Reasons Why Erin Loves the Whedonverse #15

Reasons Why Erin Loves the Whedonverse: Dances of Pylea

For humans, the hell dimension of Pylea is not a great place to be. At best you are worked to death as livestock, unless you have visions, then you are well-fed livestock puppets of the ruling religious leaders. For the other residents, however, it's just there home and place to live. Not necessarily a great place, but a place nonetheless. There's no music, but there is dancing. As long as you are not human and like a world of moral absolutes, Pylea isn't so bad. In other words, Angel loved it, at least until he realized that he'd involuntarily turn into a full-fledged vampire demon thing.

I mean, Lorne's cousin seems to enjoy adventuring in a world of clear cut morality. And his brother Numfar (the Mose Schrute of the Deathwok clan)* seems to enjoy his life as the family's dancing fool. Had Lorne not developed the ability to sing and appreciate music, he probably would have been content with the simple life of Pylea. Of course, that isn't how it went, so it was fortunate for him he got sent to our dimension, where cocktails and music are plentiful.

The visit to Pylea for the Angel gang was important for many reasons. It introduced Winifred "Fred" Burkle, the Groosalugg, and fleshed out Lorne's backstory a bit. In addition, it conveyed the idea that demons weren't necessarily actively evil. It had been hinted before on Buffy and Angel, but would become far more prevalent as time went on.

Still, as important that series of episodes were, they are still favorites of mine because they are pretty damn funny. And of course, the funniest part of those episodes were the dances. So dance on, Numfar, do the dance of Honored Thanks for our accolades, as I will join in with the Dance of Joviality.

ALSO: Check out Erin's "bonus" reason, #15.5: Dr. Horrible/Loki.

*Interestingly, Numfar was played by Joss Whedon, while Mose is played by Michael Schur. I like how these two favorite show creators/writers of mine played small, yet hilarious, bit parts on their shows.