Season one has a lot going for it. It ends on a really big cliffhanger, it introduces something which can drive Angel’s ongoing adventures, and the show develops and sympathizes a character just so they can kill him in the ninth episode. Many people think that Glenn Quinn was canned, but Joss Whedon was clear from the beginning that the character was going to be killed heroically shortly; it was something he wanted to do with Jesse in Buffy the Vampire Slayer but didn’t get a chance to accomplish.

The show was much less serialized than in later years, but you could still see the reverberating consequences of stories. The most interesting aspect of the season is the growth of Angel. As Wesley said, it’s our desires that define our humanity and, while there was a tacit understanding of why Angel fought the good fight, the Shanshu prophecy gave Angel something to desire; something to make him human. Angel moves from that view as his story continues, he begins to fight the good fight because it should be fought, not because of some base self benefit. Angel is always seeking redemption, but somewhere along the way he realizes that redemption isn’t a destination, it’s an ongoing process.

Already in the first season, you can see how the stories told on Angel will be much darker and ambiguous as to who is evil and what is moral. And neither the questions nor the answers get easier as the show progresses.

As the episodes overlap I’m beginning to see why having a joint Buffy/Angel marathon has its flaws. When it comes to multi-part storylines, there’s that annoying gap between stories. That is most noticed when there’s a heavy cliffhanger, which I haven’t run into yet, but even with simple two parters it feels weird to take a break between halves to see a completely unrelated stories. But with the interleaved episodes you get to experience those great crossover episodes like when Buffy goes to LA and in the next Buffy episode she comes back frazzled.

I think that to properly handle this kind of stuff out you have two options: you can either have a Buffy marathon where you watch the Angel episodes that directly crossover with Buffy episodes or, if you really need to see all of Buffy and Angel, you should go through a detailed analysis of where Buffy and Angel episodes overlap and schedule accordingly. My best idea so far is to interleave Buffy and Angel episodes unless there is a multi-part story. So if there is a two parter in Sunnydale then you watch them directly after one another and then follow it up with two Angel episodes. This way, each series goes steadily forward but the ratcheted tension of multi-episode stories doesn’t get broken up by intervening series episodes.

There are some problems with that but it’s probably the best way to do it when dealing with a multiple TV shows. Of course, how many shows have interconnected shows running at the same time. I mean, you could have a Frasier Crane marathon, but that would entail watching all of Cheers and then all of Frasier; neither show aired at the same time. I’d wager that no other shows have this kind of problem — with the possible exception of the Star Trek shows, but they have completely separate storylines so you could easily watch them independent of each other — so this may be the last time I have to really think about this kind of problem.