"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:6659dcab-5eab-4788-a2e7-6522c9e759d1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>A reminder: These threads care. As one human being to another. Just
> kidding.
>
> ANGEL
> Season Three, Episode 20: "A New World"
> Writer: Jeffrey Bell
> Director: Tim Minear
>
>
> Season Three, Episode 21: "Benediction"
> Writer: Tim Minear
> Director: Tim Minear
>
>
> Season Three, Episode 22: "Tomorrow"
> Writer: David Greenwalt
> Director: David Greenwalt
I haven't rewatched any of these, which are for me not seriously bad,
but kind of dull (low Decent in your classification). Within season 3 they
rank 11th, 15th, and 14th respectively, and amongst all AtS episodes,
78th,
88th, and 83rd.
> Additional comments on S3D6: Anyone note the "screen tests" among the
> DVD features? They're fun little bits with Acker and Kartheiser
> joining the others in scenes that don't fit anywhere in the series
> continuity, apparently so everyone can get a sense of what it'll be
> like playing/playing opposite/writing for/filming the new characters.
> Do all shows do this?
>
> Both David and Tim basically left the show after S3, and that's a hell
> of a blow to endure and keep on ticking. I don't think ATS suffered
> as much as one might fear. But in any case, even with the
> uncharacteristic (for the Whedonverse) cliffhanger, every season feels
> very different.
>
> Numerically, Season Three isn't that far a margin ahead of Season One
> (it's ahead of all BTVS years so far barring S3, although I haven't re-
> calculated for S6 yet), but it feels like a much stronger year. Even
> the missteps early are missteps with a purpose in mind, and after
> "Loyalty," well, I've gushed before, but it'd be hard to exaggerate
> how much I love this period of the show.
It generally seems to me that as TV series continue year after
year, there is a tendency for the fresh ideas that caused the series to
succeed in the first place to be used up, and the writers forced to turn
to
storylines that are essentially soap operas about the lives of the
characters. There is a competing factor, where the actors grow into their
roles as the series progresses, the crew learn more about what is required
of them, but there is always a tipping point where creative entropy wins
out. As a spinoff, AtS obviously suffers the disadvantage that it came
into
the world with 3 years of creative entropy already built in, but had the
advantage that they made such a mess of season 1, season 2 was practically
a
fresh start. But mid-season 3 is the tipping point for me. It's a shame,
because the story's they wrote for it and the places they take the
characters (especially Wes) are great in principal, but the devil is in
the
detail. With regard to Dark Wesley, I like the changes they made to him,
but
I don't buy that the changes were "earned". They just knew where they
wanted
to take him, and dragged him there. And the same is probably true for
season
3 in general - their ideas were bigger than their ability to work them out
in detail.
Without getting too Christian (or Osiran) about it, once a series passes
its
tipping point, it usually won't rise again unless it first dies.
Fortunately
that is easy to arrange.
--
Apteryx
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