They went down fighting
I made it home just in time to catch last night's series finale of Angel, "Not Fade Away", (I missed the Smallville season finale, as I was too bound up in work concerns to remember to set a VCR), and I enjoyed the fairly tight wrap. Speculation on whether or not Wesley would have survived had season six been authorized by the WB is almost pointless, though had there been an alternate plotline by Whedon and the writers I'd be interested in seeing it somewhere down the line.
Was the final episode perfect? Certainly not, but what is? There are always nits to pick, but I think they did a fine job, and certainly packed a great deal in a single hour.
That the series went down strong is a good thing, though going out at their game will leave the question of whether or not a sixth season would have marked an unlikely continued rise, a reasonable plateau, or a just as likely decline. I'll never forgive the miserable bastards at the WB, not so much for cancelling the show because they estimated just a little under 4 million people were watching each week, but more for having the huge, hairy balls to post almost tearful Farewell & Thank You messages to the show at the end. Who pulled the plug, guys?
There's supposed to be an encore presentation of the finale on Tuesday, May 25th (next Tuesday) at 8pm EST, if anyone's interested.
Looking around I see that some haven't given up on campaigns to save the show (presumably not, with the site updated two days ago), and while part of me would like to see more I must confess that I'm willing to let it lie. The combination that tipped the scales for me is the final episode's serving so nicely as a Butch & Sundance peak point finale, and that in a TV Guide interview with David Boreanaz, he gives the impression of someone who's done with the character barring a big screen treatment. With those elements in place, it becomes easier for me to let it stand as completed, and note that there were other elements bound to get in the way had it continued, not the least of which is that with at least two vampires in the cast (I figure Harmony would at least be out of the regular picture) - characters who are supposed to remain to all appearances the age they were when they were "turned" - it's not something Boreanaz, Marsters and the makeup crew could keep up indefinitely. Indeed, if one looks at the characters when they first appeared in Buffy and how they looked near the end...
Finally, courtesy (once more) of the Moviehole, here's a nice pre-show round-up of more reasons why this is likely to be the last we'll see of these characters on TV, some farewell notes, and a little optimism from Whedon that the Buffy/Angel universe isn't dead yet.
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