My Daddy's Gonna Suck Your Daddy's Blood! (Angel - Season 3 (DVD))

Member Name: GramiWay

Product:	Angel - Season 3 (DVD)
Date:	14/05/09 (79 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent writing and acting, majority of the season is flawless

Disadvantages: Some irritating characters and story arcs, one or two dull episodes

Continuing to forge its own star away from the shining light of parent show Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel's 3rd season steps away from the dark and dangerous tone the show adopted the previous year and injects a sprinkle of humour, romance and heartbreak as well as the biggest Buffyverse shock since Buffy's 'Sister' magically appeared - Angel's a daddy.

- Background -
The character of Angel originally started out life on Buffy The Vampire Slayer where he remained for three seasons as the title character's love interest. After leaving Sunnydale and ending his turbulent relationship with Buffy the vampire with a soul sets up shop in Los Angeles running a detective agency to 'help the helpless'and attempting to continue his quest for redemption to make up for all the evil he committed as the legendary vampire Angelus, before he was cursed with a soul. Joined by former Sunnydale alumi Cordelia Chase and Wesley Wyndam-Price, the group often find themselves taking a case on the basis of Cordelia's visions - a gift [or burden] from the Powers That Be that was passed onto her by Doyle before his death in the first season.

Charles Gunn and newcomer Amy Acker make up the group whilst singing karaoke demon Lorne also lends a hand every now and again.

- Season 3 -
Season 3 opens with Angel mourning the death of Buffy [The Buffy episode 'The Gift'], however he soon learns that she is alive again...
As the season progresses Angel's deranged sire Darla [portrayed by the brilliant Julie Benz] returns to inform the gang that she is pregnant with Angel's baby. Shocked by the arrival of the offspring of two vampires, everybody from Wolfram & Hart, the demonic law firm and an anceint demon known as Sahjhan is interested in claiming the unborn child for their own.

Sahjhan goes to extreme lengths to ensure that a prophecy about Angel's son killing him doesn't come to pass, bringing forth a vampire hunter named Holtz, whom Angel and Darla tormented and murdered his family back in the 1800s. Holtz soon starts building an army of humans that have had love ones taken from them by vampires in a bid to seize the child for his own and gain the ultimate vengeance against 'Angelus'. Things take a drastic twist when Sahjhan alters a prophecy making it read 'The Father will kill the son'. Shocked by this Wesley kidnaps the young Connor and tries to protect him from Angel though is stabbed by one of Holtz's henchmen and Holtz himself escapes into a hell dimension with the baby.

Cordelia also continues to suffer from her visions most notably in 'That Vision Thing' when they begin to manifest side effects upon her and in 'Birthday', one of the best episodes of the season in which Cordelia is faced with a huge decision over whether she should keep her visions and die or whether she should have the type of life she was meant for.

- Opinions -
I love the fact that the season flows like a huge continuous story. From the middle onwards there are no standalone episodes, just a huge story arc that focuses around the birth of Connor and the events that happen afterwards.

The writers managed to keep injecting fresh ideas into the script whilst also managing to avoid it descending into nonsense.
David Boreanaz is brilliant as Angel as he moves from brooding, to fatherhood and to grief in the blink of an eye whiulst Charisma Carpenter's portrayl of Cordelia is a bit wooden this season, Amy Acker steals her crown as newcomer Fred Burkle, with her strange and mousey ways, she provides vulnerability and humour all rolled into one though I found the relationship that developed between her and Gunn to be very surprising, it worked really well.

The Angel - Cordelia romance on the other hand seemed to be extremely forced and even the notion of the two together just doesn't seem to fit as the two have a great chemistry together but it doesn't seem to rub off when looking at them from a romantic perspective.

The return of Darla was also one of the highlights of the season especially as we get to explore her warped and damaged mind again though I did grow tired of the Wolfram & Hart storyarc though luckily they were pretty irrelevant this season in comparison to others. Holtz on the other hand [played by Keith Szarabajka], gives off the air of a pervey old man and doesn't really convince you that he's the wronged party and turns into just one big royal pain in the arse.

I wasn't sure on the idea of bringing Connor back as a teenager literally two episodes after he'd been snatched as a child but it really seemed to work and the writers played the father-son antagonism down to a key.

- Standout Episodes -
A really strong season but here are three episodes in my opinion that really stand out:

'Lullaby'
Darla goes into labour whilst Holtz pursues the gang in order to seek vengeance. I love the emotional impact, the comedy and the darkness that engulfs this episode right from the explosive showdown in Lorne's bar to the tragic events at the end of the episode.

'Birthday'
A Cordelia-centric episode is always good and this episode really shows how far this character has come since her days on Buffy. Plus always worth watching for the extremely cheesy sitcom theme tune they invent for her 'show'.

'Tomorrow'
Just a brilliant episode that rounds off the entire season and also sets up things for the next.

- The DVD -
Packaged in the usual Buffy/Angel DVD style, all 22 episodes from season three are spread across six discs.
The Buffyverse DVDs are more generous with special features than other shows so in my opinion you're getting a good value for money here with most online retailers offering 15.00 for the season compared to higher prices charged in store.

There are featurettes on Darla as well as other featurettes about the season as a whole and the process of transferring the stories from paper to screen. You can also see the screen tests of Amy Acker and Vincent Kartheiser who play Fred and Connor in the series whilst there are deleted scenes and outtakes and three episode commentaries by the writers themselves. On the commentary side there aren't as many as there usually are but there's definately enough on offer to peak the interest of die hard fans as well as just the casual buyer.

- Conclusion -
Whilst a lot of events in season three of Angel seem a bit far fetched when you read about them, they are produced brilliantly in the show itself and with strong writing and a very talented cast who can move through all sorts of different styles and genres, Angel proves that spin-offs can work as it builds on the amazing season two and gets even better with the 22 episodes on offer here.

Summary: The peak of Angel before it all goes downhill...