Whedon and Time

"Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" is the Angel episode that I can appreciate solely for its time line (although the probable Charlotte Gilman reference was pretty awesome as well). However, this reference has alreasy seen considerable blog time, so I will avoid saying anything other than I sincerely hope it was intentional, because it really works. Anyway, I absolutely love this episode's past/present shifts, which give it a sense of complexity and continuity that can be hard to pull off in episodes that stick solely to the present. Another important aspect of episodes like this one are the excellent and 100% non-boring history lessons that the viewer receives about the show's protagonist. The reason this episode's superb presentation of the past-present time line stuck out to me was probably my recent obsession with (and bitter conclusion of) Firefly's first and only season.

Firefly helped me to cultivate a sincere appreciation for good past-present plots in media, due mostly to the episode "Out of Gas," which functions, quite ludicrously, on three temporal levels (past, present, and future). While putting together a decent television episode with three levels of time sounds, at least to me, totally insane, Whedon pulls it off with a finesse that I have rarely seen outside of the work of directors like Christopher Nolan. One gets all the usual good stuff like the favorite character history lesson and overall continuity, IN ADDITION to snippets of what are obviously life-threatening future occurrences. In short, pure TV awesomeness. In light of my new appreciation for shifting time-lines (particularly those associated with Whedon), one can imagine my excitement when I realized that I was going to experience just such a phenomena in "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been". Lets just say I was not disappointed. While the Angel episode is not nearly as complex as "Out of Gas" ('cause we all know that nothing can touch Firefly), it was still a joy to experience. The viewer is treated to just what Angel was up to in the 1950's and its a blast to watch the reclusive "vampire with a soul" deal with issues of race, lynchings, and murder mysteries. It was also awesome to see Cordelia and her incredibly annoying British friend sift through dated photographs of events that the viewer received the privilege of experiencing in real time. Finally, the way the way the past and present are finally united in the episode was extremely smart, treating viewers to a redemption moment that was literally fifty years in the making. Good stuff!