Angel - Season 5

Angel's fifth and abruptly final season didn't have the great long, continuous story of the fourth, but in the end it just may have been the most entertaining of them all. The only one that got Whedon's full attention due to other projects taking precedence in the previous four years, it has more of a sense of fun and some really good stand-alone episodes, especially possibly my favorite in the entire run of this show and its parent Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Smile Time". The dynamic between Angel and Spike is one of the most interesting and funniest of any character relationship in the franchise, and they only really had a chance to explore it in one season of Buffy which wasn't quite enough, so reuniting them again really worked out.

It's not all fun and games though, as while the shows have always had the threat of an apocalypse looming at the end, this season focuses on THE apocalypse they've been preparing for the entire time, and there is a feel of doom and dread surrounding them. It's also not a very good season to be a supporting character, with a pretty high mortality rate resulting in some really good episodes and powerful, sad moments. The series ends with some events unresolved, though really it wasn't a terrible note to end the show on, and just like with Buffy the story is being officially continued in the medium of comic books. I'm not going to rush head on into them, but they're definitely on my radar for eventual consumption.