"on the bubble." The ratings are low, even for the low-expectations Friday night time slot. But if Whedon's past shows are any experience, they take a while to grow on people. The storylines seem to take eight or ten episodes to really start to firm up, and then stuff really starts getting good. Dollhouse started shaky, slowly got better in episodes 2-5, got really good in episode six, and have just exploded into awesomeness in the last few shows. Next week is the season finale, and the week after that, FOX-TV is announcing its fate. I just hope that "the powers that be" are wise enough to let this series grow.