Angel
"Darla"

Airdate: November 14, 2000

After the first half of this crossover event, Buffy's "Fool for Love", I really didn't think that things could be improved upon. I was all sated and amazed, basking in the afterglow. But then they had to go and improve upon all those juicy flashback scenes of Spike's, adding more dimension and information, giving delicious twists to each recollection.

Where "Fool for Love" focused on Spike's memories, "Darla" delves deeper into Darla and Angelus' side of those same events, revealing how Drusilla truly happened upon William, what Angelus really did after he was cursed with a soul, and how the Fearsome Foursome really interacted. Spike's recollections as shown in the Buffy half of the crossover were truthful but incomplete, and "Darla" offers the missing pieces to make the puzzle whole.

Unfortunately, the pieces we're given in Angel just aren't as interesting to this Spike fan, and despite the interesting developments for the Darla character, I still can't get past my intense dislike of the actress, Julie Benz. Most actors do tend to grow on me, even if I'm not particularly impressed by them; witness Marc Blucas and Michelle Trachtenburg, who, though their characters still aren't particularly riveting, still manage to make me marginally interested. Benz, on the other hand, just makes me squirm, sigh, and wish that Darla, a potentially interesting character, were played by someone who could act.

But I digress. This whole Darla storyline is dragging on into infinity, and I suppose I'll just try to enjoy it and hope it leads to J. August Richards doing his first gloriously shirtless scene.

Despite all that presence of Darla, the episode of the same name is quite the romp into Angel and Darla's sordid past, and reveals a few things about Mr. Broody that are telling about his pathetically fixated unlife. It also gives us a second injection of Spike and Drusilla, though unfortunately they're mostly the exact same shots we saw in "Fool for Love". But while the story is interesting and the twists on flashback scenes are interesting, "Darla" just doesn't live up to the standard set by the crossover's first hour, taking too much time in characters I'm getting a little bored with, and not giving much time to the characters I do like -- namely Wesley, Gunn and Cordelia -- in the present day.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Angel airs at 9/8c, Tuesdays on the WB.

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