What's yours...

That was really tough!

S1 had IWRY which I loved, S2 excellent, S4 I haven't finished watching and haven't seen S5 yet!

I think I disliked S3 because it wasquite Cordie / Angel based on will they - won't they and I just didn't like any of it! It was a good season though.

I voted for season 3. Not because it's bad in any way, but because it's my least favourite of the 5. But to call it the worst makes it sound like I don't like it, I do, just not as much as the others. The "worst" season of Angel is still millions of times better than its corresponding season of Buffy (season 6).

S5. I presume I can't say why because of spoiler rules, but it should be fairly obvious why I don't like it :)

Season 4 - Jasmine :rolleyes:

here here rubbish

They have all been good, I don't think i could vote :unsure:

Anyone who doesn't vote for S5 should be banned from watching Angel forever.

Patchy, no consistent arc and annoying characters abound.

Jasmine rules :p

Ditto Neil :)

Those saying S4 have completely lost my respect :snooty:

CB

Ditto Neil and CB :)

S4 was great. Not quite as great as S2, but almost there :)

Margot

I agree Jasmine was a crap idea and a terrible season ender but apart from that season 4 was one of the best Angel seasons in my opinion. I think without the whole Jasmine debacle season 4 could have & should have been the best ever season of Angel .

I've voted for season five although season 2 and 3 were in the running which no doubt many of you would say was sacrilege to mention them asthe worst season!

Jasmine was right up there with the Pylea arc :p

Great season, crap concluding arc :rolleyes:

I voted for season 4 but only in the Jassmine sense. Pre J, I loved it! As others have said, was a tough choice this cos I think Angel was pretty nmuch consistant throughout

What was so bad about Jasmine?

Would you have preferred an "I'm so bad, I'm badder than the beast and Cordie, I'm badder than everybody" type simplistic nonsense or would you have a clever twist on that - a beautiful woman who wanted to enslave people by making them happy which allowed the usual brilliant Angel grey morality questions?

If the answers A then there are shows out there to suit you - just don't criticise superior shows like Angel.

Sorry Neil, but Angel's a lot better than the Jasmine arc had it looking.

Besides the fact that we'd already had the 'puppet master' story twice that season, the Jasmine arc slowed the pace to a crawl. Angel's often struggled to find a satisfying resolution to a fantastic season. Season 4 was no exception. I disliked the ending to season 4 that much that I couldn't bring myself to go back to the show until about halfway through the final year. Angel, for a large part of it's run was brilliant. Here, it was not ;) I've yet to find a series that's consistently brilliant across every one of it's episodes. Every show has it's weak points, this is one of Angel's.

The term 'superior' is subjective, obviously. Anyone trying to use the Jasmine arc to support this view of Angel is already fighting a lost cause ;)

Not to me though.

The plus points outweighted any negatives. Conner became an infinitely better character, CCs iffy acting was no more and we got to watch a beautiful woman. We got to see Fred become a heroine and we saw Lilah return with an episode which defined "intriuging".

There was no drop in episode quality in terms of action, morality, character development or story arc. The "it was all a plan" thing fired my imagination intensely.

Comparing any of that with relative dross like Hellbound, Why we fight and The girl in question and somehow coming out with "a worst season" conclusion is frankly mind boggling.

I can't choose a worst season, they all have their good and bad eps imo, i find it difficult to choose a favourite season. People saying S4 was the worst - it was only the Jasmine eps (about 3 or 4) that let it down, the beast, rain of fire, blotting out the sun, Angelus were all brilliant, some of the best Angel eps there. And as for Season 5, yes there were a number of stand alone eps at the beginning, but once it got into it from about ep 7 onwards, most of it was brilliant imo.

It's clearer with Buffy because S6 just didn't have what the other seasons did, the trio were funny, but they weren't worthy of being a big bad, and as for evil Willow for 3 eps, that didn't make up for the lack of action, it was all Buffy/Spike, which i wasn't a big fan of.

So, back to the main point, imo there is no clear worst or best season on the whole.

Ems :)

Exactly - that was what was so great about the Jasmine arc. You found yourself questioning whether or not she was actually right. No show (that I've watched) has done that. As Neil said, it's so much better than having just a caricatured "evil" much like The First.

Margot

Again ditto Neil :)

I could name S4's poor episodes on one hand, or even two fingers, whereas I'd be forced to find half a dozen decent eps in S5. S5 was a complete disgrace... Life of The Party, Just Rewards, Harm's Way plus those Neil mentioned are quite frankly rubbish. The whole ethos of 'Angel' was abandoned in favour of shoe-horning in Spike the twat.

Get off that fence CB :)

(I agree though there was still a lot worth watching)

I voted for S5 as the worst season and it wasn't a very tough decision imo. One of Angel's great strenghts has been how consistant it was in terms of quality but that went out the window in S5. There are some great episodes in S5 but there are also some very poor ones ( poor by Angel standards that is ).

Re. S4 I also liked the Jasmine arc for offering us something different from the usual Big Bad but it is true imo that Angel peaked early in each of the first four seasons ;

S1 - peaked with the Faith/Buffy episodes.
S2 - peaked with Darla/dru and Angel's epiphany.
S3 - peaked with Wes's kidnap of Connor.
S4 - peaked with the conclusion of the Beast/Faith/Angelus arc.

Don't know why that was. :huh:

I voted season five not really allowed to mention on here why :unsure: but yeah it sucked with a few good episodes.

Season four the worst :o

I can see why no one has voted for season 1 and 2, they were both Brillient!!! :thumbsup: . the last half of season 2 was brill and the whole of season 1 with Doyle was good aswell, i would have to chose season 3 but it did have good episodes, imo. :unsure:

season five (too much standalones) ... too bad there were a few good episodes

season three: connor :fear: , gunn/fred :sleeping: , justine :yawn: (more of holtz and dark wesley)

I'm sensing very little love for season 5 :tear: :lol:

I can see that I'm clearly in the minority on the whole Season 4/Jasmine thing, but I still don't like it :)

Season 5 certainly had it's low points, but for me, the Jasmine arc was probably the lowest point of the entire series, the Pylea arc included.

i suppose too much change (new w**k place, new job, standalone episodes, you know who, the season arc arriving too late, the death of some people :toomuchtv: ) a lot of things

Even if the 4 or 5 Jasmine eps/arc were/was as bad as you say the 17 episodes before that piss all over the whole of S5.

Not necessarily Neil. Not Fade Away and A Hole in the World particularly stand up to anything that season 4 produced. That being said, IMO, there were only a few episodes in season 5 that touched the depths set by the Jasmine episodes.

Season 4 didn't really kick in until Apocalypse, Nowish, and pretty much concluded with Orpheus.

There's not much between them IMO, but the Jasmine episodes swing it for season 4 because, to me at least, they were pretty woeful.

true jasmine arc was nearly as bad as the pylea arc (mostly due to the fact that these episodes felt out of place in season two) but it was better than anything harmony or lorne episodes could have brought.

I really liked the Jasmine arc, it was the weakest part of season 4, but that's only because the rest of it was so amazing. But then again, I like season 5, so I don't think I really fit with either side of this argu.. debate. ;)

S5 does have some excellent episodes including the two you mentioned but I'd say all of the worst Angel episodes are in S5. The thing that made Angel fantastic was that the episode quality was generally very consistent. S5 was all over the place. Did any of the Jasmine episodes involve destroying the entire mythos of the Buffyverse like Harm's way did in one episode?

The ones mentioned by me and CB earlier in this thread are complete dross compared to the worst of any other season and to compare them with those 4 episodes in your terms means I've lost a lot of respect for your opinion.

Sorry Neil, I don't form my opinion based on how well it will sit with others.

The fact that the Jasmine arc wasn't even a part of the original blueprint for season 4 shows in it's execution, and goes some way to explaining why it sits so poorly with the rest of the season. It provides a largely disjointed end to what had been promising to be a decent season.

A lot's also made of season 5 shoehorning Spike in there as a gimmick to pull in the numbers. In truth that's only following on from season 4's let's bring in Faith, let's bring back Angelus, let's turn Cordelia evil, and let's having Connor boffing her one.

As for going against the mythos of the Buffyverse; Buffy and her people and Angel and his merry band battle against the forces of darkness in obscurity. Yet here, LA's the focus of two globally noticable events; the blotting out of the sun, and the entire city going Jasmine-happy. And the rest of the country/world doesn't notice this why ??

Consequently, Season 4 was ruined, for me at least, by it's conclusion. Season 5 on the other hand, whilst disappointing for certain parts of the season, pulled together a series of stronger episodes to round off the year.

As I've said, that's my opinion, if yours is different, so be it.

Hmph, Neil's been arguing with someone that's not me :tear:

The Jasmine arc was let down mainly by its execution. There were a couple of intriguing ideas which, were they handled properly, could have made for a decent conclusion to the season. But I don't think the Jasmine arc was as bad as Pylea and I'd certainly rank most of S5 below the Jasmine arc, never mind the concluding arc to S3.

The whole of S4 suffered from a lack of planning - things changed the moment CC announced she was pregnant, which basically buggered up most of the ideas ME would have had for the second half of the season. I'm certainly not as big a fan of S4 as some are on here, but there were some excellent eps and I don't think anything in S5 matched the best of S4 for quality.

The return of Faith and Angelus were definitely meant as ratings boosters, but I'm not sure about evil!Cordy. Mind you, her storyline had been screwed over ever since early S3 so I'm not sure what was intended by this point. Connor/Cordy was definitely NOT meant as a ratings boost - if you'd advertised that as a key point of the season, you'd have more people vomiting from the trailers than you would viewers tuning into the show :x

I didn't vote for any of the seasons because they all have their own good qualities.

I haven't voted for season 1 because I have only seen the last three episodes.

I love season five :D

Yay :clap:

Whilst there are two or three good episodes, in comparison to the others season 5 is utter crap. <insert thumbs done smilie>

I didn't think season 5 was that bad either. I quite enjoyed Harms Way and there are obviously some fine eps, Lineage, A Hole in the World, Smile Time, Not Fade Away, Shells, etc. But it did suffer from the standalone eps and some truly dreadful ones at that. I can't really vote in the poll, because there really isn't an Angel season that screams out 'bad, bad', like season 6 Buffy did for me.

At a push season 5 probably has more bad eps than any other season, closely followed by season 1.

The Jasmine arc in season 4 wasn't nearly as bad on a rewatch for me either. Yes it was a bit of a let down after the whole buildup with the Beast etc, but I thought the message it was trying to convey, was probably as dark as Angel ever got. By killing Jasmine, Angel and co did condemn the world to a world without peace. I guess it was just a touch on the subtle side to make the required impact. Still Cordy/Connor, Evil Cordy was just horrible

Tee hee :lol:

I like reading debates/arguments - great fun.

Personally I liked the whole of Season 4, including the Jasmine arc :)

In terms of the scale and feel of the series I might even list it as my favourite.

Can't really comment too much on Season 5 as I'm only a couple of discs in but it certainly seems to have lost some of the feel of earlier seasons - perhaps a case of too many changes at once :unsure:

Not going to vote for my least favourite season ATM :p