I honestly don't get it.
The first time round, as a sprightly 20 something, I never got the depth of feeling of the whole Angel Buffy relationship thing. Actually, I stopped watching Buffy after the first season due to major life events.
Also, nothing about this show twigged enough to pick it up, despite pretty much everyone I know being a major fan.
And as a fan of the whole genre of Vampires, gothic and the undead, that was pretty odd.
In 2010 or thereabouts, I watched the whole show, all 7 seasons, and while I loved the show and Joss's vision, still the relationship between Buffy and Angel didn't resonate.
Here, at the age of 50 I decide to watch the show again, once more with feeling, and ... Waterworks...
Perhaps it's the foreknowledge of what's to come, perhaps it's personal experience of loss and pain... Who knows. But finally, I see what all the Bangel Slash Fiction was about.
These two had serious chemistry on screen.
And conversely, I wonder why I was so immune to it ...