Rating: 
Summary: Long overdue!
Review: Angel and its parent series (Buffy: The Vampire Slayer) have got to be the finest hours of television ever produced. The beginning of the season is mostly an introduction to the Angel universe with several crossovers from Buffy (as expected) however the series kicks off half way through and ends with a fantastic cliffhanger!My only complaint is why it took so long to be released in the US. Its already on season 2 (DVD) and season 3 (VHS) in Europe.
Rating:
Summary: Better Than Buffy...well not yet, but solid start!
Review: The first season of Angel was an odd one to say the least. Not gonna give away major plot points, but the performances of even possible bit part roles (Lindsay, Lilah, Holland Manners, and Gunn) all turn out to be important to the future of the show. Doyle was a solid character, but alas parted ways(with several impacts on the show's future) to make room for Wesley. And no matter how many times Denisof says "Wesley Wyndam Price...rogue demon hunter." it is still friggen hilarious. My favorite episode was probably "The Ring" which introduced Stephanie Romanov's character Lilah to the scene. Its hard not to get emotional during "Hero's" ending scenes, especially with the recent passing of Glenn Quinn. And "To Shanshu in LA" was a great ender to a up and down first season. Not to say any episodes were terribly weak, but some just better than others.
Rating: 
Summary: even at its worst, Angel is worth watching
Review: Season 1 of Angel is (as others have said) uneven and sometimes silly, but by the end of the season, it had found its balance. Even "She," by far the worst episode of the season, is worth watching for the hilarious party at Cordelia's apartment. In Joss we trust; somehow he's managed to turn Buffy's weakest sidekicks into smart, compelling characters. Still, from Wesley's amusing entrance in "Parting Gifts," you'd never imagine that by season 3 he'd be the most tormented and most interesting character on the show.
Rating:
Summary: BUFFY WHO?
Review: Angel is far superior to Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Buffy has gone down hill since its move to the UPN network while the WB retains the spin off ANGEL. If you had to lose one of the shows then WB lost the right one. Angel just gets better and better each season!
Rating:
Summary: A good (if shaky) start
Review: I was not the biggest fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer character Angel when he was on Buffy, and I will admit that the only reason I originally watched Angel, the spin-off series, was because it came on right after BtVS. The show's dependence upon its parent series definitely shows in the first season. It took Joss & Co. some time to develop its tone and characters, but the first season does have some great work. David Boreanaz finally breaks free of the flatter, supporting part on BtVS and gets to explore a few more of his acting abilities, including his little seen comedic talents. (There's a fantasy sequence of Angel dancing in "She" that cracks me up EVERY time.) Season 1 also features the late Glenn Quinn, who shines brightly, albeit briefly, as Francis Allen Doyle, the man who gives Angel access to "the good fight". Most of all, the first season is worth checking out because, without it, you'll never understand what's going on later, and later is DEFINITELY worth checking out. As for the DVDs, they are not feature-tastic, but they don't exactly ...There could be more commentaries for my personal taste, but the commentary by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt on the first episode, "City Of", is fricking hilarious and SO great to hear. It's sad that these discs went to print too late to honor Glenn Quinn (who died in December 2002). Much like the season itself, the DVDs aren't fantastic, but they're still worth the time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Angel is the best
Review: when i first saw him in buffy i knew that he was good and when he was "evil" he proved that he could hold all kinds of roles. I watch angel some of the time, and am a huge fan of buffy. Watch this and see the amazing talent. Plus Coldilia is in it and she funny. you can see how she and angle interact together in "halloween" secound season episode 6. They are great together.
Rating:
Summary: Underrated
Review: The first season of Angel is often dismissed as its weakest. I feel that it is one of the strongest because it sticks to the mission statement of the first episode. At the conclusion of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and Angel had broken up and by the beginning of the next season, Angel had found himself in Los Angeles in a quest for anonimoty and vigilantism. In "City of..." we meet Doyle and are re-introduced to Cordelia who will form the demon fighting team of the the first 9 episodes.
The episodes of the first season were largely stand-alone (did not require reviewing previous episodes to get caught up on expansive backstory) and involved Angel and his team solving the problems of individual people or groups from episode to episode. These episodes are emblematic of how Angel is a hero of Los Angeles that helps everyone. It mattered that Angel moved to Los Angeles, because, Los Angeles worked as a place where Angel could be faceless in a town where so many people wanted their faces to be famous. All the victims in the first season had a face and highly defined personalities and their problems would correlate to a character development among the cast. The characters would see a reflection of themselves in their clients (for novices, the characters form a detective agency that would work case by case for a fee to help people).
Though one would be hard-pressed to find me deriding Angel at all (it is an awesome show), the recent trend has established a story-arc mode where a chain of events throughout the season guides the storyline from episode to episode where the significance of these events pertains specifically to the main characters. In effect, the characters become isolated from the rest of L.A. This works on Buffy since Sunnydale is recognized as a small town and the stories therein should hit close to home for the characters, but since the venue for Angel is so vast the characters become fish-bowled with their isolating stories.
The first season is also significant because it establishes the ironic theme of Angel in the City of Angels where no one, not even Angel himself is free of guilt. As Doyle posits in "City of...", "...it's not just saving lives, its saving souls. Possibly your own." and "...there's a lot people in this city that need saving...you game?"
Some of the exemplary episodes of season one are "City of...", "I Will Remember You", "Hero", "Expecting", "Five by Five", "Sanctuary", "The Prodigal", "Somnambulist", and "To Shanshu in L.A.".
Rating:
Summary: Angel's first season ... with Doyle
Review: Although this DVD set has been available in the U.K. for some time, it will become available for the first time in the U.S. in February. Fans who began watching the "Angel" series after the midpoint of the first season will finally have the opportunity to discover what the Doyle fuss was all about, and those who knew and loved the Doyle character will finally get to see him again on something better than a fuzzy homemade tape. Another reviewer mentioned "fan indifference" toward Doyle. That's ironic indeed. Doyle was one of the most beloved characters in the Whedonverse, and fan support for Doyle and Glenn Quinn continued to be strong throughout the three years between the death of the character and the death of the actor. During the first nine episodes, the camera often lingered in loving close-up on Glenn Quinn. The viewers discovered more about Doyle each episode, seeing his apartment, his enemies, his ex-wife and glimpses of his past. Just when the fans were falling in love with Doyle (and Glenn Quinn), the decision was made to change the structure of the show, and Doyle was sacrificed. The character had the potential to become another Spock, and the series was never the same after Doyle was gone. Now that Glenn Quinn himself has died, watching these episodes again - particularly "Hero" - will be especially poignant.
Rating:
Summary: Okay...I liked Angel's first season...
Review: Lots of folks have written about the first season being weak or uneven or whatever...but I liked it, pretty much every episode. Didn't much care for "I Fall to Pieces," but otherwise, I was happy with the first year of this "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spinoff. Granted, the show has gotten better with each new season, but the freshman year ain't nothin' to sneeze at.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: Angel the series has gotten better every year. In fact, the spinoff has surpassed it's "sire", believe it or not. It's grown so much, that it doesn't even need to be associated with Buffy anymore, although most people would rather the shows to be close-knit. The group chemistry is phenomenal, and one can relate with Angel, despite the fact that he's a bloodsucking vampire, who's basically neutered. It's the tale of the original vamp with a soul in the Whedonverse. "Angel" is more than just another vampire story. That's just the setting. The people are the story. Two thumbs up to the world of Joss Whedon.
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