"I Will Remember You"
Airdate: November 23, 1999

The crossover continues from "Pangs".

One thing I've always loved about Angel is that it carries on the Buffy tradition of not speaking down to an audience that seems to consist mainly of teenaged girls. On the contrary, Angel is a smart show, and the writers don't tend to write something just because the focus groups seem to want it or it'd boost the ratings.

Or maybe I should amend that. They didn't tend to write such things. This episode is the exception.

"I Will Remember You" is the second half of the first Buffy/Angel crossover to involve the title characters. After Buffy discovers, in the end of "Pangs", that Angel had been lurking around Sunnydale without showing himself to her (did anyone else just get a mental picture of Angel using that trenchcoat of his to run around town flashing people?), she decides to pay a visit to her one-time boyfriend in Los Angeles. Supposedly she's visiting her father in the city, but we all know better, 'cause what's more fun than an Angel and Buffy angst-fest? The gut-wrenching misery is interrupted, though, by a samurai-lookin' demon, and our favorite star-crossed lovers end up pursuing the critter through the sewers.

Thinking that the demon's exited the sewers and gone into daylight where Angel can't follow, our intrepid heroes split up. But Angel runs into the demon on the way back to the Batcave, kills it, accidentally mixes his blood with the demon's, and whammy! All of the sudden, Angel's human. After going to see "the oracles" (who happen to be a couple of people in togas with sparkly paint like out of some original Trek episode), and being reassured that his mortality is permanent, Angel finds Buffy. They shag, and shag, and shag. Maybe they should call her Energizer Buffy...

But of course, all can't end well. As a human, Angel fights even worse than, say, Xander... and he ends up getting his ass kicked. He's a liability to Buffy as a mortal, and hey... if Buffy gets killed, or he gets killed, there won't be any more crazy monkey lovin'. Things can't stay that way. And they don't. The conclusion's a tear-jerker, to be sure, and Buffy/Angel 'shippers the world over must've been pulling their hair out. I'm into the Buffy and Angel relationship; I think it's a great dynamic and Boreanaz and Gellar pull it off wonderfully. But it could be because I'm a Buffy/Spike 'shipper at heart (stop laughing), or more likely it was because the ending was so formulated and seemed like an easy out, but I found myself groaning and wanting to throw things at the TV instead of weeping over Buffy and Angel's tragic romance.

My biggest problem with "I Will Remember You" -- and even if it were my only problem, it'd be big enough to ruin the episode on its own -- is that it plays out like some bad bit of fan fiction. The main difference is that Buffy and Angel don't end up living happily ever after with ten kids, a dog, and a cat like they tend to do in the fiction. And the dialogue is sharp, of course; it always is. But the episode's storyline leaves something to be desired. The bulk of it seems to be written solely to have Buffy/Angel 'shippers swooning and give Angel a bit of jump in the ratings by bringing in Sarah Michelle Gellar. Contributions from the supporting players were nearly non-existent. The oracles were... ugh. Don't get me started on those lame-assed glittery oracles. But it's the conclusion that really gets me.

Angel can't stand the thought of losing Buffy because as a mortal he's not strong enough to fight at her side. So he goes back to see the oracles, who somehow have the power to alter time and space on a whim. They decide to give him back the past twenty-four hours (because they're all shimmery and therefore mystical) so that he can kill the demon straight out and never become human at all. He'll be the only one to remember the previous day. He'll be an ensouled vampire again. It sounds fairly plausible. But on the screen, it played out even worse than the tired old "Oh good, this entire episode was just a dream" thing. It felt like a cop-out. And when it was all over, I just felt cheap.

Of course, there could be advantages to these oracle guys. All Angel has to bring them is a Rolex or a nice vase as an offering and they're all ears. So maybe next week he can go in and say, "Hey, do you think you could bring Doyle back from the dead? I kinda miss that cute, drunken Irishman." And Cordelia can visit them, too. "I lost my favorite earrings last week. Could you turn back time so I can remember where I put them this time?"

Maybe the folks involved with this week's Angel can visit those all-knowing oracles, too, and ask to get some of those really cool, unpredictable storylines back.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Angel airs Tuesdays on the WB.

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