Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 5 Volume 1

If you’ve somehow managed to avoid the pull of the wonders of the Buffyverse for the four seasons that preceded this, you may wish to check out reviews of what’s gone before from the little links ever so handily placed down the right hand side of this page. After all, if you pop in now without prior knowledge you’ll just be left scratching your bonce and going, “Wha?� for the majority of the series.

For those firmly ensconced in the world of the Scooby gang, there’s much in store, with only one hangover from the ever-so silly Initiative plot of last season still sticking around like a bad smell to annoy us – Riley. For the first time school takes quite the backseat in proceedings – so much so that it’s scarcely seen or heard about, while the ever-present spirituality of the show gets a lot more attention paid to it. Relationship issues amongst the various characters continue to be explored, as does the development of some of our favourite folk – Willow’s ever-increasing witchy powers being just one good example. Be assured though, whilst this fifth season takes some darker and more serious dramatic turns than many Buffynauts will be accustomed to, the unique sense of humour and tweaking of language that has endeared Buffy to so many is still firmly in evidence to keep things reasonably well balanced.

As for season-specific developments, there’s the appearance of Dawn and subsequently Glory, happenings between Buffy and Riley, issues with Joyce’s health and Spike’s increasing obsession with a certain slayer. To go into a little more detail...

Buffy vs Dracula
Things are all beachy for the Scoobs, but it’s soon back to the usual as Nick Cave – erm, sorry – Dracula (get out!) wafts into town – it seems he’s quite a fang of our Buffy. Some are unable to avoid his thrall - it really bugs Xander for a start - but with Mr Project, Giles, on the case – oh, he’s busy in a foursome... Umm, sister?!!!

Real Me
While Giles does the Mr Miyagi thang with the Buffster, who seems to have combined the two words “work� and “ethic� quite well for a change, nasty things are afoot at the Magic Box - again. Harmony’s also been studying - Evil for Dummies perhaps – and has her own minions. In a fit of originality Buffy’s her target. Giles gets down to business, while we all wonder who this Dawn chick really is...

The Replacement
Another big ugly boogerhead’s in town – with the same old goal, get the slayer (yawn!). Ah, he may sweep about majestically, but perhaps he’s not so Toth? With wee wee on the griddle Xander’s on an apartment hunt and gets a job promotion and... oh dear lord, he seems to be everywhere! Meanwhile Spike gets a little kinky...

Out of My Mind
While Buffy continues with her study chick thing, Mr Iowa’s heart is racing a mile a minute, could the enormous hall monitor have problems? Spike, possibly the only Brit who doesn’t like chips, sees a chance for freedom, while his apparent enmity towards Buffy escalates. But then there’s the little matter of a dream...

No Place Like Home
Ooh, shiny glowball! What’s with the monks, and all this stuff about a key? And just who is this abomination of a beast with a slinky red dress who’s so desperate to get her hands on it? Joyce is unwell, and nobody knows diddly what’s up. She may have missed the rave, but Buffy still gets some trance action – and it Dawns on her that something isn’t quite right. The Magic Box opens, and Anya proves to be quite the capitalist...

Family
Giles is let in on a secret, while the demon chick has plans for Buffy – you guessed it... and just who is this Dr Ben guy anyway? Meanwhile, Tara’s pa, bro and cuz trailer it into town for her birthday, but not necessarily with happy, happy, joyful, joyful tidings and one of her spells is kind of not a good thing for the Scoobys. But in the end family comes through...

Fool For Love
Buffy makes quite a mis-stake... Wanting to learn from past boo-boos, she consults Spike for a touch of show and tell – it’s quite the history lesson, with Dru, Darla and some big broody guy along for the ride. Meanwhile, Joyce goes into hospital for observation...

Shadow
Captain Cardboard’s feeling like an – erm, on the – outer, while Buffy concentrates on her Mom. While the Scooby’s try and learn more about this mysterious beast chick, Glory be! – a somewhat huge, transmogrified snakey-wakey slithers into town. Oh, and Spike heads further down the path of obsessiony-wessiony...

Listening to Fear
The Scoobs are patrolling when Sunnydale suddenly gets it’s own X-File - as a meteor crashes to Earth, containing a killer snot monster from outer space with a taste for the nuttier things in life. While his G.I. Joe buddies get all “Hup! Hup! Hup!� on the case, Riley’s busy getting suck jobs... And just what does Dr Ben know about Glory?

Into the Woods
Joyce is out of the woods, while Buffy kicks the corn-fed pinup boy to the curb after some Spikey exposition. Buffy tries to deal, while idiot boy is faced with a decision – his plastic army guy buddies want him back in the ranks for a little trip to South America – should he stay or should he go? Seeya! Ta-ta! Forget to write!

Triangle
While Buffy’s sad and may just be looking into taking up a new habit, Giles is off to England to consult the Watchers’ Council about Glory. Willow and Anya’s bickering causes a troll-like relative of Fat Bastard to appear – with an appetite for babies and beer, and Sunnydale’s puny receptacles cowering, he’s certainly no ball of sunshine... Still, at least Anya's taste in men seems to have improved.

Hmm, there’s “yay!� news and there’s “boo!� news with this much-anticipated instalment of slayage.

The first big “yay!� comes in the form of 1.78:1, anamorphically enhanced vision, giving all in the Buffyverse a bit more room to move – and adding a nicely cinematic vibe to proceedings. The show is still made with stupid old 4:3 televisions in mind; however most of the telltale signs of widescreen virginity which season four laboured under are now history. There’s more good news, too. While things still have a tendency to be a little over-dark at times – without the superb clarity of the two Angel series’ releases so far, it’s still an improvement over the last release. Colour is delightfully vivid – be it the glorious days of Sunnydale depicted or the seemiest dark alleys of Dingydale at night, there’s clarity hear unlike that of previous seasons. While white specks were remarkably common in season four, this time around they are few and far between, and the dozen or so that appear throughout the set of episodes delivered here should be of no consequence to all but the most annoyingly anal of viewers.

Ah, but now for the “Boo!� part of proceedings. Some odd things are afoot on occasions, with vision seeming to skip ever so slightly or be rather jerky (for examples try around 15:39 and 33:30 in The Replacement). Admittedly quite an array of visual effects have been utilised in this series, including slowed down filming and colour washes, however at certain times things just look almost imperceptibly wrong and not effects-induced. These occurrences are quite minor, but do pop up on each of the three discs at times, and appear as if they may be little glitches incurred in the transfer from NTSC to PAL. Even some of the bonus featurettes display this and, whilst not devastatingly annoying, it can be a little off-putting.

Back to the “Yays!�, there appear to have been no cuts made at all, and the dulcet tones of Giles and his “Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer� segments are all present and accounted for.

The sound in Buffy is always of great importance, and to date we’ve never been let down on DVD releases. The excellent news is that this fine tradition continues here, with another solid surround encoded Dolby Digital stereo mix that makes all the right noises from whispers to screams. A near perfect balance between dialogue, effects and music has once again been achieved, surround usage is decent and effective, whilst those with Prologic receivers which can shuffle the sound about to 5.1 channels will be in for a treat, with the subwoofwoof going quite feral at times. Synch is spot-on – save for the usual caveat whereby odd scenes have obviously looped dialogue.

It seems poor composer Christophe Beck must have fallen on a stake or something, as he’s been replaced this season. The man with a hand firmly on his baton for this season is one Thomas Wanker - I’m sure he gets enough stick for his name, so I won’t comment any further... Despite a tendency towards excess rennet at times, he generally does a fine job in coming up with suitable musical creations for the series, in a style not dissimilar to what we’re used to, and his work shares air time with a small selection of pop songs, including ones from the likes of Blur and the Dandy Warhols.

An almost headachey-headache inducing super fast cut montage of mostly bad guys, appropriately based around imagery of a keyhole, leads to static menus on each disc. Each of these menus has a cast pic, specifically Buffy and Dawn, Willow and Tara plus Xander and Anya in this first half of the season. There are also animated transitions between menu selections. Pleasingly this set sees things laid out a tad more logically than the season 4 one, so there’s no question as to what order the shows should be viewed in.

The collection of extras on offer are, once again, pretty spiffy – however they are probably best left until you’ve watched the entire series, as much of what’s to come in the second instalment is covered within the bits and pieces here. There are even future spoilers dating right up to the end of season six within the commentaries – so either avoid them or prepare to play Hush-at-Home... It’s simple, just don’t moisturise or sleep for a week and learn to float about the room with a manic grin on your face, finger poised on the ‘mute’ button on your remote at all times. A trip to Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon is optional, but will score you bonus points...

Some may be interested to note that most of the extras, including commentaries, are subtitled – and I daresay the more pointy-headed readers out there will be keen to know that all featurettes are presented in full frame, with Dolby Digital stereo sound...

Scripts - The Replacement, Fool For Love and Into the Woods: Anybody who has been privy to previous seasons of Buffy on DVD will no doubt get a touch of déjà vu when checking out these scripts – yes, it’s a black typewriter (or ‘Courier’ if you prefer) font on, this time, a swirly yellow background which looks a bit like recycled custard. They’re all very thorough and are perfect fodder for rabid fans or prospective screenwriters to exercise their occipital lobes with.

Audio commentary - Real Me (director David Grossman and writer David Fury): Hardly the most scintillating of commentaries you’ll ever hear, this is quite gappy and extremely laidback. Mind you, when you learn that they were watching with no sound it may explain it a bit better. Balancing a fair bit of technical info about cameras used and the like with much discussion of the introduction of Dawn, this is an OK listen, but certainly no Joss commentary.

Audio commentary - Fool For Love (writer Doug Petrie): Have you ever wondered the connection between Buffy, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and even The Three Bears? Well, Dougie has all the dish, in this entertaining commentary which sees him at his fast-talking best. Some character development is discussed, especially in regards to the corn-fed yutz Riley, but that’s made up for with so much time spent on Spikey Wikey. As within the episode the whole vampire mythology thing is delved into and there’s much about this episode’s crossover with the Angel second series – oh, plus the joys of being dirty...

Featurette - Buffy Abroad (4:04): Are you intrigued to hear what Buffy sounds like in Japanese? Well, here’s your chance to find out. Replete with interview snippets from cast and crew with remembrances of overseas appearances and the like, this also presents all manner of foreign clips and magazine covers. We also discover that Tara can give Spike a run for his money in the Brit accent stakes...

Featurette - Demonology – A Slayer’s Guide (10:58): Yay, Jonathan’s back! Yes, Danny Strong hams it up to eleven while presenting this rather pleasingly light-hearted little ode to the yukky things of Sunnydale, complete with many clips and interviews with cast and crew.

Featurette - Casting Buffy (6:33): Casting director Marcia Shulman leads us – quickly – through casting goss on all the regular characters that make up the fifth season. To think, Willow could have been somebody else!

Featurette - Action Heroes – The Stunts of Buffy (10:59): Stunt coordinator John Medlen shares screen time with many of the stunt cast, possibly the most interesting part of this feature being interviews with some of the stunt players for characters such as Buffy, Dawn and Spike as well as some of the acting cast. There’s also plenty of behind the scenes stuff for those who like to see what goes on behind the cameras.

Outtakes (2:06): Finally! What the world’s been waiting for! And to think, we get a whole two minutes – erm, yay team... woo. Still, it’s better than nothing, and they delve into past series’ with familiar faces such as Cordy, Faith, Oz and Wesley oopsing it up with the likes of Xander and Giles – poor Giles... The funniest is left ‘til last, however – just don’t expect good quality vision as it’s virtually black and white.

Trailers: There are six in all, however they’re nothing to get particularly yayful about. Those included are sub-one minute offerings for Buffy seasons 2, 3 and 4 on DVD and video and Angel seasons 1 and 2 on both formats, plus the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie (1:39). The latter is in anamorphic 2.35:1, whilst the others are full frame. Perhaps the only notable one for some will be the Buffy season 2 promo, as it shows the rather funky, but not necessarily overly practical, packaging that the series’ are released in over in the UK, rather than our fabulous, but space eating, standard DVD boxes in slipcases.

Despite the darker clouds now looming over the Buffyverse, this fifth season of Buffy continues the fine tradition of combining episodes which follow a seasonal arc with stand alone, sometimes rather refreshingly silly, shows.

Once again appearing in Glory-ous 1.78:1, there may be a few little niggles with the vision, however they aren’t of major significance. Sound as always is superb, and a decent collection of extras is on hand to offer up some snugly post-episodic pleasure.

Are we over Buffy yet? Like not until you’re never!

(Hey, I got through the review without one unbridled, lustful drool over Spike - my what restraint!)

The second half of season 5 review this way beckons...