Angel - "Life of the Party" Review
By: Michael Hickerson

Written by Ben Edlund
Directed by
Original Airdate: October 29, 2003

Plot: Lorne is going into stress overload with the prospecting of throwing the annual Wolfram and Hart Halloween party—a party that can make or break the reputation of the company for the year. Lorne tries to get the gang into the spirit of things by encouraging them to attend the party and making sure some of the big movers and shakers from the client role are also in attendance.

Warning: If you want to be the “Life of the Party” and avoid SPOILERS for the latest Halloween-themed episode of Angel, I strongly suggest you turn back now. I am going to give away huge SPOILERS just ahead.

In short: Long on the trick, short on the treat.

One of the larger mistakes a franchise can make it to assume that the core fan base has no long term memory. This can occur when a franchise begins to repeat itself—telling the same stories over again and assuming that the long-term fan base won’t notice it.

I’m becoming concerned a bit about Mutant Enemy this season. For those of us who were loyal fans of all the shows the franchise has given us, we’ve had two Angel episodes that have come dangerously close to repeating old Buffy plotlines. Now, I know that one of the missions of Angel this year is to win over new fans, but you have to wonder if it’s not trying to do so at the expense of the long-term fans who have been with Buffy since the early days and will watch anything that Mutant Enemy gives us.

I say this because a friend of mine at work has only recently take up watching Angel and he found this week’s offering to be wonderful and very enjoyable, while I was left feeling with a sense of “been there, done that.” In fact, I told him as much.

It wasn’t that this week’s episode of Angel was necessarily that bad, mind you. However, we’ve seen it done before as “Something Blue.” Also, there were points at which my long-time experience of watching Angel made this episode a bit too predictable.

Honestly, as soon as Lorne told Gunn that Wolfram and Hart had removed his sleep, red flags went up. At that point, everything that happened could easily be traced back to Lorne and a lot of the tension and creativity of the last half of the episode was suddenly gone.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’ve stated before that I think that a franchise can take elements that were successful before and re-examine them in a new story. But it’s a fine line to walk and I don’t really think Angel was up to walking it this week.

Lorne’s power of suggestion is upped and people are doing what he tells them—been there, done that. And while it was amusing to see Gunn marking his territory, Angel sleeping with Eve (and I don’t buy for a second that Lorne saw sexual tension between them so much as it was a sarcastic comment) and Wes and Fred getting drunk, it just didn’t add up to anything quite as amusing or character driven as we saw in “Something Blue.” Now, I wasn’t a huge fan of “Something Blue” the first time it aired, but it’s grown on me since that time simply because of the seeds sewn that later bore fruit on Buffy. And if that happens here, than this story might go up a lot in my estimation in the long run. But for now, I’m just coming away disappointed.

Also, it was fairly obvious when the demon’s henchman was killed while in the restroom that it had to be tied to whatever Lorne had had done. In fact, when the henchman was attacked, Elaine turned to me and said, “How much do you want to bet that its Lorne sleep attacking?” (Just showing how great minds think alike!)

Also, I had another huge problem with this episode. One thing that Joss produced shows have prided themselves on is that the internal chronology makes a good deal of sense. But I’m having a devil of a time figuring out how the internal time line of Angel is working this year. It seems as if we’ve skipped a lot of time—since the season premiere took place 19 days after Buffy ended and now we’re up to Halloween. Now, this can be forgiven if it seems as the character growth reflects this, but it doesn’t. It just seems as though we’re arbitrarily skipping around as its convenient for the plot and I don’t buy that. (It reminds me a bit of how last year, the internal time line on Buffy skipped ahead to Christmas despite clues on the show indicating it wasn’t close to Christmas in the Buffy universe just yet).

So, all that said, did I like anything about the plot?

I have to admit that there were some things I did like.

As most of you know, I have enjoyed Ben Edlund’s work on the Tick and I was glad to see him come over to Mutant Enemy to work. I think his sense of humor can fit in well on Angel, but I also think that his main storylines need a bit more work.

And let’s face it—the humor in this one worked very well. Again, as I stated, seeing the affects of what Lorne wished upon the various people at Angel Investigations was nice. And it was interesting to see the by-play between Eve and Angel after she let herself into his rooms. And you can’t really go wrong with making Angel out to be a ham—which we did quite well in his meeting with the high ranking demons and his attempts to suck up (which I wonder if Lorne’s whammy was working at that point, because it makes that whole series of events make a lot more sense)

I also liked the fact that Andy Hallett got a script to work with where he served as more than comic relief. Seeing him stretch a bit was very nice and I think that Edlund has a good grasp on what makes this character work. I loved seeing Lorne’s dark side and then seeing him snap into his usual happy go lucky persona. The quick switch was sold very well by Hallett and shows off his range a good deal. And also the scene with the mirror in which we saw Lorne talking to himself was carried off very well. I think that we would do well to see more episodes that focus on Andy’s serious side in the future because all of that worked here.

And while this episode certainly wasn’t up to the standards of last week’s story, it was still a lot better than “Unleashed” (though not by much, mind you).

So, I guess that’s about it for now, except a few small things…

--Ah, nothing like a couple of masturbation jokes to start the show off.
--So, I guess Angel didn’t achieve true happiness with Eve….thank goodness. Maybe that was she was so annoyed with him at the end of the story.
--Interesting the role reversal in the end—Angel wants to talk about the night he and Eve spent together and Eve doesn’t think twice about it.
--Seeing Harmony dance with herself was a nice touch.
--I loved Spike’s reactions to everything and seeing Spike dancing to the music was hilarious.
--Man, poor Wes. He just doesn’t stand a chance with Fred. But to be honest, I see no chemistry between Fred and Knox.

So, that’s it for now. Overall, not the strongest episode we’ve had this year, but not the worst. At best, it’s just average with some humorous spots. Which for other shows might be enough, but for Angel I expect a bit more…

My rating: 7.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Darned if I know…apparently Angel and wrestlers. Oh that preview looked pretty bad! Please, please let them surprise me…

“Angel’s getting some! Good for you, mate!”
--Spike