Original Airdate: November 23, 1999

Plot: Buffy comes to L.A. to visit her father and drops by to see Angel. The two battle a demon who makes Angel mortal, removing the curse and allowing them to express their love for each other again....

Warning: There is no going back...we can't change what's to come. If you are wary of SPOILERS for the Angel episode, "I Will Remember You" that I strong suggest you turn back now...

In short: Good until the final act.

One of the things that has impressed me the most about both Buffy and Angel is the fact that the shows are willing to take chances. We've seen that in the past on Buffy in which Joss and company were willing to take a chance on making Angel evi or to kill off a popular character like Jenny Calendar. Or even to spin-off Angel to his own show.

But the one thing that has impressed me more than that is the fact that the shows have shown a great willingness to let the choices have long-term consequences and not be just about "giving the fans something cool" or "what they want." It might have been easy to recurse Angel at the end of Innocence, but Joss and company chose not to, instead making the actions of Buffy and Angel have a long-term consequence.

Indeed, unlike other genre shows, Buffy and Angel have avoided the reset button ending. This trend is especially prevelant in the current Star Trek show, Voyager, in which I am constantly frustrated about the fact that the ship is still pristene like it's right out of space dock and never shows any scars from the multitude of battles it has been in and without the ability of Starfleet being right there to repair them. (Hell, the ship even had Borg nodules attached to the hull years ago...which have long since been forgotten).

But I digress.

I'd been proud to say that Buffy and Angel had avoided this trap...

Until now...

At least I can still say Buffy avoided it.

I wanted to like "I Will Remember You"

I did.

I enjoyed the first 45-minutes or so of the story. I'm not such a masachist that I think Angel and Buffy should always be yearning for each other or in some kind of great pain or distress about their relationship. To see them happy and together was a pleasant and enjoyable enough journey. And to see them get (as Cordy referred to it) all "groiny" certainly worked pretty well. And there were some cute scenes such as Angel's rediscovery of food (which if he'd kept up that way, he was gonna need a serious exercise program! ;-) ) and the fact that he is mortal and can be killed and die. Certainly that was a nicely done bit of characterization and I enjoyed seeing it on screen.

And I also enjoyed seeing the reactions of Doyle and Cordy, especially the conversation about the two of them getting all "groiny."

But, in the final analysis, the final few minutes of the story completely and totally ruined it.
I guess I should have seen it coming. There is no way that Angel can stay the way he was. If so, end of show. And I doubt that Joss and company are ready to throw in the towel. So in order to keep the show going, we've got to return to the basic premise--vampire fights against evil. How?

Reset button.

The last forty-five minutes....they didnt' happen. No one will remember.

Basically, the writers have painted themselves into a corner and can't get out of it. So they take the easy way out. And that really, really, really hurt the show. Becasue it makes Buffy's appearance on the show and all that had happened nothing more than a stunt to pull in some ratings. I will be honest that I'd tuned in to see the crossover, namely because there has to be some sense of closure to the whole Buffy/Angel relationship. We only got his merely waving goodbye in Graduation Day, and for something that has been as on-going and had as many ups and downs as Buffy and Angel, I think we need more.

But this wasn't it.

Not for me, at least.

I found the whole epiosde distressing.

Yes, I will admit that I liked seeing that Angel remembers and that he told Doyle. But with Doyle not long for this world, this may not have the long-term consequences that this show needs.
Anyway, enough ranting.

To wrap it up, "I Will Remember You" ranks as Angel's biggest disappointment to date. I have hope that come season wrap-up time, it may move higher on my list if there is some indication of consequences and long-term results from this. For now, I'm just a bit distressed and disaspointed.

My rating: 1.5 (out of 10.0)