Amazon is good to me; my Angel season 2 DVDs arrived today. I immediately did an inspection of the packaging, since both the Angel and Buffy sets always have quotes from the episodes, and it’s fun to see which ones the marketing people picked.
I hate the outside of this set. I saw it months ago as an insert in the season 1 set, but I was really hoping they’d change it. The photo on the front used to have all four main cast members from this season, but they’ve cropped out Wes and Gunn to give us this guy/girl thing with Angel and Cordelia. The shift seems to have been done to make room for a menacing Angel-vamp face that’s superimposed on the LA sky. Only, it looks dumb, as most vamp-faces do. On top of that, they’ve changed the color of Cordelia’s shirt (?!) and they seem to have digitally enhanced her chest, which really didn’t need the help. The real photo is just inside, when you slide the flip-case out of the sleeve. The whole effect is beyond weird.
The inside of the packaging is beautifully done. Instead of sprinkling the quotes on top of the photos, they’ve given the cast members full panels all to themselves, except for one Angel quote off by itself that kind of sets the tone. The rest of the quotes are on the discs themselves. They’re hilarious; someone did an excellent job of picking out dialogue that sets up both the dramatic tension of the season (Angel vs. his friends) as well as the humor (Angel does karaoke). The background for this is great – LA skylines (buildings and palm trees) washed out in dark blues, with dark clouds overhead – kind of a beach-noir effect. I like the faces on each disc that the Buffy sets have always had, but honestly I think I like this even better.
Any one of the inside panels would have been a fabulous cover for the whole set, but particularly the whole cast photo that got altered. Clearly someone decided that an unrealisticly busty chick and some fangs would sell more DVDs than a decent shot of the cast in a cool setting. They’re probably right. And that, ladies and gents, is why I hate marketing.
