My wife and I had just finished binge watching our latest show and were looking for something different. We're huge Joss Whedon fans and watched Buffy from the first airing until the last, but never really got into Angel. It was on a different night of the week and just never picked it up. But we've been fans of Grimm since it aired and the creator of Grimm, David Greenwalt, was co-creator of Angel with Joss. So we decided to give it a try. Darker than Buffy, and not as much humor, but still plenty of great lines and funny moments. The first season is a little rough. This is 12 years old now, and it shows a little, and they obviously were still working on smaller budgets. It's still great nostalgic fun, and you get to see lots of actors who went on to do other things make guest appearances.

I used to think Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the best thing television had to offer back in the day. Then comes the spinoff series, Angel, which took all of the fun and dark themes that more noteworthy of all seasons of Buffy, and successfully managed to amplify them to a point that put Angel ABOVE Buffy in some ways.
While Buffy’s first season was kind of a doozy (unsurprising, as the show was created as a last-minute replacement for another WB show that got cancelled), Angel’s first season is all fun, scary and action-packed from Episode #1 to Episode #22, without a single episode I can remember hating or disliking.
If you thought Buffy was great (which it totally is), just you wait until you give even just one episode of Angel a watch. You’ll be blown away, I promise you!

Season one of Angel takes several twists and turns throughout the season as the show seems to seek a format and a group dynamic among the various characters that works. But even in what seems like unevenness, the genius of Joss Whedon & company shines through. The show starts out with Angel seeking a new life in L.A. trying to put emotional and actual physical distance between himself and Buffy so that she can go on with her life without him constantly being in the shadows. He is guided into what is to become his mission by half human/half demon Doyle who is always living on the edge in a somewhat haphazard existence himself. The two unite with Cordelia Chase who has moved from Sunnydale to LA to seek an acting career - and is starving in the process - to start a supernatural detective agency to "help the helpless". The second episode introduces L.A. police officer Kate Lockley who is a recurring character throughout the season, and who is ambiguous in her attitude towards Angel, especially when she finds out who and what he truly is.

The season starts out in "monster of the week" format with no episode truly tied to another which is quite the opposite of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, from which the show was spun off. However, towards the end of the season, it can be seen that this formula is gradually being abandoned. Other changes that take place include the death of Doyle and the introduction of Wesley Wyndham-Price as a main character in episodes 9 and 10, respectively. You may remember Wesley as Faith's failed watcher from season three of Buffy. Before Doyle dies, however, he gives Cordelia a "parting gift" that drastically effects her character development throughout the series. Although the entire season is excellent, it really hits its stride starting with the two parter in which Faith appears in L.A. after wreaking havoc in Sunnydale after awakening from her coma.

Next, the interesting character of Charles Gunn is introduced - a street kid who is protecting other street kids from vampires while trying to manage a meager existence. Finally, the best two episodes of the season in my opinion are when Lindsay - lawyer for evil law firm Wolfram & Hart - has a crisis of conscience about an upcoming contract killing he has advanced knowledge of and joins forces with Angel to stop it. Then, in the next episode, he does an about face and rejoins Wolfram & Hart to help destroy Angel and his friends. The last scenes of the last episode will make you want to go on and view season two when you see what Wolfram & Hart has resurrected in "the box".

I started watching Angel last year (3rd season of the show) along with Buffy. wanting to get caught up on both shows, I watched the first three seasons of Buffy. I soon stopped watching the 6th season of Buffy and stuck with just those first three since they were, in my opinion, the best. SO I got caught up on who Angel was and whatnot, but I was still in the dark as to how Angel had evolved to season 3. So, I was ecstatic when I found out season 1 was released on DVD.
The first season of Angel is absolutely excellent. It started off on shaky steps, almost as thought it wasn't sure whether it could survive without Buffy. Fortunately, it blew away all expectations and has done exceptionally well. Even if you have never seen Buffy, Angel will stand alone. It has everything: humor, great plots, great characters. It doesn't have a big story arc, though, which I attribute to Joss et al being unsure whether it was going to be able to stand on its own. So, each episode is pretty much its own little story. You have some of the more classic episodes in season 1 as well, such as I Will Remember You. Plus, you get that hilarious dance scene of Angel in the episode She.
One interesting aspect of Angel that I believe many shows lack is the realistic growth of the characters. A theme of the show for this season is finding where you belong and what your purpose in life is. At the beginning of Season 1, everything is weird.. Angel's in a new weird place and doesnt know how to go about achieving redemption, dealing with his new friend, or what the heck to do with Cordelia who is also trying ot find her place in the City of Angels. The show grows, as do the characters. Cordelia's wit is ever-present, Wesley finally starts to step out of his father's shadow, and Angel grows in what redemption means. Plus, you get really nice inspirational speeches on Angel's part, who knows what it's like to suffer and cause pain and try to overcome it all anyway. Angel continues to make these inspirational speeches all throughout the seasons, so you can look forward to them!
The quality of the DVDs is excellent, but it is unfortunate that they didn't put any memorial to the actor that played Doyle.

The title explains it all. Buffy was so well drawn, so perfectly connected. It had a tangible end to the first season, and a supporting mid-season ensemble. But the same cannot be said for Angel. I love the series, but eh first season just lacks the coherence of Buffy, something that will be made up for in later seasons of the show.
The show begins off somewhat well, but not as well as Buffy. However this is quickly made right when the middle of the season hits. The mid-season episodes have power and deliverance which make Angel a must have. But the season culminates somewhat more lacking. After an awesome season, the end is weak. It just does not leave you gasping for air, begging for more. The battles within the season finale are horrible short, and disgustingly weak. The only thing that even makes the season finale worth watching is the very end. And the very end is more than likely the only reason that viewers returned for a second season. Which is what I reccomend.
A lot of mental growth occurs during the first season, which is neccesary to understand Season II. And Season II is a must have. Perfect chemistry between the characters, the plots more smooth and less forced. Excellent recurring villains and you begin to finally understand the place Wolfram and Hart plays in the lives of the cast.
All in all, Angel Season I is a must have simply for the sake of knowledge. I give it 3 stars, simply because of the poor quality of the begginning and end of the season, and the ease of pointing out the stunt doubles from the real actors. Other than that, watch this season. After you see it, you'll have what you need to fully enjoy the second season, which is a rush.

Although not as good as the subsequent seasons, the initial season of ANGEL was nonetheless both a superb extension of the Buffyverse, and an excellent start to one of the better spin offs in television history. The first season suffered primarily from two problems, problems that would not be fully resolved until the second season, but which all concerned were able to overcome through superb writing and several strong individual episodes. The first of these problems was that the initial cast was not sufficiently diverse or balanced to provide the kind of interpersonal interplay that made BUFFY such a spectacular show. Over the course of the season, the future core of Angel Investigations is introduced, but they would not coalesce into a unit until the second season. By the end of the season Angel, Cordy, and Wesley are full-fledged members of the team, and Gunn is serving as an adjunct member. Their coming together as a team would be one of the major themes of the second season.
The second problem with the first season was the series' inability to develop a compelling central story arc. Similar to the first season of Buffy, the show primarily worked within a monster-of-the-week format. We are introduced to Wolfram and Hart, but it hardly qualified as a structuring tale. One thing the Buffy/Angel team did to inject energy into ANGEL's first season was featuring many guest stars from BUFFY. Spike drops in early on for a memorable episode. One of the funniest moments in all of Buffy/Angel occurs as Spike witnesses Angel saving a woman, providing his own dialog for both hero and saved. Buffy herself is featured in two episodes, first the remarkable "I Will Remember You," and then one of the two superb Faith episodes. Wesley Wyndham-Price shows up first as a guest star, becoming a permanent cast member.
One of the great things about Angel/Buffy is the way the characters mature and grow over time. ANGEL features the two greatest examples of this. When we first meet Wesley in BUFFY, he is a pretentious, cowardly twit, and he has not progressed very far from that when he reappears in ANGEL as a "Rogue Demon Hunter." Over the course of ANGEL, however, he undergoes a host of experiences, maturing and growing into a fully adult, flawed, yet great human being. The only character who grows more than Wesley is Cordelia. Watching her in Season Two or Three in ANGEL, it is hard to realize she is the same person who terrorized the Sunnydale High School student population with her bitchy judgments and arrogance. It takes time, but in the end we truly love and admire Cordy. Which leads me to a minor rant: at the moment, just before the beginning of Season Five of ANGEL, we have learned that Charisma Carpenter, who plays Cordy, will not be returning as a regular, despite her interest in doing so. In my opinion, this is a grave mistake. One of the great positive messages of Buffy/Angel has been that people can grow, mature, and atone for their lives. People can actualize their potential. At present, Cordy's story has been put on hold by her having been controlled by evil powers in Season Four. Cordy's story will remain incomplete until her recovery of herself is developed, along with her reintegration into the lives of her friends. Personally, I think this is inevitable, and luckily, nothing in the plotline prevents it from being possible.
Season One is a very good show, but those seeing ANGEL for the first time on DVD will be delighted to know that this set is a mere warm up for the greatness that will unfold in Season Two.

Two images dominate the first season of ANGEL: The first (later to be caught as the final image in the show's credits) shows our titular hero-- a vampire with a soul who fights for good in order to atone for past sins--staking two vampires and stalking off into the night, his long leather duster swirling behind him. Framed by a dirty, shadow-strewn alley, Angel seems the embodiment of Raymond Chandler's noir detective, "down these streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is not himself tarnished nor afraid....He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry that you ever saw him." The second, quite different image is distinctively UN-proud, as Angel imagines himself dancing at a friend's party. David Boreanez, who plays Angel, is shown doing...well, the dorkiest dance ever, full of arhythmic arm movements, regrettable hip sways, and a positively marmaduke-like tongue flapping through his lips. Flashing back to reality, Angel says, completely deadpan, "I don't dance." Somewhere between those two images-- the first full of epic darkness and danger, the second oozing humorous satire-- lies the tone of this BUFFY spinoff's first year. It's far more "stand-alone" in its episodic structure than the next three years will be, and there's clearly a lot of feeling around going on, as co-creators Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt and their cast try to figure out the beat of this new song they're playing. I give it four stars because there are still an extraordinary number of high-quality episodes on display here (particularly those involving Angel's first partner, Doyle), and because I think it's fascinating to watch talented people go through creative growing pains in public. ANGEL has often been treated like that dorky dancer at the party-- you smile politely, eke out a wan compliment or two on its behalf, and quickly try to find the cool kids at the TV party (Dawson, is that you?). Its network, the WB, never quite knew what to do with the show, changing its airtime several times and eventually canceling the program despite an uptick in ratings. Even fans of BUFFY have sometimes treated ANGEL like the stepkid, the Dawn of the Buffyverse. This is a shame, because ANGEL, even in this slightly less focused first season, has always offered as much bang for the buck as Buffy (and, in seasons two and three, surpasses its parent in quality). After reaching a perfect closure to its first, high-school based half, BUFFY saw the departure of three seemingly minor figures at the end of season three-- Cordelia, the sarcastic school princess, forced to work as a secretary after her parents were indicted on tax fraud; Wesley, the oafish Watcher who generally caused as much trouble as he prevented; and Angel, of course, Buffy's paramour/arch enemy. OK, that last one is not minor, but really, his Buffy storyline was pretty much wrapped up. He moved on, as did the other two, winding up in LA, where he opened a supernatural detective agency and, aided by Cordelia, Wesley, and the mysterious, vision-prone Doyle, fought the demons and lawyers (but I repeat myself) Chandler never would have dream ed of. Yes, it sounds goofy. So does BUFFY, if you boil it down to a couple of sentences. So does the SOPRANOS. And the SIMPSONS. And the WEST WING. And THE LITTLEST GROOM. (OK, that last one I'll give you). It's not about plot, it's about execution, and in the hands of Whedon and Greenwalt, two of TV's best writers, ANGEL blossoms, as Boreanez, Charisma Carpenter, Glenn Quinn and Alexis Denisof all flesh out potentially hazardous stereotypes (Carpenter, in particular, is a comic delight) and help to tell stand-alone tales of tremendous adventure, horror, humor and grace. Grace is the most important quality, both for Angel, the character (seeking redemption) and ANGEL, the show (offering a spirit of generosity to character and genre rare for TV). The result is perhaps best summed up by Raymond Chandler, if we imagine him speaking of television shows: "If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in."

Although there are definitely a few clunkers ("I Fall to Pieces" for instance) in the first season, overall I really enjoyed Season 1 of Angel. I was skeptical that Boreanaz could pull off carrying a show (even though I thought he was quite hunky in Buffy), but I was wrong. Of course he has the nearly flawless Joss Whedon machine behind him as well as a great supporting cast.
Elisabeth Rohm (as Kate) and David Boreanaz have great chemistry. She's almost ethereally beautiful and smart. And she has no problem slamming the door on our resident hero. :) Doyle was good, too, but the show started clicking once Wes (Alexis Denisof) showed up in LA. And Cordy (Charisma Carpenter) is a great foil for Angel, the king of understatement.
I didn't discover Buffy til 2 years ago, so I'm really enjoying catching up on both shows by buying these "entire season" DVDs.
FYI, if you're a Buffy fan, Angel is a bit darker and less glib. And since Angel still has that pesky "true happiness" curse, it's less focused on romance and more focused on action and solving crimes.
If you've never watched Buffy, I'm sure you'll have no problem figuring out the essence of each character. I'm sure you'll find that this show stands alone on its own.