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Rating:
Born as a spin-off of the already celebrated series "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", "Angel", although not reaching the acclaim of the mother series, manages to gather a large group of admirers. Unfortunately, not here in Italy, where it was broadcasted by Italia 1 first in the late evening, then in the middle of the night (SCANDALOUS!!!) and even years after the end of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", thus taking away the audience's interest in enjoying two practically different series that often intertwined simultaneously.
The series begins when Angel (an attractive vampire with a soul beloved by Buffy fans) leaves the love of his (very long) life, the Slayer, due to significant differences and moves to Los Angeles, where he seeks to atone for the evil deeds committed when he was still without a soul by saving the innocent.
And atonement is somewhat the central theme of the whole saga, although already after the first series Angel begins to do good simply because "what else can you do?".
To help Angel in his mission are both characters "borrowed" from the mother series (the beautiful Cordelia whom our hero will fall in love with, the former watcher Wesley, the vamp vampire Harmony, and the hilarious rival Spike) and others created specifically for the series (the reckless half-demon Doyle, the strong Gunn, the delicate yet incredibly intelligent Fred, the very amusing empath demon Lorne, and the grumpy Connor, Angel’s "impossible" son).
The strong points of the series in my opinion are:
-the strong friendship between the protagonists;
-Angel's character, as incorruptible today as he was evil before (though it wasn't him but the demon possessing him, hence there is a sort of "civil war" within his body). Moreover, his being a dark hero dedicated to sacrifice and an all but perfect antihero at the same time is certainly fascinating;
-a strong connection maintained with the mother series and at the same time a strong independence from it;
-the positive message of hope (like "it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you can redeem yourself too").
The fifth series (surviving the end of the mother series) is definitely the most interesting and is almost a new show on its own, where the protagonists become part of Wolfram & Hart, a demonic law firm that until then had been the nemesis of our heroes.
Here we see how even the purest people (like them) can be corrupted by power and thus come to compromises. It is in this gray area that the protagonists will move throughout the series, until in the end they succeed in attacking evil from within as they had intended from the beginning.
Also hilarious is the contrast between Angel and Spike, who arrived in this series directly from "Buffy".
The reasons for the contrast are simple:
-they were companions in wickedness when they were evil demons and now both have a soul, so one unintentionally reminds the other of what he would like to forget.
-the differences-similarities between the two characters: Angel is a good guy who hides something dark, Spike a bastard who deep down has a soft heart.
-both love Buffy.
Very interesting (even more than the mother series) especially the last seasons. The story, as for Buffy, will continue in a comic series (still unpublished here).
My rating is five stars.
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