Lazy Saturday: More Angel and Charlie's Angels

First image from WaggingTales
Second image from OdeonDirect

As you can see, my weekend blogging is once again at an ebb. I'm quickly approaching my 2-year anniversary as a blogger, and it is fair to say that at times--especially weekends--I just want to get out from behind my computer screen a little.

So today, I embarked on a quest across the Las Vegas valley. After watching Real Time with Bill Maher on the DVR (a little more contentious this week, with two conservatives on the panel), I headed out across the valley with a goal in mind. I've just finished watching season one of Angel, the spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I wanted season two. I got the first set at Best Buy over on Rainbow Blvd., and figured that would be the best place to go.

Unfortunately, what was $17 a couple of weeks ago is $34.99 now. Bummer. So I tried Sam's Club next door. Nope. But I remembered that Costco had them for sale not long ago, and decided what the hey, I'm out this far, might as well run up to Charleston Blvd. and get it there. No dice. But looky there, another Best Buy in the same shopping center! But all they had was the complete box set for $124.99. And I already own season 1.

This Best Buy did have an interesting item, Charlie's Angels season 1. Last night, I watched Farrah's Story, the heart-rending documentary about Farrah Fawcett's tragic battle with anal cancer, and had already considered buying the set. And here it was, on sale, in a cute little tin lunchbox. But it was broken, and there was only one. Back in the car!

I decided to go back to the Rainbow Best Buy, buy the (overpriced) Angel, season two, and also to seek out Charlie's Angels season one. Well, I got Angel, but the little lunchbox was nowhere to be seen. I still had one more option, ironically the closest one to my house, Fry's Electronics at Town Square.

Fry's is one of those stores I can spend an afternoon in, sometimes walking out with either nothing, or with far more than I intended to buy. They have a very nice selection of movies and other DVDs, but the prices can fall just about anywhere from cheap to expensive. But, surprise! Angel, any season you want, is $29.95. And they have tons of them, so they don't look as if they'll run out. While they didn't have the lunchbox, they did have the first season of Charlie's Angels, at $19.95, so I bought it.

I hadn't known that Charlie's Angels debuted as an ABC-TV Movie of the Week, but was pleased to see it included in the set. The cast was the same, with a different office workplace, and an extra character (the recently out-of-the-closet David Ogden Stiers). I watched that and the first official episode, and found them. . .interesting. The crackling chemistry between Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith and (my favorite) Kate Jackson was still there. David Boyle was great as Bosley, and John Forsythe was suave (and creepy with all the bimbos) as Charlie.

CA suffers from "70s action show syndrome" though, a peculiar malady that also infects Starsky & Hutch, CHiPs, Wonder Woman and countless other shows of the era. The pacing is odd, the plotting thin, and the character actors just a little too recognizable. Of course the clothing is terrible too, though not so much on the leads. And one comment has to be made about the men's wardrobe on 70s shows like this. I remember that pants were cut tightly back then, but I had no idea that you could almost tell the male characters' religion, if you catch my drift. Charlie's Angels was dubbed T&A or "Jiggle TV" for the lack of bras, but it wasn't just the ladies who were showing off body parts!

It was still a great deal of nostalgic fun, watching the first couple of episodes. Farrah is particularly gorgeous, with the other two ladies only slightly lower on the beauty scale. The trio seemed to really get along, and no matter how preposterous the plots might be, you never lose interest because you care about the characters. My review: Recommended

As for Angel, I only watched the first episode from the second season, but liked it a lot. David Boreanaz was very funny doing demon karaoke. I've got to wonder if he really sings that badly, or if he had to ham it up. Anyway, that's my Saturday, outside of other minor chores like grocery shopping. Hope everybody else had a productive day. For me, I might just knuckle down and get some blogging done.

Then again, I might not!

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.