Steven Paul
May 2, 2004, 12:01 pm
Reviewer: Steven Paul Watson vipereyes_2000@yahoo.com
Quick Rating: Great!
Story Title: ‘Time Bomb’
“She just might make the team yet…”
Writer: Ben Edlund
Director: Vern Gillum
Cast: David Boreanaz, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Amy Acker, James Marsters, Andy Hallett, and Mercedes McNab.
Guest Starring: Adam Baldwin and Jamie Bergman.
Warning: Some Spoilers Ahead!
Ever see previews to an episode and you think, this is a bad idea cause it can go wrong in so many ways. Time Bomb is that episode for me, the idea of time travel is something that seems to be reserved for genre television when they’re running out of good stories to tell.
I’m glad I was wrong, Time Bomb kept pace with the past few episodes and the majority of this season by being unique, easy to follow without having a major dependence on the episodes before it, and at the same time continues the ongoing story/theme of this season.
It opens as the one thing many fans have been wondering about is answered. Who is going to rescue Gunn? And it may not been whom many expected.
Illyria takes the spotlight this episode and it is a heck of a ride as her powers are out of whack. But her powers aren’t the only thing over the edge, as Wesley seems less in touch with reality than she is. Whether it has to do with last weeks ending or just everything that has been happening has finally caused him to snap. Either way, this Wesley is quite literally crazy and it is hard to tell where he stands in a given situation.
The episode flows really well as the story goes back and forth in Illyria’s time lapses and it doesn’t really kick in until Angel is pulled along with her, after we witness her kill Spike, Wesley, Lorne, and Angel in a matter of moments.
Why Spike? I never realized it at first but there is a reason Illyria killed Spike first. They’ve been sparing for two episodes now and with the exception of her time warp powers he has be holding his own against the old one.
J. August Richards, better known as Gunn is back. Even though he has appeared the last few episodes since he went to a holding dimension, he is back with the group now. This season Gunn has been the brains of the operation, the lawyer of the group, even for the majority of this season had hair. Though this isn’t the first episode of the return of the shaved look for him, this is the look that gives that good ole Gunn feeling to it. This episode also truly sees the return of his attitude, what has made Gunn one of the most interesting characters in this series as he argues with a demon clan.
Adam Baldwin’s Hamilton appears again, and the tension between him and the group grows but more importantly the tension between him an Angel continues. With only three episodes left, it’s not hard to see something is going to go down between the two of them and it should be explosive. Illyria also comes up when he talks to Wesley and we see that the Partners know her, don’t like her or trust her. They worry them enough where they would point Wesley in the right direction to kill her.
A side story in this episode involves a young mother who is about to give over her unborn child to a clan of demons. It was interesting to see that she was willing to give the child over believing they could do more for it than her and her disabled husband could. I must admit, this was my biggest disappoint of the episode. Not cause of the story itself but because of who played the young woman. Jamie Bergman, the average viewer wouldn’t know who she was but to many Angel fans or David Boreanaz fans know this is his real life wife. So was she bad? Not at all, I thought she was very believable in her role. What I didn’t like was the two (Bergman and Boreanaz) had very little interaction in Time Bomb it would have been interesting to see how they played off of each other and to see if they had any chemistry on screen.
A lot of things happened this episode that should affect the remainder of the season. Wesley going against Angel’s wishes in killing Illyria (actually…that was kinda expected of Wesley for me anyways), a powered down Illyria, Angel agreeing with Wesley about Illyria’s potential with the group, and who can forget the final scene with Angel entering the office looking like he was going to side with the demon clan and not Gunn. With only three episodes left, there are still a lot of stories to tell and so few hours remaining to tell them in.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhnone.jpg
Quick Rating: Great!
Story Title: ‘Time Bomb’
“She just might make the team yet…”
Writer: Ben Edlund
Director: Vern Gillum
Cast: David Boreanaz, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Amy Acker, James Marsters, Andy Hallett, and Mercedes McNab.
Guest Starring: Adam Baldwin and Jamie Bergman.
Warning: Some Spoilers Ahead!
Ever see previews to an episode and you think, this is a bad idea cause it can go wrong in so many ways. Time Bomb is that episode for me, the idea of time travel is something that seems to be reserved for genre television when they’re running out of good stories to tell.
I’m glad I was wrong, Time Bomb kept pace with the past few episodes and the majority of this season by being unique, easy to follow without having a major dependence on the episodes before it, and at the same time continues the ongoing story/theme of this season.
It opens as the one thing many fans have been wondering about is answered. Who is going to rescue Gunn? And it may not been whom many expected.
Illyria takes the spotlight this episode and it is a heck of a ride as her powers are out of whack. But her powers aren’t the only thing over the edge, as Wesley seems less in touch with reality than she is. Whether it has to do with last weeks ending or just everything that has been happening has finally caused him to snap. Either way, this Wesley is quite literally crazy and it is hard to tell where he stands in a given situation.
The episode flows really well as the story goes back and forth in Illyria’s time lapses and it doesn’t really kick in until Angel is pulled along with her, after we witness her kill Spike, Wesley, Lorne, and Angel in a matter of moments.
Why Spike? I never realized it at first but there is a reason Illyria killed Spike first. They’ve been sparing for two episodes now and with the exception of her time warp powers he has be holding his own against the old one.
J. August Richards, better known as Gunn is back. Even though he has appeared the last few episodes since he went to a holding dimension, he is back with the group now. This season Gunn has been the brains of the operation, the lawyer of the group, even for the majority of this season had hair. Though this isn’t the first episode of the return of the shaved look for him, this is the look that gives that good ole Gunn feeling to it. This episode also truly sees the return of his attitude, what has made Gunn one of the most interesting characters in this series as he argues with a demon clan.
Adam Baldwin’s Hamilton appears again, and the tension between him and the group grows but more importantly the tension between him an Angel continues. With only three episodes left, it’s not hard to see something is going to go down between the two of them and it should be explosive. Illyria also comes up when he talks to Wesley and we see that the Partners know her, don’t like her or trust her. They worry them enough where they would point Wesley in the right direction to kill her.
A side story in this episode involves a young mother who is about to give over her unborn child to a clan of demons. It was interesting to see that she was willing to give the child over believing they could do more for it than her and her disabled husband could. I must admit, this was my biggest disappoint of the episode. Not cause of the story itself but because of who played the young woman. Jamie Bergman, the average viewer wouldn’t know who she was but to many Angel fans or David Boreanaz fans know this is his real life wife. So was she bad? Not at all, I thought she was very believable in her role. What I didn’t like was the two (Bergman and Boreanaz) had very little interaction in Time Bomb it would have been interesting to see how they played off of each other and to see if they had any chemistry on screen.
A lot of things happened this episode that should affect the remainder of the season. Wesley going against Angel’s wishes in killing Illyria (actually…that was kinda expected of Wesley for me anyways), a powered down Illyria, Angel agreeing with Wesley about Illyria’s potential with the group, and who can forget the final scene with Angel entering the office looking like he was going to side with the demon clan and not Gunn. With only three episodes left, there are still a lot of stories to tell and so few hours remaining to tell them in.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/dhnone.jpg