I’m not sure how to describe Time Bomb. The only phrase that comes to mind is “spectacular failure”.
It’s a failure for a number of reasons. The time travel issues are nothing we haven’t seen before (especially in Star Trek), and to be perfectly honest, it’s been done better elsewhere. Secondly, the entire plot was about nothing more than moving Illyria into the position of becoming part of the team — and, perhaps subconsciously, it was a reflection of the corner that ANGEL’s writing team have been backed into. They created this incredibly powerful character —unfortunately, she can pretty much demolish everything and save the day…or blow up the world. They needed to resolve this problem, and part of my dissatisfaction with the episode is that it was too obvious what they were doing.
Finally, as a metaphor about teamwork, the episode was all over the place. And David Boreanez was at the heart of this inconsistency — he doesn’t hit a consistent note as Angel anywhere in the episode. He goes from brooding to furious to panic-stricken to calm & steely from moment to moment, and it’s terribly vexing, because it doesn’t serve the story well at all. At the very end, I was just as confused and surprised as Gunn as to Angel’s attitude. Not a good mix. By the way, did I mention that Adam Baldwin’s Hamilton only appears to offer cryptic clues and fulfill required screen time?
That said, this episode seemed to be more concerned with set pieces, and in that sense, they were stunning. Lorne’s taking the mickey out of the long-running joke about Angel’s inability to use cell phones was sweet. The teaser alone, with Illyria rescuing Gunn from hell (resulting in both exciting and hilarious consequences) was brilliant, and a sly commentary on the problems of having a god-queen as a main character. Illyria killing the team was another shocker (in fact, it’s the first time EVER that we see Spike or Angel being staked/decapitated, Buffy-style), and at long last, Wesley starts to crack under the strain of his relationship with Illyria.
In fact, this whole episode is an ode to Illyria and her triumph of style. It’s a sumptuous visual feast, and Amy Acker is doing such a brilliant job that I don’t even think of her as Fred anymore. But there was little substance to back it all up — something I’m confident will return with next week’s interesting episode…
