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List Price: $289.90 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 109961
Released: November 15, 2005 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Angel - Season One
He's hunky, he's brooding, he's a do-gooder, and he was Buffy's first boyfriend. Angel, the tortured vampire destined to walk the earth with a soul, got his own series after three seasons on Buffy the Vampire Slayerand did what any new star might do: he moved to L.A. (the City of Angels--get it?) and set up shop. Angel (co-created by Buffy mastermind Joss Whedon) finds the titular vampire (David Boreanaz) as a kind of supernatural private investigator, fighting evil one case at a time and, like his ex-girlfriend, keeping the world from getting destroyed by vengeful demons and such. This first season features guest appearances by various Buffy characters, including werewolf boy Oz (Seth Green), rogue slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku), deliciously evil vamp Darla (Julie Benz), and Buffy herself (Sarah Michelle Gellar), all of whom helped get the show off and running in style.
Angel - Season Two
The second season of Angel, saw the cult vampire show finally stand on its own from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, assembling all the members of the show's core cast, transferring the action to a fashionably run-down L.A. hotel, and bringing in a few Buffy characters from Angel's history to further establish the moody vampire's own mythology. Moving their Angel Investigations to posher digs, Angel (David Boreanaz), Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), and Wesley (Alexis Denisof) were soon joined by street fighter (J. August Richards)–-and by street fighter, of course we mean demon street fighter. But just as this group was solidifying, up popped Angel's old love, Darla (the fantastic Julie Benz), freshly arrived in L.A. from a hell dimension… just in time to be turned into a vampire again by her old cohort, Drusilla (Juliet Landau), and lure Angel into abandoning his newly formed team.
Angel - Season Three
In the third season of Angel, the titular vampire with a soul was forced to stand alone thanks to the (temporary) death of his beloved Buffy and her show's move to a new network, with no crossover between the two allowed. He returns from seeking peace in a demon-haunted monastery to find the L.A. Angel Investigations team fighting supernatural crime in his absence. Fred is still haunted by the nightmare dimension from which they rescued her; Cordelia's visions get ever more painful and debilitating. The schemes of the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart become every more imaginative and dragon lady Lilah Morgan becomes even more of an enemy when lusting after Angel. Unbelievably, Darla, Angel's vampire sire and lover, turns up, pregnant with his child and is tortured by inexplicable motherly feelings as well as a raging thirst for human blood.
Angel - Season Four
As the fourth season of Angel, starts, everything is still as we left it: Angel has been sunk to the bottom of the sea in an iron box by his inexplicable and vindictive son Connor and Cordelia has been summoned to higher realms to await orders. Gunn and Fred are left in the Hyperion Hotel, unsure about what has happened to their friends, and Lilah is working hard to seduce Wesley to the dark side. In the first few episodes, some of this is resolved but it's almost immediately replaced by far worse crises: prophesies of doom accumulate more rapidly even than usual in this wonderfully gloomy show and a horned rock-like beast rains fire on Los Angeles. This last year is Angel’s most tightly dramatic season yet--with a story arc of surprising intensity punctuated by the show's usual wit and sexiness.
Angel - Season Five
Lives were upended--and some co-opted--in the fifth and final season of Angel, as the denizens of Angel Investigations found themselves taking on one of their scariest endeavors ever: corporate life. After making a literal deal with the devil (or something distinctly devil-like), Angel (David Boreanaz) moved his team from their crumbling hotel to the high-rise digs of law-firm-from-hell Wolfram & Hart, his reasoning being they could better fight the forces of evil from the inside, and with more resources to boot. Clever maneuvering or easy rationalization? Not a few members of Angel's team accused him of selling out (as did a number of viewers), but as with most of the show's previous four seasons, Angel somehow took a dubious premise and mined it for gold. And with one core cast member gone (Charisma Carpenter, whose Cordelia was immersed in a deep coma), it seemed as if the show, from within and without, would suddenly fall apart--that is, until Angel's longtime nemesis Spike (James Marsters) showed up, fresh from his sacrificial roasting at the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Let the vampire games begin!
Angel - Seasons 1-5 Reviews:
I Can't Believe It's Finished! 
2009-07-07 - This series started off excellent, just as good as Buffy. Seasons three and four kind of sucked, they were a little too SciFi, but Joss really flipped things around in Season 5. It's my favorite and I watch it over and over!! I hated killing off Cordelia, but her character was a little compromised after the whole pregnant-with-Connor's-evil-child saga. I didn't like that, but I did like Connor's character and Cordy's visions.
What sucks is that you could tell David Boreanaz was getting out of shape, and thus looking older. He was making Angel less seductive (thought he's always been hot) because he started to look older. But it's been a few years, and as soon as Bones started up, he looked almost exactly like his cameo on Buffy! Makes me sad.
I hope they get the cast all together again and do one last Angel or Buffy movie.
best show ever made on television. Period
2006-04-09 - Angel will always be remember as the most break through show ever made for its storyarcs, characters, symbolism, drama etc
juss wanna point out some highlights from each season:
season one: when I think of what are some the best stuff from season one, my thought instantly goes to Five By Five/Santuary, although of course that is the least of the goodies. But Angel's wisdom and angelic qualities are almost SUMMARIZED in these two 2-part episodes.
"so I'm free?"- Faith
"Don't know about that, but the door is open."- Angel
Faith walks out Angel follows
"what are you gonna do? walk out into that darkness? I once told you you don't have to go into that darkness remember? Said it was your choice. Well you chose. Five by five right Faith? But it swallowed you whole. So tell me, how did you like it?"
Faith punch Angel on the face
"Help me."
"Yeah."
season two: The Darla arcs still remain to be one of the hightlights of the series. The fact that Angel changed so much just the experience with this single person is thought-provoking. It showed his obsession, his darkness, his caring, and his epiphany.
"Look, no matter how good a boy you are, God doesn't want you! But I still do"- Dear Boy
"Favor? Is that what you think? you think you did me a favor? you damned me!"- Darla
"I'm not gonna leave you, every moment you have left, I'll be at your side, you'll never be alone again"- The Trial
"If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do, now today, the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world"- Epiphany
Season three: Darla's sacrifice, and Wesley's betrayal instantly jumps out as this season's strong points. This season is where everything that could go wrong went wrong, and the role each character plays to either provoke it, or fight it.
"this child, Angel, is the one good thing we have ever done, the ONLY good thing, you be sure to tell him that."- Lullaby
"you think you know something about living because you had this really long life, but then one day you wake up, and find that you have something else...I had a son"- Double Or Nothing
Season Four: The darkest of all the seasons. The writers of Angel brilliantly let this season to be the big bad happening instead of the last season, or that every season there is a BIG ending (this is also one major difference from Buffy, in which every seasons of Buffy Buffy has to stop a big bad at the end of the season). Angel's leadership shone out brightly in this season, that the Fang Gang just could not make it out if it weren't for him, and of course, that brilliantly tragic and bittersweet ending of Home, what I consider the saddest storyline I have EVER seen that doesn't involve a single death- sounds impossible? well see it for yourself, if you don't cry after watching Home, I would seriously consider that either you don't get it or you have no soul- I'm serious.
"nothing in this world is the way it ought to be, it's harsh and cruel. That's why there's us, Champions. Doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be"- Deep Down
"I know how that feels, because I want to give you everything. I want to take back the mistakes, and help you start over"- Home
Season Five: the saddest and most depressing of all the seasons. This is where the killathon is- in which Joss just decides to kill EVERY SINGLE one member of the Angel team (hehe). But the gist is, every single death was wrote heartbreaking and memorable. Our heros are sent to certain death but went out with a bang, thus Not Fade Away is the perfect title for the last episode of Angel, it concluded the show's theme. This conclusion is in my opinion, the most controversial, revolutionary and brilliant conclusion I've seen on anything. I truly believe now all the shows are copying Angel in that they are doing a cliffhanger on everything (hehe).
"We cling to what is gone, is there anything else in this world but grief?"
"there's love...and hope...for some. There's hope that your life will lead you to some joy, that after all that's happened, you may still be surprised"- Shells
"let's get to work"- Not Fade Away
Angel is just the most brilliant, thought-provoking, and memorable show I have ever seen period, it will affect people for generations to come. Long live Angel!!!!
um.... what the heck happened to Angel Box Sets????
2006-04-09 - okay, this is NOT fair, Buffy has the box set but Angel DOESN'T(well, if you don't count the UK one but that's still BS)????? What's up with that???? This is total biase! I'm already really really pissed that Buffy is more popular than Angel, which in my opinion, should be the other way around, Angel is a much much much better show than Buffy in consistency, storyline, mature ideas, and memoriable characters.
David Boreanaz mastered his role as Angel to ABSOLUTE perfection, he became my number one favorite actor (surprisingly too may I add) after I got addicted to Angel. Of course this is also thanks to the brlliant cast and crew and of course, the most talented writers of all time. And oh, for those of you who hasn't seen Angel or hasn't seen it all the way and judge David's performance from Buffy, I suggest you give it a second chance, he is just surprisingly good on his own show because he had much more room to expand his talent, while on Buffy he doesn't so much as showing his face, I was glad I saw Angel before Buffy, definitely NO biase from me, he is just utterly brilliant, period.
All the other characters on Angel I just liked so much better than the characters on Buffy, they are just each unique and never dull to watch. I've seen Angel the series for at least 9 times, never get sick of it.
Angel proved that the whole fantasy/Sci-fi stuff is not only teen-shows, however the channel WB has affect on people's impressions. It proved that not all fantasy-sci-fi stuff are bunch of cliches, in which on Angel you will not find ANY.
If you think this is a show about monsters, you are wrong
If you think this is a show about redemption, you are wrong
If you think this is a show about good verus evil in which good will triumph in the end, you are wrong
This is a show that has all of the above and then some, but the "some" parts are the ones that will not go in the direction you thought it will, I guarantee you that you will be suprised.
This is a show that will really make you laugh and really make you cry, it will carve into your flesh and bone, and make you NEVER forget it, it will make you angry, make you feel comfort, make you feel depressed, make you feel joy, and make you want more. You will not regret seeing it!
When will we get the US version of Angel Complete series? 
2006-04-07 - The Angel/Buffy verse are possibly the best thought out TV concepts of all times. What is not to like.
I'm one of those adults who cannot get enough of Angel and I'm not exactly a TV addict. It's not a guilty pleasure. It is intelligent and thought provoking. It's exciting, and the writing is outstanding. I love the depth of character development, the stories, and the quirks. The humor picks you up off the floor after the pathos breaks your heart. Then you fall off your chair laughing.
Since the show went off the air, I have been in withdrawal.
I purchased the Buffy 'Chosen' box set as soon as it became available, and I am wearing it out. Buffy is now the only TV show I've EVER seen all the episodes of - by a long shot.
I finally got a chance to see all the shows that aired before I started watching. I am just dying to do the same with Angel -- which was a more adult themed show -- and until I saw all the buffy's it was my fave. yet the folks at Fox seem not to care about the fans in the US. There are Australian AND UK versions available for sale, but here in the USA, we either have to buy the five separate seasons, or do without. Sorry but I really don't want all those boxes now the series is complete, I just want to be able to get the whole thing without a hassle...
What did the American fans ever do to deserve this?
++ REVIEW SHOULD HAVE 5 STARS. IT WON'T LET ME CHANGE THAT, SORRY...
It's not all about demons.
2006-03-19 - I can't possibly sum up 5 seasons, but I can tell you this is a quality comedy/drama that should have gone on longer... If you like unusual story lines and very clever, sometimes racey adult humor, give it a try. The title character Angel (David Boreanaz)is a spin off character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He is a vampire with a soul. He was once the most notorious globe trotting killer for a century until he was cursed with a soul by gypies. Now, he fights evil demons and evil lawyers with the help and encouragement of a tight gang of "misfits"- all very attractive by the way. This series draws a distinction between good demons and evil ones. Andy Hallet as Lorne, the sea breeze drinking lounge singer, is one such good demon and he is hysterical. In fact, most of the demons are funny. That's the twist.
The five seasons show the same core characters facing both personal and professional challenges.... Each of the characters learns to fight- and the fight scenes are both exciting and realistic. You will back up just to replay some of the action. This is a great series. Watch it in sequence. The character development is amazing. From the first season to the last- each character undergoes an amazing transformation. Except Angel, he's been around for 240 years, and the change is more subtle.
