Rapid Reviews - Angel Season Two

Angel [2-20]: Over The Rainbow: With a name like this, hubby-Eric had to watch this episode with me. That led to him watching the next two episodes with me also. I was particularly amused by Cordelia's clicking her heels together, but she didn't say "There's no place like home." Like she should have. Angel's reaction to being able to run around in sunlight is absolutely side-splitting at times... "Can everybody just notice how much fire I'm not on?" This one was funny, and nicely light-hearted, right up until the very non-menacing cliffhanger. There is director commentary with this one, fun to listen to.

Angel [2-21]: Through The Looking Glass: So Joss Whedon does a funny dance in this episode in the background. Now that's funny. Like the first few moments of the last episode, this one has a nice bit when Cordelia says "Off with their heads!" to reflect the title. Angel is really funny with the mirror scenes. Cordelia makes a decent princess, too. The bit with Wesley figuring out the Wolf, Ram, and Hart was one of those "A-Ha!" moments. Angel's vamping out was a bit of a surprise, but I suspected something like that would happen.

Angel [2-22]: There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb: This gets to be more of a fantasy epic as the trilogy finishes out. A slave rebellion, a crooked religious order, the handsome barbarian hero... And hey, add in the insane physicist and you've got an even better epic. I understand that the cliffhanger with Willow involves something that happened on Buffy. While I'm pretty sure I knew what that event was, I wasn't entirely sure.

You can practically divide this season into three neat parts. The first part is Angel Investigations kicking butt and taking names. The second part is all about Darla, and the third part is a handful of romps ending with the epic in another world. This show doesn't hit you with just one type of story, it's constantly changing.

The DVD set has extras on the third and sixth discs. After learning my lesson with the first season set, I didn't watch the extras until after I'd watched the whole season. On the third disc are featurettes on the make up and on the sets (particularly the Hyperion Hotel), and a gallery of images. The sixth disc has a nice overview of the whole season. A good package altogether. Not many extras, but the material stands quite well on its own anyway. Thanks again to my sister Lisa for the loan of the set.