Well, the cult favorite T.V. show Angel had its final episode this past Wednesday, and boy oh boy it was a good one. Inexplicably cancelled in its fifth year by WB Executive Jordan Levin to make way for a slew of bottom-feeding reality programming, Angel was television wunderkind Joss Whedon's sophomore turn after the immensely-popular Buffy The Vampire Slayer - set in the same universe as Buffy, it chronicled the adventures of the blond vampire slayer's former love interest, the brooding vampire who was cursed by Gypsies with a human soul.
Substantially darker than its predecessor, Angel mined the moral complexity of the real world in a way that yielded a show which was ultimately more satisfying than Buffy (or maybe that's just my soft spot for the noir genre showing!). And unlike many programs which lose their way over time - cough cough, X-Files, cough cough - Angel just kept getting better with each season. Perhaps it's a good thing that Mutant Enemy was forced to pack it in while the show was still in its prime, as it now never has a chance to fade away.
The season (and series) finale was definitely one for the books, at any rate, ranking right up there with that of Blake's 7, which left everyone gunned down by the bad guys save for the show's perennial antagonist turned antihero (who then got his by a volley of shots that rang out over the closing credits in lieu of the trademark theme music) - Angel decides that if he can't win a final victory against his archnemeses the Senior Partners, he can at least score a spectacular one, and plots with his gang to do just that. In the end it is the fight that matters, not the eventual outcome - and fight is what they do, right up until the credits roll.
Would that more television could begin and end as Angel did!
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