Dad

Dad
Written by David H. Goodman
Directed by Fred Keller

Original Airdate: December 10, 2001

Plot: Angel becomes obsessive about his promise to Darla to care for his newborn son--a promise which is hard to keep as the new father discover some of the joys of new parenthood and the fact that several demon groups are preparing to descend on the hotel in order to either take the baby or do some harm to him. Meanwhile, Holtz starts to assemble a group of fellow justice seekers to battle his old nemesis and Wolfram and Hart scramble to find any information they can on the 200-year old vampire hunter.

Review

Warning: It's a giving time of the year. In that vein, let me say that I will be giving away big time SPOILERS for the latest episode of Angel, "Dad." If you've not yet seen it and would like to go in unaware, please turn back now.

In short: Not good, not bad. Just sort of there.

Well, I suppose it had to happen--after a season of really solid, knock-the-ball-out-of-the-park good episodes, I suppose that Angel was entitled to an episode that was a let-down episode. The plotlines had been interesting, entertaining and must-see TV worthy for the first eight or nine episodes of this year and along comes "Dad" which has a lot of really good intentions and is trying to do some good things but ultimately left me feeling, well, just like I felt about most of Star Trek: Voyager. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. It was just there. I'd spent an hour of my life watching it and didn't have strong feelings about the episode either way.

Which is odd because "Dad" was trying to do a lot of different things and it did have some extremely memorable moments.

And while I have not yet seen any of the rest of season three and I've remained SPOILER free on it, I wonder if this episode isn't intended to be a bit like "Bad Eggs" was in Buffy's second season--the calm before the storm. Indeed, I felt the same way about "Bad Eggs" at the time--not good, not bad, just sort of there. It had some good moments, it had some not so great moments. But nothing that made me want to jump up and down with joy or pull my hair and scream that they were so bad.

I think "Dad" suffers the most from the old problem of the plane circling the runway and not getting on with the action.

The plotline that suffered from this the most was the Wolfram and Hart plotline. Indeed, while I've enjoyed seeing that the law firm has their eyes and ears on Angel and company, they felt a bit impotent in their plotline. Their entire plotline did nothing more than to establish that they can watch Angel and company--which is something we knew three weeks ago--and that they have tracked down Holtz and what his purpose in the game is. Certainly, I found some of the Wolfram and Hart things to be interesting--such as the files and records clerk who knew the content of EVERY file in the room and the fact that they now know who Holtz and realize he might be a hindrance to their overall goal--whatever that may be. I think there's some potential there because of the conflict of the villains of the piece--between Holtz and Wolfram and Hart. Personally, I'd love to Holtz go up against them--and especially Gavin, who seems to get less and less interesting every time we see him. At first he was such a manipulative little troll that you couldn't help but not like him. However, now he's become little more than the second fiddle to Lillah--indeed, their constant attempts to one up each other is like a good sister/bad brother type of thing. It's interesting to watch at times, but it's starting to become repetitive. I guess there's only so many times we can watch Gavin throw out an insult to Lillah, smirk and then have Lillah one up him later in the episode. When he first came in, Gavin introduced a new element of intrigue--because his way of battling Angel was new and unique. Now, I've lost a bit of interest in his character--he's too one-dimensional. I'm hoping that in the new year, we'll see Gavin explored a bit more and see him get back to his old, scheming, back-stabbing ways.

Another plotline that suffered from the circling the runway issue was the plotline with Holtz. I've been a big fan of Holtz since he first appeared earlier this year, however the last two episodes have left me a bit slack jawed in disbelief. As the demon guy pointed out, Holtz's plan should be one step--stake Angel and be done with it.

But yet, I was able to buy parts of what Holtz was trying to do. Indeed, I'm glad they decided to address just why Holtz showed mercy to Angel in the alleyway. It certainly made his actions at the end of the last episode seem a bit less lame. And seeing the argument with the demon about how to best kill Angel and the exact army that he wants behind him was interesting. And even seeing Holtz recruit one of his soldiers to help in his fight was interesting enough--though I sort of wondered if this character might not have been meant to be Faith, since she knew how to fight vampires fairly well. (And man oh man doesn't that idea open up a HUGE can of worms--Holtz recruits Faith to fight for him because he sees her as in need of redemption and she'd be a great asset to his army. Man, I wish Eliza Dushku had time to stop by Angel because I think that would just be fabulous. Put that wish on my list to the Big Guy at the North Pole...) I have a feeling that Holtz's story is more of one that is setting things up for the rest of the season and so, while I didn't always feel compelled to watch it, I am taking the wait and see attitude about it.

As for the Angel and his newborn son, there were some things there to like. I liked seeing how overprotective Angel was of his new son--to the point of not letting anyone else touch him. I also liked how Angel had this "sit-com" view of how kids would react to things--I've given you your bottle, changed your diaper and your warm and cuddled up--you must be happy, so why are you crying?!? I found his attempts to pacify his child to be quite amusing--especially the whole segment with "the bears not crying." However, I will admit that the idea that the child would be pacified by Angel's vampire face occurred to me long before he did it, so that wasn't any great revelation to me.

I did like the effect the baby had on the rest of the Angel Investigations team. I liked seeing Cordelia's reaction and her dressing down of Angel about asking for help taking care of his son. I also liked Gunn's sarcastic remarks about maybe Angel should fire them all and go it alone, since that worked out so well last time. Wesley's one liner about the baby being in room three 312 and then blowtorching the demons was a nice little touch to the story as was Lorne's discovering they were bugged and passing it along to Angel. However, I think these few isolated scenes only showed how much the real strength of Angel was missed in this episode. The entire first third of the season seemed to be about building family and spotlighting each of the characters in their own way. And I liked all of that. But now the show has become so end of the world prophecy, Angel centric that I find myself missing the episodes like "That Vision Thing" and "Billy" that really showed off what an ensemble piece Angel is and how that really is it's overall strength. Heck, I found myself wishing Lorne had more to do here--which is something that rarely happens for me.

As for the name of the baby, I like Conner. It's a nice name and I think it fits well. It might be interesting to see if we get some explanation of the meaning behind it, but overall I like it.

So, I guess that's about it for now, except a few small things...

--Did anyone else have the reaction when Angel was driving his car with one hand and holding the baby with the other that that was NOT the brightest move?!? I mean, I know the guy hasn't had time to go out and get a car seat, but when you're being bumped in the rear, holding the baby's head where it can easily hit the steering wheel when you jar forward doesn't seem like the best idea in the world. And based on what we found out later, I don't think jostling and jarring a bomb like that is too hot an idea either.

--Did the cemetery Holtz observed the girl look a lot like the Sunnydale cemetery from Buffy?

--So, will Angel and company move out of the hotel? And what steps will Wolfram and Hart take next know that Angel knows they're bugged?

--How long can the baby last on the show? I don't mean they'd kill him off, but I'm thinking along the lines of being like X-Files this year. It's hard to believe Scully can run off and spend odd hours on a case and still find someone to take care of her baby--something which could become an issue on Angel.

--Obviously Angel meant something significant when he made the head of special projects at Wolfram and Hart the godfather to the baby. However, I wonder what that will mean as the season continues to unfold...

--I liked the stroller scene at the end. A nice little take off on the scene in the credits with all of them marching down the hallway.

Well, that's about it for now. Overall, I wasn't thrilled, nor was I overly upset. As an hour of television "Dad" was just there--and after a season in which Angel has been so great and so on, that's sort of damning with faint praise.

My rating: 5.5 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Well, repeats until 2002 it looks like. I'd like to take this chance to wish everyone out there a blessed and happy Holiday season and a good new year for 2002.