Buffy vs. Angel

As an analytical sort of person, I sometimes pose questions to myself that other, less analytical people, wouldn’t waste a second considering. Would it save driving time if I only chose routes that did not require making a left turn?  Could a baseball team win using essentially only relievers and no starters, that is putting a three inning cap on how long any pitcher would be left in the game?  There are no answers, although I suspect the most likely answers are a) not significantly and b) no, but wait a few years.

One debate I’ve had with myself for several years now is the question: which TV show is better, the first 5 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or the entire 5 season run of its spin-off, Angel?  The general rule of thumb is that spin-offs and sequels rarely surpass their origins, but there are exceptions.  The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered to be better than Star Wars (Okay, A New Hope); Aliens is considered better than Alien.  Um, can I say Good Times was better than Maude?

I am limiting the comparison to the first 5 seasons of Buffy and not the show’s entire run for two reasons.  First, comparing the same number of seasons seems fairer than letting Buffy have the benefit of an additional two seasons of product (although the comparison isn’t exact as Buffy’s first season was truncated, so we’re comparing 110 episodes of Angel to 101 episodes of season 1-5 Buffy).  The more important reason is that seasons 6 and 7 of Buffy seriously sucked, so if I were taking an average episode rating those seasons would pull the Buffy average WAY down.

Obviously, given the entwined nature of the two shows, with shared writers, actors, and producers, they have a lot in common.  Both had relatively weak first seasons, although this is easier to forgive for Buffy as it was starting de novo, while Angel should have hit the ground running but took a while to find its footing.  Both employed an episodic format but had seasonal arcs.  Both tended to push the envelope of TV standards and practices in terms of subject matter and violence, although in retrospect these incidents seem trite compared to what’s allowed on network TV today.

During some down time I went back and re-read a couple of episode guides I had for both series, and decided to revisit the question of which show was better.  I COULD re-watch every episode of both series (I own them on DVD), but I have a life.  I did selectively go through my Angel DVDs, viewing a little more than half of the episodes in all 5 seasons (more in season 4, which was highly serialized).  My conclusion is that Angel was the superior show by a nose. 

I will concede that Buffy hit higher highs than Angel.  Buffy had a number of classic episodes, including the Emmy nominated Hush, the controversial Earshot (delayed for broadcast for several months after the Columbine shooting), and the spectacular end to season 3, Graduation Day.  Angel never quite reached those heights, although Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been and Smile Time do rate as classics.

Of course if you have higher highs, you also tend to have lower lows.  Buffy had a small number of klunkers, but they are there.  Angel had bad episodes too, but they can be somewhat forgiven because a) they usually fit into a seasonal arc whose overall quality made you accept some less-than-great story telling in service of the greater arc; and b) the episode that failed were usually trying to be a little more ambitious than the format or budget was capable of.  Angel produced a few cringe-inducing episodes during the season 4 arc, but given that they were dealing with an honest-to-goodness apocalypse you can get through them for the greater good.  As for Buffy, there is no excuse for the episodes Inca Mummy Girl or Dead Man’s Party.

While the characters on Buffy did grow incrementally as the series progressed, the characters on Angel evolved to the point where it was a tribute to the actors that they could change along with them.  Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) went from spoiled rich girl to heroine, and Wesley Wyndom-Price (Alexis Denisof) went from comic relief to badass to tragic hero.  And Fred (Amy Acker) went from mild-mannered cave-dwelling physicist to Illyria, Bitch Goddess of the universe (which is quite a range).  The fact that the show could produce consistently good writing, straddling the line between drama and comedy, while swinging for the fences is an impressive feat.

Angel was, after season one, very consistent yet at the same time very ambitious.  When I say that I think Angel was a tad better than Buffy seasons 1-5, I mean no disrespect to Buffy.  Both shows should be firmly placed in the pantheon of great horror TV series (alongside The X-Files and Kolchak: The Night Stalker).  It’s like saying Willie Mays was a better outfielder than Mickey Mantle, a silly comparison that should only be made by someone with way too much free time.

Angel had a head start as it could build off of Buffy’s solid infrastructure, but the bottom line is I have to acknowledge the show’s consistency and ambition while also acknowledging that Buffy had a few imperfections in seasons 4 and 5.  Buffy had season-long arcs, but nothing like the hubris of Season 4 of Angel, which involved an evil goddess from another dimension giving birth to itself and enslaving the entire world.  The goddess Glory on Buffy Season 5 was nothing but Cordelia with some super powers; Jasmine in season 4 of Angel was a terrifying threat to humanity.

So, there is one less question to keep you awake before going off to dreamland—Angel seasons 1-5 is a slightly better show than Buffy seasons 1-5. 

Joss Whedon, we really hardly knew ye

There is something about celebrity break-ups that makes people choose up sides, despite the fact that virtually everything we know about the dirt is being spoon fed by press agents.  I don’t know who is right in the Woody Allen/Mia Farrow brouhaha; all I know is he used to make great movies and she wanted to adopt about 150 kids, so which was more emotionally stable?  People say Allen seduced his step daughter, but he and Farrow were never married, and in fact didn’t even live together, so there was no taboo relationship between him and Soon-yi Previn.  I’ll grant the ick factor, but that’s about it.

The past two days have been filled with the revelation that sometimes-genius writer and well-known feminist Joss Whedon has been accused of serial infidelity by his ex-wife, Kai Cole.  They were divorced in 2012 but this week Cole posted a blog addressing Whedon's infidelities.  This led one commentator to declare that given his actions, Whedon should forfeit his title as "feminist."

I noticed something after the huge success of The Avengers, a stupendous triumph for Whedon after helming a low rated TV series (Buffy), a short-lived series (Firefly), and a low-budget internet sensation (Dr. Horrible’s Sing a Long Blog); fans of Whedon took his accomplishment personally.  Whedon has a unique relationship with his (dare I call us) followers, one that makes us think of him maybe not as a friend, but someone who knows us and writes material directed to us personally.  That makes these revelations difficult to hear, but truth will out.

As disappointed as I am to hear of Whedon’s alleged philandering, even taking it at face value I don’t think that it makes Whedon a hypocrite for claiming to be a feminist.  The commentary by Laura Browning at AV Club, linked to above, mocks Whedon’s claim that he was surrounded by “beautiful, needy, aggressive young women” by saying those are the words of a predator.  But is it “feminist” to apply the term “victim” to the women Whedon strayed with, if any?  Were these women not adults, capable of making their own choices?  Isn’t claiming they were powerless against Whedon taking away their, um power?  We’re not talking about what Whedon is, we’re talking about who these women were, and calling them victims just because they are female seems demeaning.

Once again, we don’t know any specifics.  There was another well-known TV science fiction producer who had a well-documented libido, Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek.  For years he accused NBC of demanding that Majel Barret’s character be eliminated after the pilot episode because of their sexism; I’ve read that the real reason was that NBC executives knew that Roddenberry was cheating on his wife with Barret and they didn’t want him putting his mistress on the NBC payroll.  I’ve also read he had a casting couch and that virtually all of the actresses on the show were on it (I’ve always assumed this referred to the extras and not guest stars like Joan Collins and Diana Muldaur). 

If Whedon had a similar casting couch, that’s an indefensible abuse of his power.  If, as Whedon seems to be saying, young women threw themselves at him and he failed to get out of the way, that’s another matter.  Roddenberry often linked his views on male-female equality with a rather carefree approach to sexual activity; he once said he wanted the crew of the Enterprise to be 50-50 male female but NBC balked as it would look like something was going on, and they compromised on a 2/3 male, 1/3 female combination.  Roddenberry said he assumed that if the 1/3 of crew were relative healthy young women, they could handle the 2/3 who were men.

Or maybe Whedon is claiming the Krusty the Clown defense; when Bart Simpson asked Krusty why he endorsed inferior products, Krusty sobbed and said, “They drove a dump truck of money up to my house; I’m not made of stone!”  Again, not great, but not necessarily anti-feminist as it goes to Whedon’s weaknesses, not the strength of the fairer sex (kidding).

I can’t even start to comment on Browning’s claim that women of color object to his portrayal of the First Slayer as a Black woman whose status as a vampire-slayer was forced upon her by white men.  In the context of the show, the portrayal was seen as akin to rape and evidence of the weakness of men who can’t fight evil themselves but have to conscript a young woman to do their dirty work.  I’m not a big fan of season 7 of Buffy, but even I got how that plotline reinforced the concept of The Slayer was one of female empowerment.

Whedon famously said that with Buffy he intended to create an icon.  That’s amazing.  Most people in the entertainment industry just want to make a paycheck, not create an enduring symbol.  Maybe the split with Cole explains his drop in production; since The Age of Ultron (in my opinion easily the worst thing he’s ever written/directed) two years ago he’s hasn’t had anything in the pipeline.  At the risk of sounding selfish, I hope he gets back to work soon and comes out with that Dr. Horrible sequel he’s been promising for years.  There are lots of artists whose personal life I may disapprove of, but I still admire their art.

Whither the baseball trade deadline

Whither the trade deadline

In case you missed it, the baseball trade deadline just passed. You couldn’t have missed it if you paid any attention to the sports pages, as the number of transactions dizzied the mind.  If nothing else, the trade deadline always reminds me of the folly of betting on a World Series winner in April; even if you pick the team with the best pre-August record, trades made at the end of July can fundamentally revamp the power distribution in baseball.

The biggest transaction was all-star pitcher Yu Darvish going from the Rangers to the Dodgers, who had the best record in baseball before they acquired to best pitcher on the trading block.  The move represents so wisdom on behalf of the Rangers, who despite having a record below .500 are not that far out of the second wild card spot.  That second wild card spot tempts a lot of teams with poor records into think that if they can just put together a good month, they can make the post-season and then it is anybody’s ball game.  But the fact is that if you have a losing record on August 1^st, your team just isn’t that good.  

The trade signals that the Dodgers are in win-now mode.  The Dodgers haven’t been to a World Series since 1988, which isn’t exactly Cub-like in its futility but it is getting there.  Great starting pitching is essential for post-season success, and in prior years the Dodger formula was Clayton Kershaw and pray for three days of rain.  Picking up another ace, especially with Kershaw’s back issues, means the Dodgers mean business.

A team that doesn’t mean business is the Oakland A’s, who traded ace Sonny Gray to a little team I like to call the Yankees.  A few years ago, the A’s traded Josh Donaldson to the Blue Jays and the next season he won the MVP award and led the Jays to the post-season.  Let’s face it, with the A’s 23 games out of first place and having one of the worst records in MLB, the only way an A’s player will reach the post-season is through a trade to a contender.  They traded Grey for prospects, and once those prospects show any signs of talent they’ll be traded off for more prospects, and so on and so on ad infinitem.

The trade deadline is like the inverse of the draft, where the rich get richer and the poor get prospects.  I don’t know the history, but I would guess that it was never intended to be such a big deal.  It was probably decided that it would be really unfair for a team headed for the World Series (before all these layers of playoffs) to pick up a bunch of superstars the week before the series started, like Mr. Burns hiring nine ringers for his softball team in the classic Simpsons episode Homer at the Bat.  But you couldn’t ban making trades, so any late season trades just wouldn’t be able to play in the post season, and the line was drawn at about the 2/3 point in the season.

This wasn’t a big deal before free agency, because you didn’t just acquire a player for the season but forever.  But once the players achieved free agency, the trade deadline became a key date when teams with aspirations could load up on stars with expiring contracts peddled by non-contenders who didn’t want to “lose the player and get nothing in return.”  I’ve said before, I despise that phrase because it presumes that teams are entitled to own players forever, and they aren’t.  You get the star for as long as you have him signed for, no more.  If the player plays out his contract then goes, you didn’t “get nothing in return” as you got his services until the end of the contract.

And besides, you never get equal value.  If Yu Darvish’s contract expires in two months and you trade him, you don’t get Yu Darvish in return but a couple of guys who may be close to as good in a few years, maybe.  Which would get your fans to come to the ballpark, watching Yu Darvish in his last five starts before he leaves or calling up some guy from AAA take a shot against major league hitters?  Of course, if the team is too anxious to make the deal, maybe you can get more value than you should.

The bottom line is, no team ever won the World Series in April.  Or on July 31^st.