Smile Time
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Smile Time” | |
|---|---|
| Angel episode | |
 |
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| Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 14 |
| Guest stars | Mercedes McNab (Harmony) Jonathan M. Woodward (Knox) Jenny Mollen (Nina) Marc Vann (Doctor Sparrow) |
| Written by | Ben Edlund (teleplay) Joss Whedon (story) Ben Edlund (story) |
| Directed by | Ben Edlund |
| Production no. | 5ADH14 |
| Original airdate | February 18, 2004 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Why We Fight" | "A Hole in the World" |
| List of Angel episodes | |
"Smile Time" is episode 14 of season 5 in the television show Angel. See List of Angel episodes for a complete list.
Contents |
[edit] Plot synopsis
[edit] Summary
When a popular children's show begins to steal the life forces of children by hypnotizing them, Angel goes directly to the studio to uncover the evil doings. Upon entering the building, Angel triggers a spell that transforms him into a puppet. In a race against time, puppet-Angel and company must find a way to reverse the spell, save the lives of hundreds of children and return Angel to his normal vampire state.
Meanwhile, Nina, the werewolf Angel befriended, returns to declare her romantic intentions, but puppet-Angel is too embarrassed to reciprocate.
Also, Gunn discovers his given knowledge of the law leaving his mind while Fred draws more away from her co-worker Knox and to Wesley.
[edit] Expanded overview
A little boy watches a TV show called Smile Time, which includes puppets singing songs about learning. While the boy’s mother tries to get her mother to come over and take care of him, one of the puppets, Polo, separates from the others and talks directly to the boy, making him put his hands on the TV. When the boy’s mother gets off the phone, she’s horrified to see that the life has been drained out of the boy and his face is frozen in a weird smile. In the science lab at Wolfram & Hart, Knox brings Fred files on 11 children in L.A. who have been hospitalized in the same condition as the little boy. Knox also gives Fred a valentine (despite the fact that the holiday was a week earlier) and tries to get her to discuss their potential relationship again. She gently declines his advances. Up in the lobby, Nina arrives to spend the three nights of the full moon in the firm. She encounters Angel and they chat a little before Angel takes her to her cell. Gunn asks Harmony for a receipt from a filing, but she tells him that he filed the wrong papers. Gunn tries to hide how worried he is about his mistake. In the basement, Nina flirts a little with Angel and asks him what he’s doing for breakfast the next morning. Uncomfortable, Angel leaves. He heads up to Wesley’s office and relays the fact that Nina asked him to breakfast, not sure how he feels about their platonic friendship turning into something else. Wesley tells him that Nina has been sending him signals, and Angel is apparently the only person in the entire firm who hasn’t noticed them.
Angel says that he can’t pursue a relationship because he’ll achieve happiness and turn back into Angelus, but Wesley says that he can’t hide behind the gypsy curse when he has a chance to be (somewhat) happy. Angel wonders if Wesley’s only talking about Angel and not himself. Fred arrives and fills the guys in on the bizarre case involving the kids. Angel notes that all of the kids were watching TV when they became ill, and he and Fred wonder if that might be important. After Angel leaves, Fred tries to give Wesley some signals but he overlooks them as blindly as Angel overlooked Nina’s signals. In Angel’s office, Lorne tells Angel that “Nina definitely wants a piece of Angel cake,” then tries to help him with the case. He notes that Smile Time is on at the time when the kids were watching TV. Angel heads to Smile Time’s studio, ignoring signs about the set being closed and passing a janitor who doesn’t seem to notice him. He follows a rumbling noise through a hidden passage and, ignoring a “don’t” sign, enters a hidden room. In the room, a man with a towel over his head sits under a large egg-shaped thing in the wall. The man warns that Angel shouldn’t be there as the rumbling sound gets louder. The egg starts to open, forming a glowing smile. Something shoots out of the smile and throws Angel across the room and into some boxes. After the egg closes, Angel pulls himself out of the boxes... only now he’s a puppet.
Fred gets a call from Puppet Angel, and though she tries to tell him that the epidemic might not be mystical after all, he assures her that it is. Later, she heads to his office with Wesley and Gunn, and they get their first glimpse of Angel as a puppet. Fred calls Puppet Angel cute and he tells her she’s fired. Lorne arrives and Puppet Angel tries to piece together what happened. Lorne suggests that he has puppet cancer, but Puppet Angel doesn’t think so. He starts to tell the others how serious this situation is, then suddenly realizes that Smile Time is on. He fumbles with the remote, then turns on the TV to watch Polo mope about his “case of the grumpies.” Fred gets someone in the lab to start recording the show so she can analyze it. As the puppets sing about self-esteem, Puppet Angel asks for a special ops team, declaring war on the puppets. Lorne tells him that they can’t, then lets him know that Smile Time was created by Gregor Framkin, who started out with a small group of puppets and turned his show into a gold mine. Puppet Angel sends him and Gunn over to the studio to talk to Framkin, then tells Wesley and Fred to try to figure out what Framkin did to him and the kids. He also asks everyone to keep quiet about his condition for a little while. Not too long after, Nina arrives and Puppet Angel ducks under his desk so she won’t see him. She tries to ask him if everything’s okay, but he kicks her out.
Spike arrives, wanting a new car since he drove his last one into some body of water, and is shocked (and amused) to see that Angel’s a puppet. Puppet Angel tries to get him to leave, but Spike remains fixated on Angel being “a wee little puppet man.” The two fight, winding up in the hallway, where Harmony and a bunch of other employees see Puppet Angel. Puppet Angel and Spike take their fight into an elevator, where Puppet Angel appears to win the unseen fight. Gunn and Lorne arrive at the studio and meet with Framkin (played by David Fury), who’s fixing a puppet. Framkin has heard of Wolfram & Hart and sings the guys a song about courage and pluck, since he thinks Wolfram & Hart has demonstrated both. Gunn tries to tell him what he’s violated, but can’t come up with the number of the right statute. Framkin thinks that if they go to court, he stands a better chance of winning than the firm does. After Gunn and Lorne leave, we see that Framkin has a hole in his back and was being controlled by Polo. After he makes Framkin collapse, Polo summons the other puppets (including Groofus the dog, a girl without a name [dubbed "Flora" in the Season 5 DVD extras], and a tooting purple guy named Ratio Hornblower). They decide that Angel broke into the “don’t” room and messed with the “nest egg.” Polo is angry about this, and the girl suggests that they remove the zombifying spell on some of the employees so that they can see future intruders. Polo announces that since their “system” has now been perfected, they’ll go on air the next day and drain the life from all of their viewers at once, instead of one kid at a time. The puppets are excited about making enough money to build their own Hell. Framkin begs the puppets to kill him, but they’d rather mess around with him some more.
Back at Wolfram & Hart, Nina is about to prepare for her second wolfie night when Puppet Angel pays her a visit to apologize for the way he treated her earlier. She’s shocked to see that he’s a puppet and he notes, “I’m made of felt. And my nose comes off.” She tells him that he shouldn’t care what people think of him, since he’s a hero. As he tries to tell her that he’s working on dealing with people, Nina wolfs out and attacks him from her cage. Upstairs, Lorne comes across a tattered Puppet Angel and yells for a doctor or Geppetto. Gunn heads to the medical wing to see Dr. Sparrow, explaining that he’s losing all of his law knowledge. Sparrow examines him and tells him that the implant is failing; the Senior Partners gave it to him in the first place because they wanted him to have it, and if it’s fading, they must have wanted that as well. Gunn says that he doesn’t want to go back to the person he was, so Sparrow makes a deal with him - he’ll give him a “permanent upgrade” if Gunn signs something out of customs for him. In the science lab, Fred and Wesley watch Smile Time, noting that they like it, though that may be because they haven’t gotten much sleep and it’s 4 a.m. Knox brings Fred coffee and starts to argue a little with Wesley, so Fred tells Knox to go home. Knox isn’t thrilled to leave Fred and Wesley alone, watching the puppets and sharing coffee. Wesley asks about Fred and Knox, and she tells him that they’re not right for each other.
Wesley notices something strange on the TV and, after muting the sound, notes that Polo is separated from the other puppets and seems to be talking to the audience. He and Fred realize that the song the puppets are singing acts as a cloaking device so that Framkin can use Polo to address the audience. Puppet Angel is trying to sew himself up in his office when Wesley and Fred arrive to tell him what they’ve found out. They add that Framkin seems ready to take out the entire audience with the next broadcast. Wesley says that the “nest egg” must hold the life forces of the kids, so if they can break the magic on it, they’ll save the kids and turn Puppet Angel human again. Puppet Angel is incredibly happy to hear this and tells them that they have to move quickly, since Framkin probably knows they’re coming. Gunn, who’s regained his law knowledge, arrives and announces that the puppets are actually running the show now - after some low ratings, Framkin made a deal with some devils to make it hot again. (Apparently the same thing happened to Happy Days). Puppet Angel grabs a sword and leads the march down the hall to go take out some puppets (done in the Angel slow-motion gang power style... before panning down to Angel puppet). Elsewhere in L.A., a little girl watches Smile Time and gets the message from Polo that all of the kids in the audience should put their hands on the TV. Puppet Angel and the gang interrupt and prepare to take out all of the evil puppets.
The fighting begins and Polo sends Ratio to guard the nest egg. Fred and Wesley rush to the “don’t” room, where Ratio fights Wesley and Fred has to take over breaking the spell on the nest egg. Gunn struggles with his puppet foes and Fred keeps working on the nest egg, trying to help Wesley at the same time. “I’m gonna tear you a new puppet hole, bitch!” Polo shouts at Puppet Angel, who vamps out and kills him. Wesley defeats Ratio, Gunn defeats Flora, and Fred makes the nest egg explode, saving all the kids. The next day, Nina wakes up her in cage with fabric around her and fears that she ate Puppet Angel. He shows up and tells her that he’s okay and will be back to normal in a few days. They agree to have breakfast together. Fred goes to Wesley’s office, where they congratulate each other on what they did. Fred tries to subtly tell Wesley that she’s been trying to send him signals, but she decides to just grab him and kiss him. He happily returns the favor as we hear the puppets singing their self-esteem song again.
[edit] Quotes and trivia
Lorne: (On seeing that Angel has become a puppet) Maybe you have Puppet-Cancer?
Angel: I do not have puppet cancer!
Spike: (laughing) You're a bloody puppet!
Angel (as a puppet): (jumps across his desk at Spike, knocking him through the door into the hall)
- Reference to the popular book Flowers For Algernon (1966).
- There is a parallel between this episode and Buffy's episode "Entropy": here Wesley and Fred finally begin a love relation, and in the next episode "A Hole in the World" Fred dies; there Willow and Tara start again their love relation and in the next episode "Seeing Red" Tara is killed. So, the characters played by Alexis Denisof and Alyson Hannigan (who are husband and wife in real life - and were fresh spouses when "Smile Time" was shot) get "widowed" in the same identical way.
[edit] Production details
[edit] Music
- "Smiletime Theme"
- "Courage and Pluck"" - Song is referred to, but only the first few lines are heard (sung by David Fury)
- "Self Esteem""
- Douglas Romayne Stevens - "Puppet Fight"
[edit] Continuity
[edit] Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Location, time (if known) |
Buffyverse: Spring 2003 – 2004 (non-canon = italic) |
|---|---|
| Sunnydale, Cleveland, Italy, Summer 2003-2004 | Buffy book: Queen of the Slayers (unofficial continuity) |
| 2003-2004 | Buffy book: Dark Congress |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.01 Conviction |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.02 Just Rewards |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.03 Unleashed |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.04 Hell Bound |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.05 Life of the Party |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.06 The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.07 Lineage |
| Europe, 2003 | Tales of the Vampires: Antique |
| L.A., 2003 | Angel comic: Spike vs Dracula #5 |
| L.A., 2003 | Angel comic: Wesley: Spotlight |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.08 Destiny |
| L.A., 2003 | A5.09 Harm's Way |
| L.A., 2003 | Angel comic: Spike: Old Wounds |
| L.A., 2003/4 | A5.10 Soul Purpose |
| L.A., 2003/4 | A5.11 Damage |
| L.A., 2003/4 | Angel comic: Spike: Lost and Found |
| L.A., 2003/4 | Angel comic: Gunn: Spotlight |
| L.A., 2003/4 | A5.12 You're Welcome |
| L.A., 2003/4 | A5.13 Why We Fight |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.14 Smile Time |
| Shortly before Shadow Puppets | Spike: Asylum |
| L.A., 2004 | Angel comic: Spike: Shadow Puppets |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.15 A Hole in the World |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.16 Shells |
| L.A., 2004 | Angel comic: Illyria: Spotlight |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.17 Underneath |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.18 Origin |
| 2004 | Connor Spotlight |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.19 Time Bomb |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.20 The Girl in Question |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.21 Power Play |
| L.A., 2004 | A5.22 Not Fade Away |
| Romania, 2004 | Angel graphic novel: The Curse |
| L.A., 2004 | Angel graphic novel: Old Friends |
| L.A., 2004 | Angel graphic novel: Auld Lang Syne |
