ORBzine - Buffy & Angel - January 1999

Angel [Season 5]

Angel [Season 5, Episode 1] Conviction (1)
Shown 1 Oct 03

Angel [Season 5, Episode 2] Just Rewards (2)
Shown 8 Oct 03

Angel [Season 5, Episode 3] Unleashed
Shown 15 Oct 03

Angel [Season 5, Episode 4] Hell Bound
Shown 22 Oct 03

Angel [Season 5, Episode 5] Life of the Party
Shown 29 Oct 03

This is a Lorne ep - he holds a halloween party. Everyone acts strange - but hey, its the halloween ep.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 6] The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco
Shown 5 Nov 03

Angel participates as an Aztec demon fights a family of Mexican wrestlers. The tone is comical, but Angel questions his role as hero.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 7] Lineage
Shown 12 Nov 03

Cyborg ninjas are on the rampage. Luckily, Wesley's father is in town to give poor Wesley lots of put-downs.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 8] Destiny
Shown 19 Nov 03

Spike is corporeal, and poor old Harmony is horny. It turns out that reality is unstable [Shanshu prophecy]. Angel and Spike compete to be the big hero.

Eve seems to have her own story arc!

Angel [Season 5, Episode 9] Harm's Way
Shown 14 Jan 04

The Wolfram & Hart corporate promo vid announces that one of their clients is the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

Harmony ( Mercedes McNabb ) is a career girl now, but gets easily bored. Fred tries to befriend her.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 10] Soul Purpose
Shown 21 Jan 04

Directed by David Boreanaz himself. Angel, as CEO, realises his life now has shades of grey. He has a nightmare, and knows that Eve is plotting.

Lindsay poses as Doyle and mentors Spike.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 11] Damage
Shown 28 Jan 04

Navi Rawat , the girl from Numbers, breaks out of an asylum. Giles sends his best man - Andrew!

Spike hunts the psycho reaver girl down. Is he evil and is she good? The moral is, as always - men are evil, but females are victims.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 12] You're Welcome
Shown 4 Feb 04

Cordy is back, after a year in a coma. Best line - Who's Colin Farrell?

Eve and Lindsey try to bring their plan to fruition. Finally, we get a showdown.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 13] Why We Fight
Shown 11 Feb 04

Despite all the security at Wolfram & Hart, and the fact Angel and his company should be on high alert, the entire team get taken unawares at the time they should have been safest. This bookends an extended flashback ...

In 1943, Angel was recruited by the Counter-Demon Initiative. They have been experimenting with brain surgery on vamps.

Angel is sent to a sub stranded on the sea bed. Shades of U-571.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 14] Smile Time
Shown 18 Feb 04

An evil Muppets-type show puts kids in comas. Angel gets turned into a glove-puppet, which has mixed results when he dates the werewolf babe.

Fred is in a Mini-skirt (after Wesley) - she wears her hair down, and takes off her glasses.

Gunn's mind is losing the lawyer knowledge he acquired by mystical means.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 15] A Hole in the World
Shown 25 Feb 04

As an arc-sensitive ep, this was Written and directed by Joss Whedon himself.

There is an Aliens Pastiche - Fred has the flamer and Wes has his shotgun. But Fred is contaminated and dying.

Nox, Eve and Gunn all have story arcs.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 16] Shells
Shown 3 Mar 04

There are no happy endings. We do get a Fred flashback, however - with no spectacles, and a nice twist in the end.

Fred's body is possessed by Illyria, a hell-God. Amy Acker goes from girl to woman, like Willow in Buffy Season 6 . She gets skin-tight leather, which makes her face turn blue.

Gunn's secret is uncovered.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 17] Underneath
Shown 14 Apr 04

The survivors go after Illyria and her worshipper. Wesley is especially driven by rage and vengeance.

Harmony appears in the credits - finally. We get to see what Lindsey's fate was. And the Senior Partners send a new liaison - Adam Baldwin ( Firefly ).

Angel [Season 5, Episode 18] Origin
Shown 21 Apr 04

Illuria saves Gunn. Gunn and Adam Baldwin handle the lawyer stuff.

Conor (Vincent Karthusier) is back. He faces off against the Big Bad from Season 3 - the demon Sajahn - to fulfill the prophecy. This ties up a couple of loose ends.

Wes spends time with Illyria. Illuria and Wes are both unstable.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 19] Time Bomb
Shown 28 Apr 04

Gunn oversees contract negotiations between a clan of Demons [led by Jeff Yagher - V: The Series ] and a human woman [David Boreanz's RL wife Jaime Bergman ] who wants to sell her baby to them. The new Liaison (Adam Baldwin - Firefly ) manages to be sleazy and slippery (and very well-dressed).

A Goddess's power is too great for a human body. Like Glory in Buffy: Season 5 , for example. Illyria is unstable, jumping back and forward in time until she will explode. And since the Wolfram and Hart building is on the San Andreas fault-line, that is a bad idea. Angel has Lorne keep tabs on her, until he can get Wesley to solve the problem.

Angel [Season 5, Episode 20] The Girl In Question
Shown 5 May 04

Angel and Spike go to the Rome office of W&H to help Buffy fight The Immortal. Well - help, stalk, same thing, right? Andrew knows they are there, but hangs out with two other friends ... the Slayer Army has plans. SMG didn't bother to appear on the show.

Luckily, Wolfram and Hart has branches everywhere! The Rome office has the same layout (saves on set design costs). The boss there is the anti-Lila (all cleavage and smiles, and chain-smoking).

There is a wonderful flashback to 1894, featuring Darla and Druscilla.

Fred's parents are in LA! Fred (Illuria) is now the show's 7of9. Nobody told Fred's parents what happened to her. Illyria's best line - As you wish.

This was Written by Ben Edlund, who wrote The Tick .

Angel [Season 5, Episode 21] Power Play
Shown 12 May 04

Angel has been corrupted, and is now pro-demon. The Senior partners have him inducted into their secret society, the Circle of Black Thorn Of course, this is an uncomfortable retrofit. The whole idea was stolen from Charmed , itself a crappy rip-off of Buffy . The circle includes a handful of recurring characters and one-off villains: The Well-dressed man (Adam Baldwin - Firefly ), a Female senator, the Archbishop, the Memory fixer - and someone's Squash partner.

Illyria fights Spike, then meets Drogon (her jailor).

Illyria and Lindsey both know about the Senior Partners, but nobody asks them!

Angel [Season 5, Episode 22] Not Fade Away
Shown 19 May 04

The gang each get a chance to spend their last hours. Angel visits Connor. Gunn meets Anne ( Julie Lee ) the social worker. Wes stays with Illyria. Spike attends a poetry slam - it's open mike night. Lindsey shacks up with Eve ( Sarah Thompson ). The villains have their own intrigues - Harmony ( Mercedes McNabb ) spends the night with Adam Baldwin ( Firefly ).

Each member of Angel's conspiracy has their own targets. Illyria's final kill is the most visually spectacular. Lorne the Host's kill is the most memorable - more low-key than the others', perhaps, but perhaps more disturbing because of it.

Joss Whedon was a big fan of British TV shows from the 1970s and 80s. The final scene is reminiscent of Blake's Seven ...

Buffy's finale meant that she could not control the Slayers' moral choices. Angel's finale is when he kills everyone who makes the wrong moral choices.

Soon

Angel [Season 5, Episode 1]
Shown

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