Goodbye, Farewell, and Awwwh-Man....

      Based on the preliminary reviews I've seen of the finale of Angel (of which this one from The Toronto Star is pretty typical), it seems I'm in a lonely minority in thinking it rancid. So be it. It has occurred to me, though, that Joss Whedon has a very hard time letting go of his characters. I can't help but think that if Shakespeare followed the Whedon model, we'd spend three-and-a-half acts watching characters blather incessantly before finally launching into action (a lesson, I think, he learned after Hamlet). Worse, the confrontations would be tepid anticlimaxes with absolutely no dramatic resonance. Imagine, I don't know, Henry V going into battle with the French at Agincourt and suddenly turning into a one-lining superhero with moves ripped from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

      As is typical for a "serious" show's finale, a token character has, of course, be killed, in a pandering to pathos. With Whedon, though, that character's death is so obviously telegraphed as to be obvious; Andrew's conviction that Anya would survive Buffy's final melée marked her for death, just as much as Wesley's "I fully plan on surviving" speech marked him. (Aside: sympathies and kudos to Amy Acker who had the unenviable task of trying to play Marge Simpson as a demi-goddess.) Don't kill for convention, Joss; kill because your story demands it.

      Whedon can be a damned good writer when he wants to be, but when it comes to parting with his characters on a permanent basis, he dillies and he dallies and he undermines dramatic urgency; sometimes, it seems the only thing he omits is the "And I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow"-speech that would cause a complete sugar overdose. That's the great danger of serial writing: the writers can become overly-attached to their characters. As a result, less-sentimental audience members can be rolling their hands, frustrated with the pace of premature elegy. More to the point, that hand-rolling is an indication to get on with things, a frustration with authorial self-indulgence.

      Endings are always hard. The best writers, though, know that they can't waste time fawning over their characters' qualities and they can't hedge their bets and dilute consequence. Shakespeare knew how to harrow his characters at the finish. Most writers, including even above-average ones like Whedon, chomp at the bit. My advice to all writers working toward a big-finish: stick to the facts, stick to the story, and don't be afraid to pull the trigger when the time comes. And, by all means, don't be predictable. Endings are strangely liberating in this way. The writer is no longer beholden to expectations of continuance, with all the chips, as they say, already on the table. My advice in such a circumstance is this: play rough, play hard, and go for the damned gusto. As for Angel: good riddance. And what the *hell* was with making all the demons look like Gary Larson creations? Well, then again, if it looks like a cartoon and it sounds like a cartoon....