Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Complete 1st Season (DVD)
Special Edition,Old Version
APPROX. 600 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1997 - MPA RATING: NR
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I, Robot...You, Jane"--Willow begins receiving romantic overtures from someone she met on the Internet. Who is this online Don Juan? We also meet Giles´s first love interest, the fascinating Jenny Calendar.
Disc Three: "The Puppet Show"--Something has been killing high school students for their organs. That creepy ventriloquist´s dummy sure looks suspicious!
"Nightmares"--For some reason, everyone´s nightmares are becoming real...
"Out of Mind, Out of Sight"--A girl who was totally ignored has become invisible...and she´s out to get the girl who no one ignores--Cordelia!
"Prophecy Girl"--Buffy must fight The Master. Her friends rally to her side, but how exactly will they save Sunnydale from The Apocalypse?
Video:
"Buffy" arrives on DVD with a 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) video transfer. The show was originally shot on inexpensive 16mm film before the show´s makers convinced Fox to pony up the cash for 35mm film. The video quality on these DVDs varies wildly. Though many scenes often seem excessively grainy and unnaturally dark, there are also moments when the onscreen action looks clear and clean enough to be happening right in front of your eyes in real life. The prints themselves do not exhibit any physical damage or compression problems, so the grain and lighting problems were all created during the initial filming of the series.
Audio:
"Buffy" arrives on DVD with Dolby Digital 2.0 surround English and DD 2.0 surround French audio tracks. The DVDs´ audio quality, as with the video quality, also varies wildly. Most of the time, dialogue is loud and clear, and music and sound effects are well-integrated into the sound field. However, for some reason, the music during the opening credits seems unbalanced--lots of bass response, but the music itself, while clear-sounding, comes across a bit thin and weak. Also, some of the surround sound effects end up as just general blobs of noise emanating from the rear speakers.
English and Spanish subtitles as well as English closed captions support the audio.
Extras:
Fox spread a couple of extras across the three discs in the collection.
On Disc One, Joss Whedon provides audio commentaries for "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest." Mr. Whedon mostly talks about the surface details of the production rather than the actual mythology behind the "Buffy" universe. There´s an interview clip featuring Joss Whedon and David Boreanaz (who plays Angel), separately, talking to the camera. Mr. Whedon´s footage has been culled from video material available elsewhere in this DVD set, but Mr. Boreanaz finally gets to have his say about the show before he is permanently sent to his own spin-off show. Joss Whedon also talks briefly about "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest" (these brief intros were originally filmed for a VHS release).
Other extras on Disc One include the Original Pilot Script (text pages), a "Buffy" trailer, and two minor DVD-ROM features--a screensaver and a link to the "Buffy" website.
On Disc Two, Joss Whedon talks about "The Witch" and "Never Kill a Boy on the first Date" (once again, these brief intros were originally filmed for a VHS release), and there is a Photo Gallery.
On Disc Three, Joss Whedon discusses "Angel" and "Puppet Show" (yet again, these brief intros were originally filmed for a VHS release), and there are a couple of Biographies (text pages) of the characters and the actors who play them.
Entertainment Value:
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is my favorite television show of all time. That being said, I have to admit that the show, rather than gripping you right from the start, grows on you because of the emotionally honest way that series creator Joss Whedon develops the characters. To say that "Buffy´s" first season is not as good as its subsequent seasons is no gripe on my part. In fact, I´m glad that the show becomes better and better each year. My first impression of Buffy was, "Oh, a pretty blonde who can fight." Now, Buffy almost seems like a real-life friend--the writing for the show, being of such high-caliber, makes Buffy the most three-dimensional fictional creation on television during the late-1990s/early-2000s.
Series-star Sarah Michelle Gellar won an Emmy for her work on the daytime soap opera "All My Children." As the finest dramatic actress on TV of her time, she has earned the Emmy for each season of "Buffy." Yet, her peers have never even nominated her for the award, much less given her one. Miss Gellar brings a fierce emotionalism to the role, and her work on "Buffy" is really a performance for the ages.
As for Fox´s box set itself, I have to say that I´m slightly disappointed. The extras aren´t very substantial, and the lack of series-star Sarah Michelle Gellar´s participation on the DVDs seems a bit odd. The video and audio presentations seem a bit sub-par considering the quality of Fox´s recent efforts. But, for a show that began as a mid-season replacement with an uncertain future, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has done well for itself on DVD. I eagerly anticipate more "Buffy" and "Angel" box sets!
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