Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Posted on Sun, Dec. 07, 2003

’Buffy’ slays shopping blues Season Five DVD set has good sequences and host of impressive extras By R.D. Heldenfels

Joss Whedon is trying to ease your holiday-shopping woes.

The writer-director-impresario best known as creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has two DVD sets in stores Tuesday.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Five (Fox Home Entertainment, 5 discs, 22 episodes, $59.98) covers the 2000-01 run of the show, an often moving sequence of telecasts. And Firefly: The Complete Series (Fox, 4 discs, 14 episodes, $49.98) covers that Fox drama’s short life in 2001-02, including episodes that were never televised.

That Buffy season saw both the death of Buffy’s mother (played by Kristine Sutherland) and, in the season finale, the death of Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar).

The latter demise added to confusion surrounding the show off-camera that year. The WB, the original home of the series, made noises about not keeping the show, while UPN came up with more money than The WB was offering — and a promise of two more seasons for Buffy. And when Buffy decided to change networks, The WB made several on-air efforts to suggest the show was over, such as referring to the season finale as the ``series finale.’’

But the DVD set focuses on the show itself rather than the backstage drama. As is always the case with a Buffy box, this one comes with numerous extras, among them some commentary tracks and scripts, a half-hour overview of the series with comments from the makers and other featurettes, such as a short video about the following the show had developed in other countries.

That piece humorously shows what Buffy looks like when dubbed into other languages. It also suggests that actors are sometimes better kept silent, as when James Marsters (who plays Spike) refers to Canada as ``overseas’’ and says other countries don’t have a ``stigmatism’’ against horror and fantasy.

At least Marsters still has a job (now playing Spike on Angel).The cast of Firefly found itself quickly unemployed. (The DVD notes that the show’s Christmas party turned into a wrap party as well.) And Whedon says the series was ``the source of probably more joy and pain than anything I’ve done.’’

Firefly was an ambitious series about the crew of a spaceship in a complicated, multicultural future. I never warmed up to it, and its supposed originality at times looked to me like recycled Blade Runner.

But others were far more devoted; one reader called me just about every week to beg that I give Firefly another chance. And, as I mentioned in last week’s column, even TV flops have large enough audiences to inspire follow-up projects, from the DVD to a planned big-screen Firefly.

If you want to reconsider the show, the DVD is the way to do it. It puts the episodes in their original order (which Fox did not honor in telecasts), including the episodes that were not shown. The extras include a fine making-of segment (which notes numerous network pressures on the show), as well as oddities like outtakes and Whedon singing the Firefly theme.

Also new to stores this week: the fifth season of M*A*S*H. Fox has a DVD set of 3 discs and 24 episodes for $39.98, a VHS set for $26.98 and separate, eight-episode tapes for $9.98 each.

One reason the M*A*S*H sets are tightly fit onto a few discs is the ongoing lack of extras, aside from making the laugh-track optional. But if the show itself is enough for you, this is the season that started with the Bug Out episode and ended with the marriage of Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit).

Also on the comedy front, and already in stores, is The Ben Stiller Show (Warner Bros., 2 discs, 13 episodes, $26.98). It’s a collection of the 1992-93 sketch-comedy series starring Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick and Bob Odenkirk.

The decade-old topicality of some sketches — especially commercial parodies — work against them, and Stiller’s impressions are not always effective. His Bono has lots of the manner but almost none of the voice.

On the other hand, the Bono bits include a hilarious cereal commercial and the inspired touch of having their first manager be the one from The Partridge Family. I’m also fond of ones about a theme park designed by Oliver Stone, some odd conversations with Bobcat Goldthwait and the deeply weird Cape Munster.

The DVD includes an episode that was never televised, a couple of unsuccessful pilots for the series, material from Stiller’s earlier MTV show, additional sketches and a text ``brief history of The Ben Stiller Show.’’ That notes both that it was the lowest-rated show of its season and an Emmy winner for writing.