Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Collector's Set (40 discs)
by Joss Whedon
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DVD details
Actor: Alyson Hannigan, Anthony Head, James Marsters, Nicholas Brendon, Sarah Michelle GellarDirector: Joss Whedon
Brand: GELLAR,SARAH MICHEL
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); English (Dubbed)
Format: Box set, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
DVD Release Date: 2006-08-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Collector's Set (40 discs)
DVD Review: The Complete Series
Summary: 4 Stars
So, before I got this, I had never seen a single episode. I had just recently picked up Firefly and loved that. I also really enjoyed the Astonishing X-Men comic as well. So, I asked around a bit to see if this box set would be worth it--after already buying it as a Gold Box Deal. Good thing for me, everyone said I'd find it entertaining even if I didn't completely love it.
I can't speak for the entire series, since I've only watched the first season thus far--but, it reminds me a lot of Smallville... with vampires, demons, and other forces of darkness. And, I assume just like Smallville, this will change from the 'freak of the week' into something more. I have high hopes.
I can, however, speak on the production quality of the box set itself. The box is a heavy carboard. The top of the box flips backward and the front comes forward, and has some text on it. On top, you get a letter from Joss Whedon, a DVD with extras, and a quarter-inch book with a listing of each episode. In the front, it even has the list of Joss' favorite episodes and a brief description of why.
Beneath that, you have the actual DVDs. Each season comes in a 5.5x5 box that's much like a box. Each DVD has it's own "page" of hard plastic so you can flip to the DVD you want without having to remove the first DVD to get to the second one (You know what I'm talking about if you buy a lot of TV DVDs). It also keeps each DVD fairly safe, which is always a plus. Each season stacks on top of the next, and forms a picture of the Buffy gang.
DVD Review: If you buy the DVDs seperately, it's only $132!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Yup, it's true. $20 for seasons 2-7 and $32 for season 1 = $132. Unless you want to pay $55 extra just to get the official "collector set box", you're better off buying each season on its own (plus then you can buy the new-used ones and save even more!). How has no one noticed this?!?
This is a great show, thus I give it 5 stars. Amazon, however, is just trying to get you to pay extra. Hint: a box is not worth $55, nor is any of the special packaging you get in the collectors edition.
DVD Review: Worth $80, worth $180, worth whatever you pay for it
Summary: 5 Stars
Buffy truly may be the greatest show ever broadcast. At minimum, it can stand shoulder to shoulder with such other television masterworks as the Wire, the Shield, Oz, Deadwood, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the Simpsons. I don't much care for Joss Whedon's other work--and I think he's pretty much an insufferably self-regarding psychopath--but I am forever in his debt for this incredibly well-written, well-shot, and well-acted serial.DVD Review: Show - 5 stars, the rest of it - 3 stars...
Summary: 3 Stars
I have to say Buffy as a show is awesome. I love how much fun it is, how it never takes itself too seriously, and how much I've come to love these characters. The show itself is definitely worth 5 stars.
The packaging on this set is awesome, too. I was a late comer to the show, so I didn't purchase the individual seasons when they came out. This set was great for that purpose, all the episodes in one place, for one great price (more about that in a minute).
I was concerned, however, when I purchased this set, because I've read so many reviews saying that discs were loose or damaged when they arrived because the packaging of the set isn't very good. Luckily, my set did not have this problem. Everything was in its place, all of the discs were still secured in their holders, it was perfect. I was very, very glad about this.
The reason I've given this item 3 stars instead of the 5 the show deserves, however, is the fluctuating price and the difficulty I had getting the set in the first place. I'd been watching the price on this set for awhile, seeing it fluctuate, but always landing around the $140 mark. Even though that was a bit pricey, I figured it was still cheaper than the $200+ that Amazon.ca (I'm Canadian) wanted. I happened to check the set on a day when it was offered at $99 and change, so I jumped on it. I was so excited about that price, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on the set!
A month came and went, along with a few e-mails back and forth with Amazon, each time telling me to wait a little longer for the set, which never showed up. Finally, via the phone support, I managed to get them to ship me another set and I had it within 3 days. The part that bothered me is that they were convinced it had been delivered, but wouldn't give me a tracking number so I could see for myself. It shouldn't have taken over a month to get the set, they should have replaced it faster. But, once the replacement was sent, I received it, so Amazon, in the end, did their job.
The price fluctuation I've noticed since that time really bothers me, as it does many other reviewers. As I'm typing this, the price is currently over $180, which is ridiculous. For that reason, I would recommend going to a more stable retailer, where the price is what it is, with no chance that it'll jump $80 over night. Amazon is great for many things, but price stability isn't one of them.
Basically, to sum up, I would highly recommend this set to anyone looking for all of the Buffy eps in one place, but I wouldn't recommend buying it from Amazon. Chances are you'll find it cheaper elsewhere.
DVD Review: Seven Seasons of Excellent Television
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like anything else Joss Whedon has made, buy this. If you've watched the show, buy it because you want to watch it again, not for the extras or the 40th disc. Most of the extras are simply not worth watching. They tend to be just recaps of the season or, in the early seasons, episode commentary by one person, usually a writer or director. The roundtable discussion on the 40th disc wasn't particularly compelling either.
The biggest technical problem with the set is that the transfer of the first two seasons to DVD is really bad, they're watchable, but those two seasons have noticeably worse video quality than do later seasons.
In the end the most important point is that the show itself makes up for what's lacking in the extras and the video quality issues. All seven seasons are consistently well written and well acted, and while the music and other production values aren't as high as Firefly, it's still a show I love and a show worth watching.
Description of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Collector's Set (40 discs)
No Description Available.Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 19-SEP-2006
Media Type: DVD
From its charming and angst-ridden first season to the darker, apocalyptic final one, Buffy the Vampire Slayer succeeds on many levels, and in a fresher and more authentic way than the shows that came before or after it. How lucky, then, that with the release of its boxed set of seasons 1-7, you can have the estimable pleasure of watching a near-decade of Buffy in any order you choose. (And we have some ideas about how that should be done.)
First: rest assured that there's no shame in coming to Buffy late, even if you initially turned your nose up at the winsome Sarah Michelle Gellar kicking the hell out of vampires (in Buffy-lingo, vamps), demons, and other evil-doers. Perhaps you did so because, well, it looked sort of science-fiction-like with all that monster latex. Start with season 3 and see that Buffy offers something for everyone, and the sooner you succumb to it, the quicker you'll appreciate how textured and riveting a drama it is.
Why season 3? Because it offers you a winning cast of characters who have fallen from innocence: their hearts have been broken, their egos trampled in typically vicious high-school style, and as a result, they've begun to realize how fallible they are. As much as they try, there are always more monsters, or a bigger evil. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the core crew remains something of a unit--there's the smart girl, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) who dreams of saving the day by downloading the plans to City Hall's sewer tunnels and mapping a route to safety. There are the ne'r do wells--the vampire Spike (James Marsters), who both clashes with and aspires to love Buffy; the tortured and torturing Angel (David Boreanz); the pretty, popular girl with an empty heart (Charisma Carpenter); and the teenage everyman, Xander (Nicholas Brendon).
Then there's Buffy herself, who in the course of seven seasons morphs from a sarcastic teenager in a minidress to a heroine whose tragic flaw is an abiding desire to be a "normal" girl. On a lesser note, with the boxed set you can watch the fashion transformation of Buffy from mall rat to Prada-wearing, kickboxing diva with enviable highlights. (There was the unfortunate bob of season 2, but it's a forgivable lapse.) At least the storyline merits the transformations: every time Buffy has to end a relationship she cuts her hair, shedding both the pain and her vulnerability.
In addition to the well-wrought teenage emotional landscape, Buffy deftly takes on more universal themes--power, politics, death, morality--as the series matures in seasons 4-6. And apart from a few missteps that haven't aged particularly well ("I Robot" in season 1 comes to mind), most episodes feel as harrowing and as richly drawn as they did at first viewing. That's about as much as you can ask for any form of entertainment: that it offer an escape from the viewer's workaday world and entry into one in which the heroine (ideally one with leather pants) overcomes demons far more troubling than one's own. --Megan Halverson
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