Angel must leave Buffy to keep the two of them from getting “fleshy” again and keep Angelus at bay. Still atoning for his wrongs, he moves to L.A., a town close enough to the Hellmouth to find all kinds of nasty little creatures to beat and plenty of the helpless to help. A spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel tries it on his own with a little help from a few cast members from Buffy and some new ones too. Still looking for his purpose, Angel sets off to save L.A. from the bad guys and help those who are not capable of defending themselves.
Angel Season One
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Angel must leave Buffy to keep the two of them from getting “fleshy” again and keep Angelus at bay. Still atoning for his wrongs, he moves to L.A., a town close enough to the Hellmouth to find all kinds of nasty little creatures to beat and plenty of the helpless to help. A spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel tries it on his own with a little help from a few cast members from Buffy and some new ones too. Still looking for his purpose, Angel sets off to save L.A. from the bad guys and help those who are not capable of defending themselves.
Plot: Angel moves to L.A. to fight the good fight. Wolfram & Hart is a law firm that plays a major role in all evil that goes on and protects the demons and monsters that create it. Angel enlists the help of Cordelia, Doyle, Wesley, and Gunn along his path of redemption and earning his humanity back. Angel had been defined by Buffy, the creators of the show decided to give him a shot on his own and he grew with the writers with each episode defining his path and future.
Characters:
Angel:(David Boreanaz) A tall dark and brooding 244-year-old vampire out to save mankind and gain his humanity.
Doyle:(Glenn Quinn) Angel’s link to The Powers That Be. A half-man, half-demon spiritual guide.
Cordelia:(Charisma Carpenter) A character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer who experiences a great deal of growth and understanding about her purpose in life. No longer the selfish and vein girl she was before, Cordelia finds that she wants to help Angel on his quest.
Wesley:(Alexis Denisof) Another crossover from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after Wesley is canned from the council he becomes a rogue demon hunter and ends up in Angel’s backyard. With no where to go and no one to turn to he fits right in with Angels crew and starts fighting the good fight by Angel and Cordy’s side.
Kate:(Elisabeth Röhm) An annoying and self-pitying character indeed. She is an L.A. police detective who takes a great deal of undeserved anger out on Angel. Most annoying character in the show.
Gunn:(J. August Richards) He is a streetwise slayer who has taught himself to fight and battle the evils that exist in L.A. Gunn helps Angel save his closest friends in the season finale and joins the team.
Lindsey:(Christian Kane) A squirmy little lawyer who works for the evil firm of Wolfram & Hart. Angel has many disputes with Lindsey throughout the season.
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| In The Beginning |
Crossovers:
Buffy(Sarah Michelle Gellar)
Spike(James Marsters)
Oz(Seth Green)
Faith(Eliza Dushku)
Darla(Julie Benz)
Episodes:
Disc 1
City of…
Angel moves to the City of Angels, not sure of his true function there until he meets his link to The Powers, Doyle. Doyle, half-man and half-demon, gets visions that show people in danger and Angel ventures out to rescue them. He leads Angel to Russell Winters, a powerful vampire who feeds on young lonely women who have no links to family or friends. Russell screws up and tries to prey on Cordelia; Angel sets into motion to save her and in the process starts his path to redemption. Cordy and Doyle helps Angel and they start Angel Investigations together.
Lonely Hearts
Doyle gets a new vision that leads Angel on a search for a parasite that invades bodies and leaves a trail of corpses behind. He starts off in a bar called D’Oblique where he meets Kate, a L.A. police detective, who he initially bonds with, but finds that there is a huge trust factor that will keep them from ever being friends. Doyle and Cordelia get closer in their research for the true identity of the demon.
In the Dark
This episode has the first crossovers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oz shows up with a ring of life for Angel. It’s a jewel that will allow him to go out in the light. Spike appears and tortures Angel for the where abouts of the ring. Cordy and Doyle hunts for the ring to make a trade with Spike so they can’t get Angel back. Oz helps in Angel’s rescue and Angel destroys the ring, leaving Spike running back to Sunnydale with his tail between his legs.
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| Kate |
I Fall to Pieces
A creepy peeping tom is able to disconnect his appendages to terrorize an innocent woman. Angel and the crew separates this perv from all his parts in metal boxes, keeping him from bothering anybody ever again.
Disc 2
Room With A View
Cordelia is chased out of her old apartment by roaches and Doyle helps her find the “perfect” place. Her new apartment his haunted by an evil old woman who terrorizes her and preys on her weakness. Cordy almost falls for not being good enough to have such a wonderful place and gives up until Angel and Doyle steps in to help her and remind her of who she really is, a bitch. Cordy fights back and finds the truth behind this evil old woman, she had killed her son and haunts the place to keep him from getting out. When the curse is lifted, Cordy finds herself in a beautiful new apartment and has an invisible roommate who’s friendly and easy to get along with.
Sense and Sensitivity
Kate beats up on a bad guy and is forced, along with the rest of her fellow police officers, to enroll in sensitivity training. A set up by Wolfram & Heart to protect their evil client, the sensitivity training goes wrong and the emotions get the best of Kate the police officers causing chaos and death. Angel and Doyle figure out the set up just in time to clear up any true crimes and death.
The Bachelor Party
Doyle’s x-wife shows up with her half-demon, half-human fiancé. She asks for a divorce and her fiancé invites Doyle to his bachelor party, he wants to eat Doyle’s brains to put a blessing on their ceremony.
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| Wesley |
I Will Remember You
Buffy shows up and Angel becomes human for a night. He mixes blood with a demon that has the power to regenerate giving Angel a moment with Buffy. Angel must go to The Oracles to see what Doyle’s new vision means and they explain a major event coming and lets Angel know that all will die if he’s not there to stop it. He asks them to set time back and erase everybody’s memories of him being human. The only one who remembers this moment is Angel and he must live with that memory forever knowing that Buffy will never remember the night they spent together as living breathing humans.
Disc 3
Hero
Doyle accepts his demon side and helps a group of half-breeds survive The Scourge, a Nazi-like group that kills any creature that is not full demon. Cordelia finds out Doyle’s secret of being part demon and still loves him no matter what he is. Doyle gives Cordy a final kiss passing on his visions and sacrifices himself to stop the deaths of the half-breeds, Angel and Cordelia.
Parting Gifts
Angel returns to The Oracles to request another turn back in time to save Doyle’s life, the reject him and explain that there is a new link with visions. Cordy finds out that Doyle has passed on his gift, a direct link to The Powers That Be. Wesley appears as a rogue demon hunter and joins the team.
Somnambulist
Angel fears that he is murdering girls in his sleep, but finds out it’s a boy that he had turned years ago. Kate sees what Angel really is and can’t forgive him for showing her the truth about what evils lurk in the dark. Ben, the puritan, who is reliving his first years of being a vampire just to get under Angels skin, is destroyed in the end.
Special Features included on this disc are a featurette of season 1, art gallery and biographies of the cast.
Disc 4
Expecting
Cordy thinks she found herself a nice rich young man, she invites him in for a night of comforting and awakes 8 months pregnant. She has a short amount of time before she gives birth to an army of demon children that will kill her in the process. Angel and Wesley fight against the clock to save Cordy and kill this monstrous demon.
She
Jhiera, a female demon, is trying to protect her kind from destruction. She fights with Angel until he realizes she means no harm to anybody and only wants to protect what is left of her family.
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
It’s like a T.V. version of The Exorcist. A boy is possessed by an evil demon and it’s up to Angel, Wesley and Cordelia to destroy the demon and save the boy and his family. After they expel the demon, the truth comes out, the child is more evil than any demon that could possess him, and he has no soul.
The Prodigal
This episode mixes Angels altercations with his father from the past and Kate’s differences with her father now. Kate’s dad is involved with drug trafficking to demons. She finds out too late and blames Angel for his death. Angel is clearly innocent, but Kate looks for someone to blame for all the evil that exists in the world. Throughout the episode Angel confronts memories of his father and killing his family and Darla, the one who turned him.
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| Faith |
Disc 5
The Ring
Angel is set up for a kidnapping and forced to fight in a ring to the death with other demons. He has no interest in killing for sport, but is forced into it by Wolfram and Hart. Cordelia and Wesley come to the rescue, but Angel isn’t quite the same.
Eternity
Angel saves an Actress and in return she request his help with a stalker. Later she finds out it is all a set up for publicity to help her get a role in a film, but she is too old for the role and is turned down. She finds out what Angel is and tries to set him up to turn her into a vampire too, but Cordy stops her just in time.
Five By Five
Wolfram & Heart hires Faith to kill Angel. Angel takes down one of their clients and they are looking for a little revenge, it backfires and Faith ends up looking for Angel’s help in the end.
Sanctuary
Buffy shows up to make Faith pay for all the wrong has done and finds Angel helping her, not surprising Buffy is pissed and takes it out on both of them. Angel offers faith Sanctuary and a helping hand and tells Buffy to leave his town and never return again. Faith turns herself in to the authorities and goes to prison.
Disc 6
War Zone
While retrieving pictures for a rich, geeky software designer, Angel comes across a group of street-kids who have taken up vampire slaying. The leader, Gunn, is a hardheaded young man who doesn’t want to take any advice. Angel tries to explain to him that he is only going to get everybody killed if they keep trying to battle the vampires and demons roaming the streets. Gunn tries to explain to him that street-life is hard and he must train these kids to protect themselves and their families. Later on Angel offers up help to Gunn, but he refuses and Angel proceeds to explain that he himself might need Gunn’s help someday.
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| Gunn |
Blind Date
A client of Wolfram & Hart has just murdered a man and Angel is shocked to find out that she is blind. Her purpose for being in town is to kill 3 children who are seers and can help The Powers That Be. Lindsey, a lawyer at Wolfram & Hart, gets a guilty conscience and tips Angel off about their planned death and how to stop her.
To Shanshu in L.A.
Wolfram & Hart, in an effort to bring down Angel, causes Cordelia to see all the pain in the world at one time putting her into a comma. Angel is distracted long enough for the law firm to perform a ritual to bring Darla back to turn Angel to evil before the prophecy is fulfilled. Wesley reads the scroll that Angel has stolen from Wolfram & Hart and finds the prophecy to read that The Powers That Be will make Angel human again. Angel goes after Wolfram & Hart to release Cordy from her comma and we are left with an end that can only be solved in season 2.
Special Features included on this disc are 3 featurettes, “Introducing Angel”, “I’m Cordelia” and “The Demons”.
Overall Angel Season One maybe weak in comparison to the events that are still to come but makes a great intro into the dark streets of L.A. The first season of Angel gets the audience excited about what evil Wolfram & Hart can create with a cliffhanger to keep you guessing. Why did they bring her back and why did they bring her back in human form? Wolfram & Hart is out to get Angel in one way or another, but nobody’s sure if they are trying to destroy him or turn him evil and have Angelus work for the firm. There is enough back story with Angel that a new comer can catch on, but it will be a little slow at first with the handful of crossovers, you may want to catch up on who is who and what role they play or have played. Angel is one dark handsome vampire that may walk the earth for eternity, because fans will never let him die and after the end of the series they are still trying for his return.