Been binging on Buffy's box

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  • Been binging on Buffy's box

    The DVD boxes, that is.

    Been watching the Buffy box sets in sequence. Great way to watch a series, especially this one.

    A simply fantastic show (seasons 1-3 at least). Great writing, great plotting, great TV.

    But I guess we all knew that already.

    The show seems to be really served well by these box sets. A very nice presentation... and I haven't even checked out the extras yet.

  • #2
    Those are the best seasons, IMO, they kind of lost me with the introduction of the "Initiative" in season 4. Or Glory in season 5, or whatever the big bad was in seasons 6 & 7.

    The extras on the first DVD are okay, I haven't checked out seasons 2 & 3. "Buffy speak" was an interesting look at the hep lingo the writers made up.

    Also, Gotham, I saw that you watched part of Angel the other day (sorry this is off topic from this thread). I agree that it wasn't the best effort, but they had to do a lot of expository dialogue to clue new viewers in, and I don't think they're very used to writing that way. So, it came across as kind of stale. I urge you to give it another couple of chances. Joss (to me) is God, and with only one show to watch over, I can only think that this will be the best season of Angel, yet. Or perhaps I'm just an eternal optimist! Heh.

    Also, try out the Angel season one DVD boxset, the first season was pretty great!

    Back to Buffy 1-3. Those seasons were truly inspired, but I believe that when Joss went on to do Angel (season 4), handing over the keys to Marti Noxon made for a worse show, rather than a better one. And it's been proven with Angel, when he went on to do Firefly, Angel faltered quite a bit. When Firefly was cancelled, and Joss was able to give his undivided to Angel (still letting Marti run Buffy), Angel ended up fantastic. Okay, that ended up being about Angel again.

    I'll quit now. But I hope that you give Angel another couple of chances! It should end up pretty good (even with the loss of Tim Minear -- who's on Wonderfalls, and David Greenwalt -- who's on Jake 2.0. They've gained a lot of the Buffy writers, so it gives some hope.)

    Okay, really, I'll quit now.

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    • #3
      The box sets are very good. I prefer season 2 and 6.

      EJ

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      • #4
        I think seasons 2 and 3 are the best seasons of Buffy too. The strength of the show in the early years was high school as a metaphor. Joss always complained about the kids growing up too fast on him. (It's part of the reason why I was sooo looking forward to the buffy animated series) Seasons 4-7 didn't really have the comfort of that, yet I'm almost glad they didn't turn the show into felicity with vampires.

        But seasons 4, 5, 6, and 7 are still underrated by most people who yearn for the glorious days of seasons 2 and 3.

        I love my season 4 box set. Even though the initiative sucked ass...in retrospect riley doesn't suck the life out of the show half as much as I used to think. Plus you've got eps like Freshman, Hush, the Faith body switching episodes, Fear itself (my favorite halloween ep.), The episode where Oz breaks Willow's heart, Superstar, the amazing Anya becoming a show staple, and on the dvd's a commentary by Joss trying to explain what the hell he was doing in restless.

        Season 5 will have the buffy bot, the body, the gift, the ep where buffy confronts the watchers council which's name escapes me, there's a lot of good stuff in that season.

        Seasons 6-7 are uneven, as the show went darker and was even less like the high school years, yet it still managed to pull off episodes as good as anything they've done. Stuff like the musical episode, conversations with dead people...you know what I'm rambling.

        Buffy's great. Joss Whedon is god-like. I'll watch Marti Noxon's new show still life and Tim Minear's Wonderfalls. And while Angel in season 4 definately benefited by the cancellation of miracles and Firefly to steal back Greenwalt, Minear, Edlund and more attention from Joss, here's some credit to Jeffrey Bell who wrote some of my favorite eps of season 4 (magic bullet) and was the defacto showrunner in the beginning when David Simpkins? left the show in the beginning.

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        • #5
          Okay, the support for ANGEL has been overwhelming here so will give it a few more episodes.

          It just seemed so over the top without the serious grounding that BUFFY had.

          They have two more episodes to grab me.

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          • #6
            Buffy

            Gotham I suggest checking out Angel Season 2 (if you haven't already), that is arguably the show at it's peak and some of the episodes (Reunion, Reprise - to name a few) are certainly up there with the best of Buffy.

            Like other people I too love seasons 1-3 of Buffy and consider them some of televisions greatest achievements (in the last two decades anyway). Season 4 is great too, very underrated. Season 5 is also up there, almost as enjoyable as 2 and 3. Season 6 has it's fair share of problems but featured some interesting stories and a cool musical. However Season 7 is the worse of the lot, it suffered from a terrible story arc, poor pacing, lack of character development, inconsistencies and lazy writing. It was sad to see the show go like that but the good memeories will always live through DVDS.

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            • #7
              BUFFY

              I went back to try to find it and I can't but did I hear right on Whedon's commentary track for the Buffy pilot- Sarah Michelle Gellar was originally cast as Cordelia? Or did I imagine that?

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              • #8
                Re: BUFFY

                SEason 4 and 5 are very very good, Glory was a fantastic character, i have never understood why people bashed them. Seasons 6 and 7 really went downhill.

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                • #9
                  Re: BUFFY

                  I know she auditioned for the role of Cordelia, and Charisma Carpenter auditioned for the role of Buffy. And in the original pilot, Alyson Hannigan didn't play Willow. I don't know if SMG was actually cast as Cordelia though...

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                  • #10
                    Re: BUFFY

                    Oh... they should have included the original<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--><span style="text-decoration:underline"> pilot in the box sets.

                    That would have been fascinating to see the work-in-progress compared to what it becam
                    </span><!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END-->

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                    • #11
                      Re: BUFFY

                      I think the little things mentioned in the audio coms. Like when Josh wanted Buffy to come in through a skyline window, but due to money and time problems, they just had her breaking down the door to gain entry into the room.

                      EJ

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                      • #12
                        Pilot

                        I found the pilot on Kazaa pretty easily. It's amusing to see it after watching 7 seasons worth of this show. The original Willow was just horrible--they really saved their asses by getting Alyson.

                        And for the record, I don't think this show went downhill until season 6. The Dawn thing, the Initiative, the Glory thing--I liked it all quite a bit. Sure seasons 2 and 3 were the high point--but this show had a lot of juice past their high school years.

                        Ele...

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                        • #13
                          Re: Pilot

                          Elephant liked Tarzan...opinion severly discounted.
                          :lol :rollin

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                          • #14
                            Re: Pilot

                            I can't help it. I have a fixation on swinging from trees.:lol

                            Ele...

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                            • #15
                              Re: Pilot

                              Okay, it took me one helluva time to get round to it. But I just finished watching series seven of Buffy. And I thought it was a great series to go out on.

                              The First was an excellent villian. So was that Preacher guy. This series really pushed the envelope with regards to horror/creepy moments. The Ep Conversation With Dead People was very good (written by four writers, even tho only two are credited), and Same Time, Same Place (again, great horror moment with Willow being eaten alive), Help (suicidal dark tones), Him (V good comedy), The Killer In Me (nice Warren twist), Lies My Parents Told Me (nice D.B. Woodside/Marsters character arc), etc, etc.

                              The end episode was a very nice finish to a great series.

                              RIP Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

                              EJ

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