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In the last few years, I've become pretty relaxed with regard to shipping. At some point, I lost the urge to root for particular couples to get together, and I stopped connecting my enjoyment of television shows to two people realizing they were meant.to.be. This is probably a result of watching soaps for too many years, and investing in relationships only to see them completely screwed up and tossed aside by TPTB (*cough*JasonandCarly*cough*). If the soaps didn't entirely convince me of the futility of centering my viewing on shipping, then La Femme Nikita certainly did.

On the other hand, just because I am not a shipper, this doesn't mean I don't appreciate and enjoy a well-executed love story (e.g., John and Aeryn on Farscape). Relationships, romantic and otherwise, are the backbone of good television, and when they're left out (BtVS S7, anyone) it can make for boring TV.

Despite my lack of shippiness in recent years, there are three relationships in the MEverse that I got very excited about when I first saw them: Darla/Angel, Spike/Buffy, and Buffy/Angel. The difference between the three is that I only loved S/B and B/A for very restricted time periods, in S6 and S2 respectively, but during the following seasons completely lost interest in them as couples, and actually grew to dislike the ships pretty intensely. Now, it's a struggle for me to not let my resentment seep into earlier seasons. Darla and Angel, on the other hand, I adore through and through. I loved the ship when I first watched it, and my opinion didn't change in AtS S3.

When it comes down to it, I enjoy ships because of what they bring out in particular characters, rather than the actual ship per se. I wouldn't call myself a Spike/Harmony or Wes/Lilah shipper, but I really enjoyed both these relationships because they portrayed different facets of the characters, ones we hadn't seen a lot of yet. You read that correctly, I said that Sparmony showed new sides to both participants. I think Spike with Fred (or with Faith, Cordelia, Angel or Wesley) is potentially interesting, because these people would bring something out in Spike that his previous sexual/romantic relationships have not. Likewise, I don't have anything against seeing long-term relationships on-screen, because they don't automatically have to be boring. I thought Anya and Xander became one-dimensional only after Hell's Bells, and it was a mistake for ME to break them up.

Basically, I appreciate ships if they add some depth and/or new facets to the characters, and if they drive both character's stories forward. However, when the couple in question has done all they can for each other from a story-telling perspective (whether or not the reasons are meta), it's time, in my opinion, for the ship to be wrapped up. When the writers are reduced to playing does she/doesn't she fence sitting, as they did with B/S in season seven, the characters should be allowed to move on. They can learn to interact with each other in a new way, without the ship being teased out. For example, I really think it's too bad that ME didn't either let Spike fall out of love with Buffy (or at least let him fully, not debatably, have moved on by the end of the season; be in love with her but fully reconciled to not being with her) or Buffy simply tell Spike she couldn't give him what he needed and didn't foresee it happening, and take the story from there. Joss could have still had his flaming Spike and smiling Buffy in Chosen. The way I see it, the romantic, sexual ship wasn't the integral part of the Buffy/Spike story anymore; and yet, there it was all season, hanging over everyone but not, in itself, actually producing any clearly discernable character development or moving the two forward. Spike and Buffy could have had a platonic relationship, without any fade-to-black scenes and "not ready for you not to be here", that still led to a practically identical series finale. As a non-shipper, I wanted for there to be reasons for the continued ambiguity, but all I saw was the man behind the curtain. I commented a couple of times on the boards that ME's dragging out of the ship was part of their effort to get fans to give up on S/B. I was only half-joking. I also feel this way about B/A, a ship I truly loved in its time, and still enjoy to some extent in reruns. Angel walking off at the end of Graduation Day II has always been one of my favorite moments on the show. I thought it was romantic, satisfying, and an utterly fitting way to end the B/A story. At the same time, S3 has never been a favorite, even when it was originally showing, in part because the ship fence sitting really bogged down the season. While I enjoyed SMG's crossovers in AtS S1, it was in large part because her appearances seemed to be wrapping up their story. Basically, I wanted Angel to just get out there and get laid (and I applauded Buffy for getting out there too, even if I didn't particularly care for Riley). I didn't need the ship to be respected, or Angel's deep love of Buffy given its due diligence. Angel loves Buffy. He'll probably always love Buffy. I can acknowledge that and still enjoy his obsession with Darla or wish he'd get it on with Kate. I wanted to see this not because I have any interest in watching DB sex it up, but because it's fascinating to see what different aspects of Angel emerge in his different relationships, and particularly non-platonic ones.

Anyway, this is a very rambling way of getting to my original thought: I love Darla/Angel. I think it's the best ship in the Buffy/Angelverse. If I had an OTP this would be it. I've been trying to figure out why it works for me so well, even from a non-shipping perspective. First of all there is, of course, sexual chemistry. Julie Benz and David Boreanaz have it in spades. Then there's the fact that Tim Minear, master of the dark storyline, was in charge of S2, and everything about AtS was still fresh and characters (Cordy and Wes) were at their best.

What I also think is important, however, is that ME was always going somewhere with Angel/Darla. These two not only shared a fascinating and turbulent history, they had a reason for being drawn together and still being interested in each other. They had unfinished business that needed to be explored in a non-platonic relationship. They brought out aspects of each other's personalities that no one else possibly could. And then ME ended it, still leaving the audience wanting more, rather than breathing a sigh of relief that it was over. In short, they respected both characters, but they didn't respect the ship. By that I mean that the ship never became a separate entity, a character in its own right to which Angel and Darla's characters were, to put it somewhat dramatically, held hostage. Rather, it was something to drive Angel's (and to a lesser extent) Darla's stories forward, to show us something about them that we didn't know previously.

I thoroughly enjoyed S6 Spike/Buffy and S2 Buffy/Angel, but I definitely didn't like the respective relationships in S7 or S3. When I try to figure out why, I think it comes down to this issue of respecting the ship at the expense of character development. Initially, Buffy and Angel went through tremendous character development through their initial relationship; when they got back together the following season, however, any changes they went through seemed to be outside of, rather than because of, their relationship. Similarly, in S6 there was a reason for Spike and Buffy to be together; the tension between them produced reactions and outcomes that were very specific, and that wouldn't have occurred in other relationships. The two changed in very interesting ways over the course of the season, and it was in large part because of the ship. In S7, however, the tension was gone, and the character developments that ensued could arguably have been accomplished without the ship, or even through interactions with others. Yes, Buffy and Spike rebuilt a friendship of sorts over the course of S7, and they forgave each other for their actions in S6. Yet, in Chosen they were arguably in a similar emotional place as the beginning of S6: Spike loved Buffy, appeared reconciled to not being with her, and Buffy had nebulous feelings for Spike that might or might not have been love, depending on who you asked. I'm not a proponent of this viewpoint (I think Spike was moving away from Buffy all through S7 and had completed the process by Chosen). However, it can be plausibly argued that in some ways, particularly on Buffy's end, these two seemed to have looped back, rather than moved forward. Maybe this is true to life, but from a storytelling perspective it's detrimental to individual character development, and, in my opinion, makes for rather uninspiring television.

I didn't see story reasons for flirting with re-Bangel and re-Spuffy; in my mind, their being together was more a case of respecting the ship and marking time. In short, in Season 2 and Season 6 of BtVS (despite its flaws) the characters were serviced by the ships; in S3 and S7 they were held back by them and the development of all three, and Buffy in particular, suffered. It's possible to have strong character development within an interesting, dynamic ship. S7 Spuffy and S3 Bangel, however, were not examples of this. In both cases, their romantic and erotic stories had concluded but the characters were nevertheless kept relatively static, vis-‡-vis their feelings for each other, in an effort to accommodate a ship that wasn't going anywhere.

So one reason I love Angel/Darla so much? ME knew when to end their story.

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