Buffy The Vampire Slayer

(Firstly I would like to apologize for all the brackets) Well if you don’t know anything about Buffy the vampire slayer or better yet Sarah Michelle Gellar, I think you need your head read, but still I explain it to all you foreigners of television.

Plot
Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was just an average (airhead) teenage girl (quite like Sailor Moon) living in LA and shopping with her many shallow friends, then one day she is approached by a old man. And I know what you’re thinking BUT no, he claims he is her watcher (of what?) and she has to fulfill her prophecy. (prophecy of what? I hear you say) “In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.” And after a lot of training, having her watcher killed by a vampire, burning down her school hall, transferring to Sunnydale California with her mother (Kristine Sutherland), Buffy must re-adjust to life on the new Hell Mouth.

She meets school librarian Rupert Giles(Anthony Stewart Head) who becomes her new watcher, Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) a spoilt B ... um Girl, Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) a nerdy shy girl, Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) a horny unpopular boy and most importantly Angel (David Boreanaz) a 400’ish year old vampire. In her first year (season 1) in Sunnydale Buffy befriends them all (except Cordy), saves the world from the master vampire - opening up a portal to kill all good in the world and falls in love (with Angel). It is here where we start season 2, an exceptional season of Buffy and just television - that and season 3...

Episodes
Because of the size of this collection, each episode cannot be given a full review; instead there now follows a list of all the episodes featured within this collection with an accompanying brief description:

When She Was Bad - Buffy tries to move on after the horrendous killing of the master.

Some Assembly Required - A perfect woman is trying to be made by using live girls parts.

School Hard - Spike and Drusilla Arrive.

Inca Mummy Girl - Xander falls in love with a ancient mummy sucking the life out of students.

Reptile Boy - Buffy and Cordelia attend a Frat party for fun, only to find a big lizard.

Halloween - A spell is placed on this night and dress-ups turn into reality.

Lie To Me - Buffy’s Ex arrives and wants to become a vampire.

The Dark Age - Giles’ past becomes present and jeopardizes his relationship with Ms Calendar.

What’s My Line Pt1 - Buffy meets new slayer Kendra.

What’s My Line Pt2 - Buffy must join Kendra to save Angel from Spike.

Ted - Buffy’s Mom starts dating a robot.

Bad Eggs - A pregnancy responsibility class goes wrong when the eggs contain aliens.

Surprise - Spike and Drusilla assemble the Judge and Buffy and Angel get intimate.

Innocence - Angel loses his soul.

Phases - A werewolf enters Sunnydale.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - Xander convinces Amy to put love spell on Cordy on Valentine’s but it backfires.

Passion - Ms Calendar is killed by Angelus.

Killed By Death - Buffy is in hospital with the flu and finds a real life Boogie Man.

I Only Have Eyes For You - Buffy and Angel fall into a spiritual affair, when Sunnydale High is haunted by two ghosts from tortured love affair.

Go Fish - The Sunnydale Swimming team are becoming fish.

Becoming Pt1 - Angelus tries to unearth a life threatening demon and buffy must try to stop him.

Becoming Pt2 - Buffy must kill Angel to save the world or will Willow save Angel’s soul first?

Video
Season 2 is an improvement upon season 1, but don’t expect perfection. Buffy is shot mostly in night and dark scenes show a lot of grain on this transfer. It is the type of grain where the camera pans across and the grain moves with it. * Please note - Buffy season 1 & 2 were shot on 16mm film and was not upgraded to widescreen 32mm until season 3 (so expect a lot more from season 3). It has an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16:9 obviously. Daytime is quite clear, but I find the colouring a little off, but it was also broadcasted the same. It is a little yellow for my liking and lacks the definition that I would like, but it is the best you will get from the source material. There is a little noise here and there especially in the night scenes. The dark scenes show some artefacts and bad shadow detail. But overall it is quite sharp and like I said before form the source material it is the best you will get.

Audio
We are given a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and it does the job very well. Audio is never distorted and is fun to listen to, although sometimes a little low in volume (solution: TURN IT UP) Buffy Season 2 is never hard to hear and it is always in sync and crisp. The only thing is it isn’t as involving as I would have liked ... I thought they maybe could have done some big sub woofer and surround work with the fight scenes, adding more oomph (that’s the technical word by the way), but they were unused. But other than that I was more than happy with the soundtrack to this great season.

Extras
Scripts and commentaries by writers for: Reptile Boy, What’s My Line Pt1 & 2, Innocence. Overall the commentaries are quite involving and interesting, but there is a fair bit of plugging happening. The scripts aren’t very exciting to me, but aren’t useless.

There are three featurettes. Designing Buffy is a behind the scenes look at Buffy’s set which was really interesting. A Buffy Bestiary described how they created their monsters and demons, this was quite interesting. Beauty & The Beasts was mostly interviews with the stars, again, this was interesting. Art Galleries was another section featuring: a still gallery, monster sketches, set designs, set design blue prints - nothing to really comment on, they are pretty self explanatory.

Finally we have biographies of the stars and Joss Whedon (director and creator), trailers for Angel season 1 and Buffy season 2, these are just advertising the shows and how Buffy is now on DVD. TV Spots appear from both the UK & US, the US ones are really good to see how Warner Brothers advertises Buffy in the States.

Overall
This is a great collection and this quality show is a welcome release to the DVD medium. The video and audio quality is definitely acceptable and the extra’s are very decent. I have heard over the Internet that fans have had a lot of trouble with the actual case, by that I mean scratching their discs. All you have to do is put your thumb firmly up the top and push the case outwards and pull the disc out that way ... I have NO scratches. I think it is a great idea and looks great, plus it is an efficient case that saves me a lot of room. But anyway what can we expect next?? How about the unaired pilot featuring a different actor for Willow??? Anyway I cannot recommend this show enough - just go add it to your collection, you won’t be sorry.

Reviewed by Mark Ashmore