Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The Show: A
Look: C
Sound: C
Extras: C-
Overall: B-

Love hurts, love bites, love beats the crap out of you, and then it forces you to sacrifice yourself to save the world. That last one might be just for Spike, the lovelorn badass from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Created by Joss Whedon and brought vibrantly to life by James Marsters, Spike the vampire loved and lost as he prowled the neighborhoods of Sunnydale. First, his love of centuries in Drusilla, then the love that proved his undoing (or his making depending on how you look at it), the slayer herself. Now, we can trace the tragedy of Spike’s love with four episodes, repackaged by Fox under the banner Love is Hell. Sure is.

With all of their seasons released on DVD, many classic shows are trying to find new ways to reach out to fans who may not want to pony up for the big box sets. The X-Files Mythology sets, which compile the conspiracy episodes from the entire run of the series, are an excellent example of how to bring a series to a new audience, even after it appears to have run its natural course. Buffy the Vampire Slayer feels like a no-brainer (or should that be no-souler?) for such a repackaging, with any number of characters or series-long plotlines to play with in new sets. And so we get Spike: Love is Hell, four of Nosferatu Vicious’ best episodes - "School Hard," "Lie to Me," "Lovers Walk" and "Fool For Love."

Four? Now admittedly, these are four of the best episodes not just in Spike’s history but the entire Slayer mythos, but it leaves even a casual fan of the series wanting more. Keeping the price low and giving fans an introduction to a character is an interesting marketing idea but jumping from this little set to a full season is a big leap. Why not offer something more in the middle, for fans of the show/character and newbies alike? The arc of Spike could have easily been given twice or even three times as many episodes and the price still could have been kept reasonable. More character sets are likely to come along. All I can say is give us more. Four episodes is just a taste. Even new fans will want something resembling a bloody meal.

And the meal doesn’t look or sound nearly as good as it should. Each episode is in full frame 4:3 with only Dolby Digital 2.0 to hear Spike’s witty barbs. On both sides of the technical stake, the disc comes up short. The show’s on so often that you could probably stumble across all four of these episodes in the same week. If Fox had made them look or sound better than digital cable, you might pick up the set just for the technical experience. And what about trenchcoat-wearing Spike fans everywhere looking for something extra about their favorite bad boy? Well, there is a 15-minute featurette about Spike, but it’s a quickly slapped-together piece, cutting other interviews about these four episodes into one piece. Marsters is always entertaining and will give you new insight into his character’s development, but, once again, a little something more, like a new commentary, would have been nice.

Spike: Love is Hell is like that first drop of blood to a vampire and, in the end, that’s all Fox really wants to give you. They want to get your bloodlust up and running, to wake you in the middle of night and make you go buy the original season sets. But there’s a better way to go about that. There’s a way to make the Masters of the Buffy fan clubs happy as well as the newly bitten. Maybe they’ll put a little more heart into the other character sets. Willow and Faith certainly deserve a better fate.