Interesting review of S4

[JoJo]

I came across this review by SARS of the Television Without Pity bb.

http://www.tomatonation.com/planb.shtml

Here's an excerpt:

Cordelia. Where to begin. I'll take the nitpickiest part first: what is going on with foregrounding Charisma Carpenter's gigantic breasts in every shot? If the character is not yet pregnant, you might want to draw attention away from the fact that her already formidable bosom is half again as big as when we last saw it. Writing around the pregnancy is really your only choice here, at least until you can position the plot around it properly, but next time, tell the costume department that that's the plan, and frame her shots a little tighter. I could see a difference immediately -- in her face, in her butt, I could tell she had put baby weight on, and Carpenter looked great, actually, but that isn't the point. Viewers read the entertainment press; don't dare us to find evidence that an actor is pregnant. Sit down and redo the shot list.

And after you do that, put together a Plan B for the story arc, and let the actress in on it. I don't doubt that it played better if you watched it on a weekly basis, instead of all the episodes right in a row like I did, and if you didn't know in advance that Cordy is the Big Bad like I did…but I don't think it played much better. One of the writers admits on the commentary of a mid-season episode that, at that point, Carpenter had no idea Cordelia would become the Big Bad. So, she's just playing her scenes straight -- scenes like, you know, seducing Connor during the rain of fire. And several episodes' worth of scenes after that.

Let's review: She had developed feelings for Angel; she knows Angel had developed feelings for her; she works with/for Angel; and she slept with his son. Who is a teenager, and who has a wretched haircut, and who has never known the touch of a woman because he spent his formative years in a hell dimension. Her stated reason for doing the Posturepedic polka with Connor, at the time: it looks like everyone's going to die so what the hey. Fine. But then when everyone doesn't die? How does the Cordelia character move forward from that? Because if she's not the Big Bad, she's mortified, I think -- and if she is the Big Bad, she's got to telegraph a steely no-regrets attitude somehow. Carpenter sort of split the difference, emotionally, and I don't blame her for that, but -- it's disorganized writing, at best.

I mean, basically, they had the character make a decision that said one of two things: 1) I have plunged us all into a horrendous Freudian clusterfuck, or 2) I have ulterior motives that bear all the hallmarks of evil. And then they just kind of…tabled the issue. Again, I sympathize with the limitations, and I understand that a lot of last-minute scrambling probably had to happen, but you need to have that Plan B in place already, not make it up as you go along.

I thought this reviewer made some very good points about the mess S4 devolved into.

[v120176]

I agree with that, more I quoted part of it (about CC's trying to make sense and not going so literally with what the scripts said) at the Bones thread as an example about what an actor can do or chose to do when the scripts contradict the part he/she got before causing an almost schizophrenic characterization.
CC, until Cordy killed Lilah, gave me the sensation of someone testing the ground all the time, trying to act the part without going too deep because it has no sense what she was getting from the scripts, trying to play the part in a "safe way" so any thing the writers had planned could fit. If CC would have played the part literally, remarking the regreting parts and all the incongruences (a literal performance), the incoherent plot of season 4 would have been way more obvious.
And after she got the news that Cordelia was evil , she had to deal with a another problem: what kind of big Bad she was. Because EvilCordy was going from terrible powerful to be beated by Willow "I can make appear a bunny wihtout going dark again" Rosemberg because Connor was calling her (?!); from making a Rain of Fire, being the Master of the Beast and erase all information about her to not having any sidekick and having to do all the killing... She was all terrible but the next episode was almost the fourth member of the Trio of Sunndale and the final result was a comic villian.

That was probably one of the best review of ATS 4

[Livvie]

I could not agree more with what the reviewer said. I do feel like S4 was hastily thrown together from the getgo. Making Cordy the big bad made no sense at all and was really just repeating stories on Buffy. No respect for the show so let's just recycle a storyline cause ITS THE LAST SEASON OF BUFFY! OMFG! Whatever.

But thanks for sending that our way. I really enjoyed it and I passed it around to some of my other friends.

[SamIAm]

Good review; I like that she places the blame for the half-assed Cordy of season four where it belongs.

But I still think it could all have been avoided if, after Joss had gone on and on about Cordy ascending into heaven, someone had said, "Then what?"

[Angela]

Originally Posted by SamIAm

But I still think it could all have been avoided if, after Joss had gone on and on about Cordy ascending into heaven, someone had said, "Then what?"

Yeah, but Greenwalt was gone, and who else would have had the cajones?

[Lovin' Lorne]

When I first read that Cordelia was going to end up being the BB for S4, I was really excited. I thought it would be a great chance for CC to spread her wings and really take off with it, as well as offering Angel and the group a fantastic opportunity to help her through the aftermath and pull everyone even closer together. To make them into a real family. It's the way they chose to execute it that I had a problem with. I think that after CC became pregnant they should have toned down the camp a bit, (can anyone say gawd awful Stevie Knicks descending the staircase outfit?) and definitely worked around the bump. It's not like they haven't used a double in the long shots before, and I think we're all smart enough to know that Cordelia the character and Charisma the person are two different people, so if one was having a kid and the other wasn't, our brains wouldn't have exploded from the confusion.

[Shadow4Corangela]

Good review. Thanks for the link, JoJo.

I have plunged us all into a horrendous Freudian clusterfuck

Ha! It would be funny if it wasn't true. Alas.

Originally Posted by Lovin' Lorne

...I think we're all smart enough to know that Cordelia the character and Charisma the person are two different people, so if one was having a kid and the other wasn't, our brains wouldn't have exploded from the confusion.

Amen sister!

[brownsbros3]

I like the review. It hit on a lot of great points. Whether you liked the episodes of the first three seasons or not, under David Greenwalt, Angel, most of the time, had a natural flow from one episode to the next. Season four was a jumbled mess. I agree with the reviewer that even if CC did not get pregnant, they still should have had a back up plan.

The reviewer also has a good point about Connor not moving forward. Rather than character progression, he seemed to see-saw back and forth. One episode, he would seem to start figuring out that Angel isn't such a bad guy. Then the next week, he'd be back to 100% hating him again. It got old really fast.

There were also too many subplots in season four. I like how the reviewer put it.

"And in fact, it's an issue with the whole season -- the sense that entire subplots got paused while we dealt with other things. Prior seasons seemed to weave everything together much more deftly, but S4 just dropped some of its threads for long stretches of time, to the point where I noticed it and would say out loud, "Um, Cordelia? Anyone remember her? Comatose somewhere?" Fred is on her out-of-town jaunt, fleeing Jasmine's followers, and we got a bunch of scenes that repeated themselves; no Cordelia, Connor filler scenes. Gunn is off with Electric Gwen, and it turns into a standalone episode while Angel is setting Cordy up, but then that all happens in the last minute of the ep. It came off as…not thrown together, but just sort of disorganized, like the writers themselves kept smacking their foreheads all, "Ohhhhh yeah, that guy. Shit."

[JoJo]

Jasmine. It's spot-on commentary on organized religion -- so smartly written, and it didn't over-explain what it wanted to do there.

I didn't get that at all. All I saw was a Fireflop actor jammed down our throats while the show's stars hung out in a sewer for several boring episodes. The only good part of the Jasmine arc was Connor and Angel's duet.

I did find the casting of Gina Torres problematic, because I just don't like her much, and I think bringing in a Firefly cast member is…well, gimmicky, but I don't think it's a problem anyone could really have "fixed,"

Here's a thought. How about NOT doing the Jasmine arc at all. Why not just have Cordelia leave town for a few eps or maybe, god forbid, shooting around her pregnancy? As others have said, it wouldn't have made our heads explode if they hadn't written Cordy as pregnant just because CC was.

[LaLa247]

Great article, and I agree with every point. I don't think the viewing audience was stupid enough to think that just because the actress was preggers, the character had to be too (although after the way some people acted...).

Who is a teenager, and who has a wretched haircut, and who has never known the touch of a woman because he spent his formative years in a hell dimension.

I just want to say that this bolded part being listed among the WRONG reasons to sleep with Connor made me laugh out loud. Poor kid.

Originally Posted by JoJo

All I saw was a Fireflop actor jammed down our throats while the show's stars hung out in a sewer for several boring episodes. The only good part of the Jasmine arc was Connor and Angel's duet.

Agreed. And it's a shame because Gina Torres is a flippin' fantastic actress, and they really should've given her something better.

Then again, these are the same people who fired CC and VK without a second thought. Come to think of it, they didn't deserve VK on the show either, especially after he continued to heavily praise CC and the rest of the crew and so on. Too much class for this show, clearly.

Here's a thought. How about NOT doing the Jasmine arc at all. Why not just have Cordelia leave town for a few eps or maybe, god forbid, shooting around her pregnancy?

I always thought it would've been far more interesting, if they HAD to write the pregnancy in, it would've been Angel who Cordy had slept with, she gets preggers, and some *wrong* prophecy made Angel think this kid was going to be evil. Connot ends up protecting Cordy and her baby from Angel (created some sort of warped Mom vs. Dad situation for Connor), and it results in Connor hiding Cordelia out, away from harm. Cordy's gone for a couple of eps, there is a three-way (and possibly a seven-way, if you include the Fang Gang having different views) conflict over this baby, trust, and family; and then you can decide to either have the baby really be evil (Cordy either gets rid of it or Angel kills it), or you do a fifth season with a baby. *shrug*

Whatever. I'm not a writer for this show, but them writers didn't do it right.

ETA: On Connor...the one thing I thought they should've kept, and they didn't, damn them, was the religious fervor. The kid was raised by a religious zealot, for crap's sake! Have him hate Angel because he's a product of pure evil, NOT because he's a sucky father who didn't give him a gameboy. Have Connor do things because he honestly believes that they are the right thing to do. You throw him in a room with a bunch of atheists, shit is going to happen!

It would've been far more believable, to me, to have Connor and Angel butt heads over moral codes, rather than Connor stomping his feet and slamming doors every time something didn't go his way. Also, VK played cool self-righteousness far better than bratty kid. But that's just me.

ETA2:

Enough with the endless exposition about how very very dangerous Angelus is. Show him breaking a few necks instead of giving other characters a line every five minutes about how he's a greater scourge than Spanish flu. Also? These people know his legend, and they fight demons and evil for a living. I did not buy for a second that Angelus's Mean Girls head trips would work on any of them, much less set them all on each other and make everyone all pouty.

[...]

You need to not park one of your lead actors in a coma; you need to not cougar-trap characters you don't know what to do with.

Agreed.

[JoJo]

I always thought it would've been far more interesting, if they HAD to write the pregnancy in, it would've been Angel who Cordy had slept with, she gets preggers, and some *wrong* prophecy made Angel think this kid was going to be evil.

That would have been a good idea if they'd done that in the first place instead of creating Connor. Or, if since Whedon obviously wanted to get rid of CC, the baby should have been Groo's, and she should have returned to Pylea, instead of the season long character assassination.

[v120176]

Or no explanation about who's the father, kinda Scully at X-files... meaning she comes back pregnant, for timeline it's not Groo and she doesn't remember anything from her time as a HB, so she doesn't know how she got pregnant. The writers could choose between the baby being good or bad. You'll have there a jealous Angel because the woman he l... is pregnant and not from him and Connor over-protective of Cordy (like the baby is his brother/sister) with his family obsession thingy.
More, the gang can believe the baby is good until some weird things starts to happen and find the baby is evil. Like season 1, the baby is turning evil Cordy and and she starts to put Connor against Angel and the gang, when they start to say the baby it's evil.
Or whatever,... they didn't even need a father on screen or known. The writers really choose the worst plotline to alienate fans. Because imagine that ConCord could cause a massive running away from the show doesn't require a high IQ... They already know how the fans reacted to dark-Buffy... Imagine the mother figure sleeping with the son.

[tojoson]

a while back i read an interview with one of the producers, (Bell i think) that stated that they found out Charisma was pregnant 3 days after they started to break the storylines for the season, and in 3 days, your not going to lock the wkole season down so it's unchangeable.

they could have gone anywhere they wanted to at that time.

they could have had Cordelia stay in the upper realm for the whole season, but be able to contact or influence the gang from there.

she could have just had head shots, like they did for the first 3 episodes, and never show her pregnancy.

maybe have Lilah get possessed and be the big bad for the season like CC was originally supposed to be (Jasmine was not thought of until CC became pregnant and couldn't do some of the stuff they wanted the big bad to do)