Buffy the Vampire Slayer-Season 4 Box Set Part 1 (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Vampire	Main Menu Introduction Menu Audio Script-Fear Itself; Hush Audio Commentary-The Initiative; Hush Featurette-Hush Featurette-The Sets Of Sunnydale Featurette-Spike, Me Featurette-Buffy, Inside The Music Trailer-Buffy Season Two DVD; Buffy Season Three DVD Biographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	464:05 (Case: 495)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Joss Whedon
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Sarah Michelle Gellar Alyson Hannigan Nicholas Brandon Anthony Stewart Head James Marsters Marc Blucas Emma Caulfield
Case	Slip Case
RPI	$79.95	Music	Christophe Beck

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (96Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Danish English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish Norwegian Swedish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    It doesn't seem like six months since our last dose of Buffy, but it is. I guess we've had two seasons of Angel in between, which helps slake the cravings. Anyway, here we are, with another season of the most beautiful battler of vampires, demons, and all things evil.

    Big news! Buffy the Vampire Slayer is now widescreen - which is fabulous for those of us with widescreen displays (you haven't lived until you've seen Buffy in widescreen about 2.5m wide!). If you don't have a widescreen display then you might be a bit disappointed. There's quite a bit more to see, compared with the fullscreen version that's broadcast here in Australia. Yes, the fullscreen (or narrow-screen, if I can get away with that) version is a reduced version, not an expanded one (no open-matte here).

    Let's see, for those who didn't catch Season 4 when it was broadcast, I suppose I should summarise a bit of the plot. Buffy graduated at the end of the previous season; now she's starting college. Many people find the transition from high school to college or university a big shock. Buffy has even more trouble, because she is used to having Giles around, and he's no longer as close as the school library (except in his bio on disc three!). Let me see, what else should I say? Nothing, I think - there are many twists far too cool for me to wish to deprive you of them. Trust me, there's plenty happening in this season. Willow goes through quite a bit, growing and changing. Anya becomes a more regular character, and we get to meet Riley and Tara.

    This volume includes the award-winning episode Hush. There's even a featurette dedicated to it. Watching it again now I find it even more impressive - the build-up to the climactic moment is superb. During the first nine episodes, they build up to that moment - very cool. In some ways this episode is the highlight, although there are several others I like - for pure special effects joy I love the second-last episode of the season.

    This is the season that interlinks with the first season of Angel. The first crossover comes with the third episode The Harsh Light of Day - to get the best result, watch this episode, then switch to Angel for the third episode In The Dark. The second crossover involves the eighth episode Pangs - there are links both before and after in Angel. It's good that we have both shows available now so we can enjoy the full impact of these crossovers.

    These are the episodes in this volume. Note that the episode menus on each disc do not make it clear what the order of the episodes is. The four episode names are arranged in a square - to watch the episodes in order you start top left, then go bottom left, top right, and bottom right.

    There are those Buffy fans who regard this season as the worst one produced. I can sympathise, but I see it this way: the worst of Buffy is considerably better than the best of most other TV programmes. Watching the season again, I have come to appreciate it a lot more. There's quite a bit more comedy in this season, and some major laugh-out-loud moments. And some of the moments I remembered well are even better seen from the perspective of hindsight, making this a vital part of your Buffy collection.

Video

    This season is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. That's how it can be viewed on HDTV, in those places where Buffy is broadcast in HDTV (unlike Australia, where we are treated to glorious SDTV...). Absolutely gorgeous!

    Buffy started in blurry 16mm - grainy and spotty. This season is stunning - sharp and clear with excellent shadow detail and no low level noise. Even night scenes are clear and detailed, which is very different from earlier seasons. There's a little grain in a couple of places, but it's completely untroubling.

    Colour is also fabulous - vivid and fully-saturated, but without colour bleed or oversaturation. There are still lots of scenes at night, but there are plenty of daytime scenes in brilliant Californian sunshine. Both Buffy and Willow are wearing a wide range of clothes, and the colours come across superbly.

    There's an average of perhaps one film artefact per episode, but they are tiny and barely visible. There's minimal aliasing or moire. There's a little MPEG shimmer on backgrounds, but no other MPEG errors. This is close to a perfect transfer.

    There are subtitles in five languages, including English. I watched the English subtitles (they are really captions) - there are a few abbreviations, but otherwise they are accurate, well-timed, and easily read.

    The disc is single-sided and dual layered, formatted RSDL, but there is no visible layer change, because two episodes are on one layer, and two are on the other.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded. There's no other soundtrack, save for the commentaries.

    The dialogue is easy to understand and there are no visible audio sync issues. That's important, because a big part of the joy of Buffy is the witty repartee..

    Joy - all of the episodes are scored by Christophe Beck, and there's a featurette about the Buffy music, too. Good stuff.

    There's a bit of surround sound, and the surrounds wrap the score around us, which is nice. The subwoofer isn't used for anything but the Fox logo (shame), but there's heaps of bass in the soundtrack - if you have a system capable of it, you'll really enjoy that.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    Each disc starts with a good montage, then the menus have sound, and there are transitions, too. They are easy to operate.

Original Scripts

    We get the original script to Hush and Fear Itself. To be honest, I don't get thrilled about the scripts, but they can be fun to have a look at - there are often differences between the script and the episode we get to see.

Commentary: The Initiative

    This commentary from the writer Doug Petrie is very disappointing. He spends most of his time saying "and this happens" as it's happening - might be useful for the visually impaired, but that's not what a commentary is supposed to be about. I guess it qualifies as screen-specific, though. Still, there are some nice bits of trivia revealed.

Commentary: Hush

    Now this is a commentary! Joss Whedon, writer and director of this unusual episode, spends quite a bit of time talking about the ideas behind this episode, and some of the dimensions he was exploring. Very worthwhile listening - recommended.

Featurette: Hush (5:08)

    Clearly this episode is special to the crew, and they have some interesting things to say about it.

Featurette: The Sets of Sunnydale (9:28)

    Carey Meyer (Production Designer) takes us on a tour of the new sets - with Buffy going from high school to college, there's a whole heap of new sets. There are several spoilers from the second half of the season, so don't watch this if you haven't seen those episodes.

Featurette: Spike, Me (11:20)

    James Marsters is always a bit of a shock, with his American accent emanating from the face we are used to hearing speak with a Cockney accent. This featurette discusses Spike's transition from a one-off disposable villain to a series regular. The shot from Season Two makes it really clear how far the video quality has come. There are a couple of spoilers, including a long term one, but they won't spoil things if you're a regular watcher.

Featurette: Buffy, Inside the Music (13:34)

    An interesting discussion of how important music is to Buffy. Christophe Beck has a lot to say, but he's not the only contributor. Includes a grab of Nerf Herder performing the theme live.

Trailers

• Buffy Season 2 DVD trailer (0:51) - shows the Region 2 packaging.
• Buffy Season 3 DVD and video trailer (0:59) - shows the video packaging.

Bios

    A total of 75 pages of bios for both the character and the actor, as on previous volumes. This time we get bios for:

• Joss Whedon
• Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy)
• Alyson Hannigan (Willow)
• Nicholas Brandon (Xander)
• Kristine Sutherland (Buffy's mother)
• Anthony Stewart Head (Giles)
• James Marsters (Spike)
• Marc Blucas (Riley)
• Amber Benson (Tara)
• Emma Caulfield (Anya)

    Region 1 is way behind on Buffy. Region 2 is up-to-date with us - they got this season three weeks before we did. I can testify that we get exactly the same thing they do - I have checked the discs and they are truly identical (same masters), except for two small differences in the labels: the R2's are darker, and they have the British / Irish classification markings instead of the Australian ones. The other difference between the two is the packaging - the UK packaging is really attractive, with all six discs presented in a binder like a photo album, with a separate page-pocket for each disc, and several pages of notes. Makes our Amarays in a slipcase look very plain; the R4 packaging takes up a lot more space, too.

    Buffy Season 4 . Better quality and in widescreen. Very cool. We never had it so good.

    The video quality is excellent, and 16x9 enhanced.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are lots of fun, and there are lots of them.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall