Buffy the Vampire Slayer-Season 3 Box Set Part 1 (1998) |
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer-Season 3 Box Set Part 1 (1998) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Vampire |
Featurette-Season 3 Overview Featurette-Buffy Speak Biographies-Cast & Crew Gallery-30 photos Script-4 |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1998 | ||
| Running Time | 472:52 (Case: 495) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper |
RSDL Multi Disc Set (3) |
Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By |
Joss Whedon James Whitmore David Greenwalt James A Contner |
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Studio
Distributor |
Mutant Enemy Twentieth Century Fox |
Starring |
Sarah Michelle Gellar Alyson Hannigan Nicholas Brandon David Boreanaz Charisma Carpenter Seth Green Anthony Stewart Head Eliza Dushku Kristine Sutherland |
| Case | Soft Brackley-Transp | ||
| RPI | $79.95 | Music | Christophe Beck |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
Danish Dutch English English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish French Norwegian Swedish French Information |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
More Buffy!
If you don't know what or who Buffy is, then a word or two of introduction: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a popular TV series, confined to late-night viewing in Australia by network programmers who think the viewing public would rather be watching something else. Or perhaps it is because the average Buffy viewer is intelligent enough to operate a VCR, unlike the viewers of prime time rubbish...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is unusual in many ways. It is an inspired blend of horror and comedy, with real characters (not cardboard cut-outs) for all of the roles. The lead characters are teens, but the adults have real personalities. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has extraordinary strength and agility (courtesy of being the Slayer), but she has problems, too; this season begins shortly after Buffy has been forced to kill the man (vampire) she loves to save the world - that's got to be more than a little rough on a girl. Add in being forced to leave home because her mother has discovered that she's the Slayer, and you have enough material to keep a psychotherapist busy for years.
Buffy is not the only one with problems, though. Willow (Alyson Hannigan) is a computer nerd who is learning witchcraft, and trying to come to terms with a boyfriend who is a werewolf (but only three nights a month...). Xander (Nicholas Brandon) is the comic relief who has developed into a real character - he has problems with being in lust with Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) - she can't understand it either, and would be much happier just campaigning for prom queen without worrying about vampires. Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) is the school librarian, and Buffy's Watcher - providing advice and guidance to the Slayer, when she'll let him. Even Buffy's mother (Kristine Sutherland) has worries.
This is the third season, regarded by many as the best so far. This is the season that brought us Faith, and the Mayor. It also brought a fine assortment of lesser characters, some of whom we get to see occasionally hereafter, and some even become regulars (Anya, for example). One character is very memorable, even thought we only saw her briefly: remember the alternate Willow, a vampire in black leather?
This is the first volume in Season 3, containing 11 episodes. The two volumes both contain 11 episodes this time, unlike Season 2 (see the review of Season 2, Volume 2, for a suggested explanation of the uneven split). This volume contains:
Quite an assortment of episodes, and not a single one that doesn't advance the overall story. By this stage, the series had matured into a near-serial, with each episode being self-contained, but following on closely from the one before. There's some high drama in some of these episodes, but even the most dramatic episodes have their humorous moments.
There is one glitch in the packaging - the episodes are numbered incorrectly. The eleven episodes in this box are labelled 23 to 33. Given that there were 12 episodes in Season 1, and 22 in Season 2, that means these should be labelled 35 to 45. It's a small glitch, but exactly the sort of thing we fans love to pick up.
I gather that the first two seasons of Buffy were filmed on 16mm, but with the third season, and more resources, they switched to 35mm film. 35mm film offers more than four times the resolution, implying reduced grain and better resolution. There are some moments of excellent cinematography (I wonder if they could afford a better cameraman?), with some beautifully composed shots.
This is a TV programme, and so it is unsurprising that the video is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1; consequently it is not 16x9 enhanced.
The image is much better than Season 1 or 2. The picture is a little sharper, with slightly improved shadow detail, but it is quite noticeably clearer, especially in the foreground. Night scenes are still mostly black (a Buffy trademark), but those portions which are illuminated are much clearer. There is no low-level noise, but the intermittent background shimmer makes up for it.
Colour, where it appears, is well-saturated. There are lots of muted colours, but that's production design. There's no colour bleed.
There are no significant film artefacts. There are momentary minor touches of aliasing, but it is quite well-controlled. More troubling are the occasional moments of moire - the most noticeable is at 17:32 in Dead Man's Party, where the moire produces rainbows on Giles' tweed jacket.
There are subtitles in a number of languages. I looked at those in English, and found them accurate and well-timed, in a simple sans-serif font.
The discs are single-sided, dual layer, and RSDL formatted, but there is no visible layer change because two episodes are on one layer, and two are on the other. I like that.
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| Shadow Detail | |
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| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
There are two audio tracks available; English Dolby Digital 2.0, surround-encoded and French. I didn't listen to the French soundtrack.
The dialogue is easy to understand. There are no visible audio sync issues. One of the extras points out the unusual features of the language the teens use. It's not quite normal teen language - rather wittier, and more like what we wish we could think pf to say at the time (and usually think of two hours later...).
The score is a feature of Buffy, and the music to every episode comes from Christophe Beck. Makes for consistency.
There are no special directional sound effects, despite the surround encoding of the soundtrack. The subwoofer doesn't get a heap to do, except in supporting the score - there aren't a lot of explosions in Buffy, because they tend to stick to hand-to-hand combat.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use |  |
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| Overall | |
The menus feature animated transitions, and background sound. Unlike Season 2, which had 16x9 enhanced menus, these menus are in the same aspect ratio as the episodes.
Several episodes include their original script. Although this can be somewhat interesting, there are over 100 pages to a script, and it gets tedious paging through it using the chapter forward and back buttons.
A fun little discussion of the way these people speak.
This shouldn't really be placed on Volume 1, as it discusses the whole of Season 3, and gives away much of what happens in Volume 2. I guess you can always come back to it, unless you are the kind of person who reads the last page of a mystery first, in which case I recommend this as your first port of call...
A bio for both the character and the actor, as on previous volumes. This time we get bios for:
This is really a photo gallery, containing some 30 photos. The edges of these photos are blended with a decorative border, detracting from their appearance.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Region 1 is eagerly awaiting the arrival of Buffy Season 1 - now due in first quarter of 2002. We have been getting the first release of each season of Buffy in the world. Region 2 gets Buffy shortly after we do, but it is still after (although they do get cuter packaging sometimes).
It's Buffy. It's available on DVD. And it looks good. Colour me happy!
The video quality is significantly improved, and quite enjoyable.
The audio quality is very good.
The extras are quite reasonable, although I'd have liked a commentary or two.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Arcam DV88, using Component output |
| Display | Sony VPH-G70 CRT Projector, QuadScan Elite scaler (Tripler), ScreenTechnics 110. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Denon AVC-A1SE |
| Speakers | Front Left and Right: Krix Euphonix, Centre: Krix KDX-C Rears: Krix KDX-M, Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5 |