Review: Angel S5E14, "Smile Time"

Things I knew about Angel prior to watching this episode, my first:

• It’s a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Angel is played by David Boreanaz
• David Boreanaz would later be in Bones, but I think his co-star plays the titular Bones, so he loses being on a show named after his character. The ups and downs of Hollywood!
• I think Angel is…. A vampire? But he’s not a bad guy, or used to be a bad guy and now he’s is friendly with Buffy in some capacity?
• That’s pretty much it.

Angel ran for five seasons, so what I watched was pretty close to the end and a lot of the specifics were incomprehensible. In this episode, there’s a children’s TV show called “Smile Time” that is possessing/killing children — when the parent leaves the room, the puppets on the show directly address the kid by name, get them to touch the TV, and drains the life out of them and leaves them grinning from ear to ear, but in a coma. It happens to a kid named Tommy in the cold open, and it was unsettling!

The credits on Angel are quite a lot to handle — it’s mostly Angel walking around in tunnels and, like, assembling his team, all set to a very stirring string-filled theme song. I wasn’t clued in that this is kind of a workplace drama, but it is, and they work at a law enforcement agency for magic. One of Angel’s co-workers, I think, recently became a werewolf, so he’s checking her into a jail cell for werewolves because it’s almost a full moon. She has a crush on Angel, and he’s not receptive. She’s cute and he should date her, but he can’t because if he gets too happy he turns into “Angelis,” thanks to a curse (Kurt explained that Angel is a vampire who was cursed by a gypsy to have a conscience, and now he regrets all the vampiring he did before developing said conscience). His British friend thinks he should go for it and date this werewolf lady anyway.

There’s not too much time for romance, because Angel needs to solve the case of the killer TV show. One of his co-workers who he discusses strategy with is green, with red eyes and horns. I do not know if that’s germane to the plot. Pretty quickly Angel realizes that Smile Time might be the source of the kids getting into creepy comas, and makes his way to the set, where it’s immediately... pretty creepy. Points for staying on brand. While exploring the set, Angel continues to explore after coming across several things (a catatonic janitor, a scary hole in the wall) that would have turned me right around. Past the hole in the wall, he finds a big man with a towel on his head (never explained) sitting in front of a big obelisk. Then the obelisk thing opens up, blasts angel with some light, and when he gets up he’s a fucking puppet! It’s a puppet episode! Did not see that coming!

From there, the episode becomes a sort of fish out of water story about David Boreanaz' life as a puppet, and it’s incredible. Amazing work all around. He’s “more exciteable” now, “proportionate to a puppet of your size,” which means he gets mad at things like not being able to use a TV remote because he has soft, stubby puppet fingers. Just a delight. There are other puppets who are the stars of Smile Time, but they’re evil, drink whiskey, and are planning on draining the lifeforce of every child watching their next episode. The idea, if I have it correct, is they want to do this to children because children have innocence, and innocence is something like a very expensive street drug in hell, where they are from.

The showdown is a big puppet fight, which is as good as it sounds. They save the children, Angel is going to turn into a human again, but first he goes on a date with the werewolf. Two of the other co-workers hook up too, which is nice. Five stars, easily.

Episode recommended by Kurt Melby; email me more episode review suggestions at brendan.klinkenberg@gmail.com.