Generation X (1996 TV Pilot)

 "No one's touching my butt!"

So this is a very, very obscure '90s TV pilot for a vaguely X-Men-themed series that never led to anything, mainly because the pilot is so awful. But it's fascinatingly awful.

I stopped reading Marvel comins around '93-94- I was sixteen, turning to other things, plus in hindsight I wasn't quite as enamouredwith how things were going, the shiny covers, gimmicks, endless first issues, the lack of respect shown to writers as opposed to big name artists who promptly sodded off to Image Comics anyway. But apparently this is based on a title from after my time, where a bunch of new mutants (no, not those ones) are taught at a secong, spin-off mansion by Banshee and Emma Frost, who is apparently a goodie now.

Apparently some of the characters are based on equivalents from the comics, although only those whose powers are easier to do on television. The only characters I know are Emma, Banshee and Jubilee... who, incidentally, is played by a white actress. Yeah.

What's frustrating here is that this is a concept that could have worked. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the format or characters. There's some nice world-building, with the Mutant Registration Act, the lack of civil rights for mutants, and the sheer injusticeof it all, although it's not entirely clear to me whether or not Emma's "Xavier school" is known and sort of tolerated by the authorities.

No, it's basically just a really bad script for this pilot that makes it fail. The baddie, Russell- played by Max Headroom himself- is not related to mutants at all but just wants to control people through their dreams. Oh, and dreams exist in a "dream dimension" which is a real, physical place. And mutants have a particular sensitivity to said dimension for reasons of plot convenience.

Matt Frewer chews the scenery with aplomb as Russell, and is the best thing in this, at least being entertaining. But the tone is all over the place, as is Banshee's accent. None of the other characters are remotely likeable. There's a scene where a whole board of directors have a simultaneous fart and... yeah, it says a lot that this is probably the best scene.

Still, bad though this is, it's fun to watch, in a car crash sort of way.

Angel: I Will Remember You

"They get groiny with one another- the world, as we know it, falls apart."

This is a brilliant episode. Brilliant. Intense, heartbreaking, and brilliantly acted. And yet… I'm not sure it should have been done. Yes, it was brilliant (there will be gushing shortly), but it ends with a great big reset button. It never happened, and is therefore robbed of its meaning. It would have been much better as a one-off piece of fanfic, and I don't mean to denigrate the episode in any way; the distinction between fanfic and "official" stuff, in these days of serialised television drama, has nothing to do with quality or anything like that, just the kind of stories that can be told. And this episode is exactly the sort of story that doesn't work as part of a bigger, serialised narrative. The reset button pretty much admits that.

Right. Now that's been said, let the gushing commence. Both Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz are amazing here, both of them really, really giving us the simmering sexual tension that threatens to boil over for so much of this episode. It's fantastic, if completely unreal, to see them both being so blissfully post-coital with each other, and these scenes are really, really well-shot, too, deliberately going for a dreamlike quality. There's delicious comedy, too; I love the gradual change from tea and awkwardness to shagging on the table. All this is good.

Also good is Angel's reaction to being alive (with reservations, which I'll come to), and the various sensual pleasures it brings, not just sex but food and, um, both sex and food together. This is also good. Cordelia's reaction to this joyous moment for Angel's life is good, too. Naturally, it's all about her and her rapidly diminished future prospects. Doyle is more optimistic; no doubt he has a bright future ahead of him.

Much as I dislike the use of the reset button, I have to admit that this is well-handled, too. It's a typically noble gesture of Angel (although also, and just as typically, a little narcissistic) to give up the prospect of happiness so that the End of Days is averted, mainly because this would also mean the End of Buffy. Aaaah. Even one of the Oracles is impressed.

The Oracles are cool, too- Greek, enigmatic, and a nice development of the infant show's mythology. We haven't heard much about the Powers That Be since City Of, but we're reminded of their importance to Angel's mission. They're also kept mysterious, though; the Oracles are a nice way of keeping the powers at arm's length so they can remain enigmatic. Of course, whether it's the Powers or their Oracle underlings, we're essentially looking at a great big metaphor for the godlike power of the Writer on this fictional world. Metatextuality can be such fun sometimes.

Reset button aside, there are a couple of little plot problems. Why does Angel being human mean the End of Days is coming? I don't think that's explained. And Angel seems rather more self-flagellating about being human than he did back in In the Dark. These things aside, though, I actually love this episode. It was brilliant. It was done well. But it's still an idea that probably shouldn't have been done at all.