Shark Bytes

The show was at an all-time high when Angel went dark and let Dru and Darla have a massacre in Holland Manner's wine-cellar.

...Unfortunately, the show's highest point led to the show's lowest point. Angel going dark led to Angel sleeping with Darla, which led to Angel becoming a daddy.

After that, things just got worse and worse; and practically all the stories revolving around Connor led to this show jumping the shark big time.

I posted two posts previously about Angel continually jumping the shark. I understand the term. My point was that I think the writers of Angel were intentionally playing with the notion of jumping the shark. I can just imagine a pitch meeting there: "Hmmm, what would be crazier than having Rosanne win the lottery, nuttier than having Mr. Roarke fight Satan?" "I know, I know, let's turn Angel into a puppet..." Sure, jumping the shark is an indication that a show no longer takes itself seriously and that it is doing anything to save itself. But maybe it's also possible for a show to mock the idea of trying to save itself by just saying, f..it, we'll do what we want.

Dude, I think you've misunderstood the term "jump the shark". A show can't get more refreshing and interesting after it jumps the shark. The jump is when the show begins an irrevocable decline.

I'm rewatching Angel right now and rethinking the series. Angel continually jumped the shark. I think, perhaps, that was the mission statement of the show: to jump the shark in every conceivable way possible. What other show reinvented itself in so many ways? Unlike Lost or Alias, Angel flipped the show over so many times to create story instead of incoherent plot. What was so great was that every time Angel jumped the shark, they landed in a more interesting, refreshingly entertaining world. Sure, some of the jumps seem downright silly--Cordelia gives birth to a goddess?--but once the water settled down after every jump, the show sailed smoothly on.

The beginning of season 5 was the biggest jump. mainly because it completely ignored what happened in the previous 4 seasons. Unlike season 4 that was very plot motivated and you couldn't miss an episode, season 5 worked on an episode to episode sort of plot, in which you can pretty much skip the first half of it, and you wouldn't miss a thing. very unfitting to the show (unlike 'buffy' which was just the other way around). Overall, if i had to choose the exact moment it jumped, I'll have to say the last episode of season 4.

Once Cordy was written off and Spike was introduced that just killed this show for me.

1) Cordy was like, an essential part of the show. I mean...it's CORDELIA! She was just amazing in those first seasons of the show, I never really got around the fact that she was just bumped off like that.

2) Spike moving to the show just seemed like a big thing to draw fans to the show. I know it's doubtful that any of the writers actualy had that in mind, but the whole thing just screamed "Hey, come watch Angel 'cause we've revived Spike!"
And to be honest, I lost a lot of love for Spike after S4 of Buffy, so I really didn't want to see him in Angel.

Season 4

OMG... this show suck@d so BAD from the time that angel left. sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked

Christian Kane's S2 departure was a huge blow. He and David Boreanaz had amazing chemistry and the Angel-Lindsey rivalry kept the show going.

Angel and Darla having a kid was the worst thing that could've happened, because it led to the following: Darla getting a conscience and sacrificing herself, Angel prioritizing being a devoted daddy over helping the helpless, Wesley being depicted as the bad guy when he 'kidnapped' Connor even though he did what he thought was right, Angel becoming a self-righteous jackass who would stop at nothing to get his son back, Connor returning a week later suddenly 16 years older with a cocky attitude looking to kill Angel, the Cordy-Connor thing which was just unbearable, and Jasmine. Basically that whole story-arc sparked off all these things which brought the show to its lowest points.

Cordy's character was basically ruined in the fourth season and the show never recovered from this. Both female leads (her and Fred) get unjustified deaths.

To sum up, the second season was the show's strongest point. Angel's dark period made the best episodes (letting Darla and Dru kill the lawyers in the wine cellar then firing his employees when they don't agree with what he did). Bringing back Darla only to have her kill herself to let Connor live was pretty much when the show went downhill.

I don't think Angel ever really jumped the shark, but than again maybe my definition of jumping the shark is a bit different than whet they intend it to be. But my definition of jumping the shark is basically an irrevocable moment that really is the peak moment when a show starts to slide downhill. I don't feel Angel ever really did that. It had moments that you know, werent the best, but it really always managed to recover. It had the loss of characters, but you know, that happens in shows. The X-Files lost Mulder, now as far as a cast member leaving a show...THAT is a jump the shark moment. It was a character that most defined the show. The only way Angel could have jumped the shark from a cast member leaving would have been if David Boreanaz left the show and they replaced him with somebody else

The whole Connor-Cordy thing. Just sick. It was like watching a mother hook up with her son, it was that nauseating to watch. The whole father-son love triangle was awkward and it was obvious the show had totally lost its way. It was like the writers totally got lost in season 4 (and the end of season 3). Isolating Wesley from the group was painful to see happen, and the Cordy transformation was the worst thing to ever happen to the show. Connor was a self-involved jerk who sunk Angel to the bottom of the ocean and yet Angel kept on doing anything and everything to protect him. In a sentence, the show jumped the shark somewhere in season 3. The Connor story-arc was the end of the show in so many ways.

the first 2 seasons of Angel were great. It was season 3 that everything went downhill. It could have been spared if cordellia came back from being a higher power and WASN'T possesed my Jasmine. The show never really redeemed itself after that. I know she was brought back for the 100th show, but being she died ruined it.
As for people saying Joss Whedon has no respect for his actors, I totally disagree. Yes Charisma Carpenter was miffed after what happened on Ange. But she has stated in many interviews that they came to terms with it. Heck they even guest starred on Veronica Mars together is season 2. Also the reason Buffy couldn't do the 100th episode of Angel is because the shows were on different networks (UPN owned Buffy and the WB had Angel ), which ironically the two networks are now one and the same. Also the cast of buffy had a reunion recently which included both Joss Whedon and Charisma carpenter.
I am way off the subject though. If Angel just would have went back to being an Investigation agency it could have saved the show.
And Doyle was a great character, though I know his death on the show ( I think Glenn Quinn died 2 or 3 years later ) was a lead in for Cordy's visions.

I don't think that Angel ever jumped the shark. It took me a long time to get over Doyle's (Glenn Quinn) death in only the show's 9th episode but the show was able to slowly recover.

I blame Whedon for destroying Buffy after the 3rd season by converting Willow into a full-fledge lesbian, turning Buffy into something of a slut (despite the Angel romance that was suppose to show what kind of girl she was), defanging Spike and basically making all the male characters into p8zzies. Thankfully... he didn't go this route with Angel despite the fact that I think this male-feminist producer with the overbearing mother who might've preferred to be a girl in real life might've gone this route if he saw another opening.

Don't think it ever JTS. It certainly came close a few times, but it was always redeemed by subsequent episodes.

Season 4 was probably the weakest link, for reasons everyone else has already pointed out. Connors role was badly written and they cast the wrong actor, Jasmine arc was poorly implemented and so on....

Season 5, however, was some of scriptwriters finest work. Illyria, even though she only got half of season 5, was my favorite character of the series -- it was just an awesome way to reinvent Amy Acker's role which, as Fred, was rapidly becoming stale. Her interaction with Spike & Wesley was brilliant, not to mention the fact that the outfit she wore was smoking hot!

"Angel" had one, and only one JTS moment... And that was the only bad episode in my opinion... The WWII episode... Spike as a Nazi?? Come on... Other than that, "Angel" was the better series, with good writing, great casting, and a final episode that qualifies as one of the best hours of TV ever... Plus, "Angel" addressed one of the major problems in the Buffyverse: No minorities... Gunn as a gang-member-made-good was a bit contrived, but it was good to see someone of color kicking demon butt (with all due respect to Kendra the Vampire Slayer, who was woefully underused)