{"id":1219,"date":"2012-07-03T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T20:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2012-06-26T07:54:52","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T14:54:52","slug":"mark-watches-angel-s03e04-carpe-noctem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2012\/07\/mark-watches-angel-s03e04-carpe-noctem\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches &#8216;Angel&#8217;: S03E04 &#8211; Carpe Noctem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourth episode of the third season of <em>Angel<\/em>, ummmmm? If you&#8217;re intrigued by that, then it&#8217;s time for Mark to watch <em>Angel<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><!--more-->Everything I liked in &#8220;Carpe Noctem&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>oh my GOD the Nuart Theater is one of the greatest places in the universe. That&#8217;s where I saw my first midnight showing of <em>Rocky Horror Picture Show<\/em>. LOVE LOVE LOVE.<\/li>\n<li>Cordelia. Just every second of her in this episode is lovely and wonderful. The fact that she cares so much about Fred is so beautiful to me.<\/li>\n<li>Gavin, you are getting <em>feisty!<\/em> I like it. More of you, please.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Angel&#8217;s&#8221; forced conversation with his lover, Wesley. Oh, how I loved that dynamic.<\/li>\n<li>Watching David Boreanaz act like Marcus Roscoe. <em>That<\/em> was an entertaining thing about this body swap episode.<\/li>\n<li>As uncomfortable as the Fred subplot was for this story, I did like to see her face her feelings for Angel and to take control of the conversation at the end of the episode. I&#8217;m really starting to like Fred and the dynamic she brings to the group.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m really trying quite hard here.<\/li>\n<li>Buffy is alive! Yes, that&#8217;s good.<\/li>\n<li>Um.<\/li>\n<li>All right.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Everything I disliked about &#8220;Carpe Noctem&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Who Are You&#8221; did the exact same thing so much better. Well, okay, it&#8217;s not the <em>same<\/em> thing, as the person who swaps with Angel is an absolute stranger, but the Buffyverse has already had a body swap episode, and that one is BRILLIANT. Eliza Dushku and Sarah Michelle Gellar <em>perfect<\/em> each other&#8217;s physical mannerisms and behavior. This one? Not so much.<\/li>\n<li>I simply didn&#8217;t believe that Angel was in the body of Marcus. There was no behavior there that suggested someone else was there.<\/li>\n<li>We&#8217;ve had plenty of jokes about how Angel is the worst vampire ever, so this episode felt like it was just recycling them.<\/li>\n<li>So, I <em>did<\/em> like the scene of &#8220;Angel&#8221; telling Wesley that they had to remain friends, but the entire gay subplot was just so boring. I mean, the writers will explore this, but not an <em>actual<\/em> gay character? No, thank you.<\/li>\n<li>Would Lilah <em>really<\/em> entertain the notion of having sex with Angel? I know she&#8217;s <em>kind<\/em> of attracted to him, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what? <em>What<\/em>?<\/li>\n<li>Okay, I know this is silly, but SO MUCH AWFUL has happened to Fred, so can horrific things stop happening to her? Thanks.<\/li>\n<li>Oh my god, I swear, I tried REALLY HARD to like this episode, but it was just so boring! Why should I care about any of this? What is it telling me about the characters? What are they learning? Are they growing at all? Aside from Fred&#8217;s heartbreaking monologue about not knowing love, <em>why<\/em> does this episode exist?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Without a doubt, this is my least favorite episode of the show so far. The acting isn&#8217;t terrible or anything, but the writers just don&#8217;t give the actors anything to really work with. Well, aside from Angel being Marcus. But after &#8220;Who Are You,&#8221; the Buffyverse really set the bar for a body swap story. That was about Faith&#8217;s growth as a person, and her coming to understand Buffy&#8217;s life. This is about\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Angel possibly hurting someone again? I don&#8217;t even know if it&#8217;s about that.<\/p>\n<p>Meh. Onwards to <em>Buffy<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Links Stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; You can follow me on\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/markdoesstuff\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/markdoesstuff\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for any updates and live commentary on upcoming reviews I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing.<br \/>\n&#8211; If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to support what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing, you can click the little Donate button in the right sidebar,\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markdoesstuff.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">buy eBooks on MarkDoesStuff<\/a>, or purchase physical books on\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lulu.com\/storefront\/markdoesstuff\" target=\"_blank\">Lulu.com<\/a>.<br \/>\n-\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markdoesstuff.com\/categories\/ebooks\/harry-potter\/goblet-of-fire\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Mark Reads Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0is now on sale for just $3.99!!!<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2012\/05\/mark-watches-doctor-who-series-one-is-now-published\/\"><br \/>\n<\/a>&#8211; The third volume of Mark Tells Stories, \u00e2\u20ac\u01531337,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0<a title=\"Mark Tells Stories #3 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u21221337\u00e2\u20ac\u00b2 is now out!\" href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/06\/mark-tells-stories-3-1337-is-now-out\/\" target=\"_blank\">is now out and available for just $1.00<\/a>!<br \/>\n-\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/markdoesstuff.com\/product\/mark-reads--video\" target=\"_blank\">You can purchase your very own Mark Reads video for just $25<\/a>, and I will read ANYTHING you want.<br \/>\n&#8211; Mark Reads is now on YouTube, and you can watch all my videos\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PL3472C624CC0141AB&amp;feature=plcp\" target=\"_blank\">right here!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourth episode of the third season of Angel, ummmmm? If you&#8217;re intrigued by that, then it&#8217;s time for Mark to watch Angel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[215],"tags":[214,314,180,317,183,280,217,301],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-angel","tag-alexis-denisof","tag-amy-acker","tag-charisma-carpenter","tag-daniel-dae-kim","tag-david-boreanaz","tag-j-august-richards","tag-mark-watches-angel","tag-stephanie-romanov"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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