Angel-Season 3 Box Set Part 2 (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Vampire	Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Waiting In The Wings Deleted Scenes-Waiting In The Wings +/- commentary Featurette-Season 3 Overview Featurette-Page To Screen Featurette-Amy Acker's Screentest Featurette-Vincent Kartheiser's Screentest Gallery-Photo
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	464:53
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Tim Minear Joss Whedon David Greenwalt James A Contner
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	David Boreanaz Charisma Carpenter Alexis Denisof J. August Richards Amy Acker Keith Szarabajka Stephanie Romanov Daniel Dae Kim Andrew Hallett Mark Lutz Vincent Kartheiser
Case	?
RPI	$89.95	Music	Robert J. Kral

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Danish Dutch English Finnish French Norwegian Swedish French Titling English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Before you read this review, you might want to read my reviews of Angel Season One (Part I and Part II), and Season Two (Part I and Part II), and Season Three Part I.

    If you haven't seen the earlier seasons of Angel and Buffy, I strongly recommend you not read any more of the plot synopsis.

    This is Angel Season 3 Part II, the last three discs out of the six that make up the season. The episodes on these discs are:

    This half of the season hits hard, and never pauses for breath. The first episode is a bit of fun, but the rest are rather more serious, even though the comic aspect is never neglected. And a heap happens in the last few episodes — I was surprised, revisiting them, how few episodes there were to cover so much ground.

    Joss Whedon explains, in his commentary, that he really wanted to film professional dancers (he used to film dance when he was in college), so he thoroughly enjoyed directing Waiting in the Wings. He blames this episode on Amy Acker (she mentioned that she had done 15 years of ballet training). It's ironic that the scene which inspired this episode was the one that he ended up having to cut — other directors have mentioned that you know you've finished editing when you cut out your favourite scene. Fortunately, he was able to include it on the DVD — it's fun. This episode is really quite lovely — the ladies look really good in evening gowns. I find it amusing that Joss Whedon is determined to tell us about the lead ballerina, Summer Glau, and how this episode inspired him to cast her in his new show Firefly.

    Every member of the team is run through an emotional wringer in these episodes, but none more than Wesley. He changes radically from the start of this sequence to the end. It's rather interesting to note that he seems a lot more effective at physical violence now (remember how much of a wimp he was on Buffy?) — he needs to be.

    There's a lot I'd like to say, but most of it is major spoiler material, and you do not want any spoilers for these episodes, most especially for the ending. So I'm stopping here.

    I definitely think this is the best season yet of Angel. Watching it again emphasised how good it is.

Video

    This season was screened here in 1.33:1, but it is framed in widescreen, and really looks magnificent that way. There are two-shots with a character on either side of the frame, for example. These DVDs are in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and they are 16x9 enhanced.

    The image is beautifully sharp and clear, although there is the occasional shot that's imperfectly focussed (witness 29:31 in Sleep Tight). Shadow detail is quite good (and just as well, given how dark this show is) — that doesn't mean that there aren't extensive patches of black (you expect that, though). There are still a few scenes showing noticeable film grain, but in most scenes it's not visible. There is no low-level noise.

    Colour is beautifully rendered, with lots of subtleties of shade. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There is some mild aliasing (such as 38:33 in Double or Nothing), only very minor moire, and a touch or two of shimmer. For television material this is very clean.

    There still isn't a single film artefact worth mentioning.

    There are subtitles in seven languages. I watched the English for the Hearing Impaired ones. They are easy to read, well-timed, and mostly accurate (although abbreviated).

    The discs are single-sided and dual layered, but there's no visible layer change. Each episode is placed entirely on one layer — two on one layer and two on the other.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Both the English and French soundtracks are Dolby Digital stereo, surround encoded at 192kbps. I only listened to the English soundtrack. Parts of it are pure front and centre, but the mix does use the surround-encoding very occasionally.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand, very important given the wit in the writing. There are no visible audio sync issues. There are occasional touches of distortion, but less than in the first half — it's mostly in the "previously on Angel" sequences.

    Robert J. Kral is responsible for the score on all these episodes. He gets a chance to show his skill in Waiting in the Wings — he blended music from Giselle with Angel themes, and does so well.

    The surround-encoding gets used rarely, mostly for depth in the score. The only thing directing sound to the subwoofer is the bass-management; there's some decent bass in the soundtrack, so your sub will get something to do if your bass-management sends it there.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    I'm little disappointed by the paucity of extras on these discs — there are none at all on disc five, which is sad. I guess they had less time than usual to prepare these discs.

Menu

    The menus are static, with snatches of music behind all of them. The main menu features Wesley on Disc 4, Fred on Disc 5, and Angel on Disc 6.

Commentary: Joss Whedon (writer/director) on Waiting in the Wings

    I always enjoy Joss Whedon commentaries, and this one is even better than usual. He claims this is the most fun he's ever had — it's easy to understand from his enthusiasm. He also claims that he didn't realise he was trying to make Moulin Rouge. I have to agree with him that Amy Acker is gorgeous. He explains that the melodrama is quite deliberate and considered.

    I'm pleased to see that the commentary is subtitled in both English and French now.

Deleted Scene — Waiting in the Wings (2:15)

    This is a gem — very funny. Don't watch it until after you've seen the episode, and, if you can stand it, wait until after you've listened to Joss Whedon's commentary on the episode. This is the scene that was the inspiration for the episode, but it had to be removed — ironic, no? It's not 16x9 enhanced, unfortunately.

Featurette Season Three Overview (32:24)

    This is a lengthy discussion of the plot arcs and events of Season Three. I'm glad that it is on the last disc, because you really must not watch this until you've watched every episode.

Page to Screen (13:46)

    This is not what I thought — it is not a storyboard comparison or script comparison. This is a really interesting documentary on how Angel gets from a script outline to the finished episode. I was surprised to learn that 237 people work full-time on this show. Strongly recommended.

Amy Acker's Screen Test (2:33)

    A funny segment, and one that hasn't appeared in an episode.

Vincent Kartheiser's Screen Test (1:47)

    Interesting to see, and again a segment that hasn't appeared in an episode.

Still Gallery

    This is a gallery of 29 photos, mostly staged stills of principal characters.

    Season 1 of Angel has just been released in Region 1 — we're still ahead of them on this series.

    Season 3 of Angel has just been released in Region 2 (3rd of March), and will be released two weeks later in Region 4. As far as I can ascertain so far, the Region 2 and Region 4 discs will be the same, and the packaging differences will be the same as for the first two seasons: Region 4 will get two cardboard slipcases, each holding three plastic keepcases, while Region 2 will get a compact album format, with each disc held in a separate page. I have found that it is a little easier to damage the discs, sliding them in and out of the album pages, so maybe Region 4 is getting the better (albeit bulkier) deal on this issue.

    The best season of Angel yet, presented rather well on DVD.

    The video quality is excellent, and widescreen, too.

    The audio quality is very good, with one or two moments of light distortion.

    The extras are reasonable, with a good documentary piece, a Joss Whedon commentary, and a very funny deleted scene, but a bit lighter on extras than previous seasons.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall