Buffy the Vampire Slayer-Season 3 Box Set Part 2 (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Vampire	Audio Commentary-Helpless; Bad Girls; Consequences; Ear Shot Featurette-Special Effects Featurette-Wardrobe Featurette-Weapons Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	469:52 (Case: 495)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	James A Contner Joss Whedon
Studio Distributor	Mutant Enemy Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Sarah Michelle Gellar Alyson Hannigan Nicholas Brendon Charisma Carpenter David Boreanaz Seth Green Anthony Stewart Head Alexis Denisof Eliza Dushku Emma Caulfield
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)
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

    And yet more Buffy! Is there such a thing as enough Buffy? Where else can one hear lines like: "I made him an offer he didn't survive"?

    This is the second half of Season Three (you'll find the review of the first half here - please refer to that for my idiosyncratic intro to Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Eleven episodes of impressive story and action, with plenty of comedy to lighten things. Actually, I take that back. Ten episodes of ... and one episode I could do without: The Zeppo is filler, pure and simple.

    The episodes are:

• Helpless - our first look at Quentin Travers of the Watchers Council - feel free to dislike him...
• The Zeppo - a Xander-centric episode that is completely disposable
• Bad Girls - one of the key episodes of the season - gotta love bad Buffy
• Consequences - more pivotal moments - and the Scooby Gang learn about the Mayor
• Doppelgangerland - Anya and Alternate Willow - very cool
• Enemies - The Books of Ascension, and Faith's treachery
• Earshot - Buffy's unintended mind-reading ability, including a follow-up to Band Candy
• Choices - Faith gets a present, Buffy takes the fight up to the Mayor
• The Prom - Buffy: "I'm going to give you a nice normal prom night if I have to kill everyone on the planet to do it"
• Graduation Day Parts One and Two - day of the Ascension...

    There are some interesting things to notice in these episodes, completely apart from the huge number of things that happen. For a start, keep an eye on Oz (Seth Green) - his hair changes colour almost every episode - I know he's in a band, but that's a bit extreme. For that matter, Buffy's hair changes more than once - in The Zeppo she's in an attractive soft cut. And she's wearing skirts more often, but only at school. And Giles is developing nicely, especially after Wesley's arrival.

    I was going to point out that more seems to happen in the second half of the season (Season Two was the same), but that's not true - plenty happens in the first half. The reason for the illusion, I suspect, is that the events of the first half of the season are building up to be resolved in the second half. The second half does seem rather darker, for the same reason. 

    This season is about growth and change, and that's traumatic enough for the average teenager without vampires, demons, apocalypses and the end of the world (it just feels like those things are happening). One of the truest lines I've ever heard about teenage life is to be found in Earshot: "Every single person is ignoring your pain because they're too busy dealing with their own".

    There are some genuinely nice moments, too. I won't tell you what I really liked; pick your own favourites. 

    The first volume of Season Three featured a lot of scripts as extras. I can't say that these enthuse me. They must have read my mind. This volume has no scripts, but lots of commentaries (I like commentaries).

    I just heard that Season Four is confirmed as coming out on DVD in the first half of next year. I can wait, but I'll be waiting as fast as I can.

Video

    This is a TV programme, so the video is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1; consequently it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture is fairly sharp, with reasonable shadow detail. There is no low level noise. Daytime shots are generally sharp and clear. Night time shots are considerably better than in early seasons, but still somewhat grainier, which has to be expected.

    Colour, where it appears, is strong and well-saturated. There are some vivid colours to appreciate. There's no colour bleed.

    There are some tiny film artefacts, but they are easy to overlook. There's quite a bit of aliasing, but it is fairly well-controlled. There is some moire on tweed, but far less than in the first volume. There is a little background shimmer, but it's never objectionable. All up, these episodes look rather good; there's room for improvement, but that's always likely to be the case.

    There are subtitles in seven languages. The English subtitles (regular and for the hearing impaired) are attractive, accurate and well-timed.

    The disc is single-sided and dual layered, 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. I didn't listen to the French soundtrack.

    The dialogue is easy to understand, and there are no visible audio sync issues.

    The score is consistently good - every episode this season is scored by Christophe Beck..

    There are no special directional sound effects, despite the surround encoding of the soundtrack. The subwoofer doesn't get a heap to do - mine stayed off, for lack of signal. There's plenty of bass in the soundtrack, but it seems to be encoded into the left and right channels (hope your speakers are up to it).

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menus feature animated transitions, and background sound - same on every disc.

Commentaries

    We get commentaries for several episodes:

• Helpless - commentary by writer David Fury
• Bad Girls - commentary by writer Doug Petrie
• Consequences - commentary by director Michael Gershman (also director of photography for most of Buffy)
• Earshot - commentary by writer Jane Espenson

Featurette: Wardrobe (6:46)

    A good look at the clothes characters wear - quite interesting.

Featurette: Weapons (5:07)

    Discussions and demonstrations of some of the weapons we see on Buffy, including knives, crossbows, swords, and even battle-axes.

Featurette: Special Effects (12:51)

    Mostly a discussion of the CGI effects work on Buffy; lots of coverage of dusting vampires..

    Region 1 will be getting Buffy Season 1 next year. We got the first uncut release of Season 3 (the UK release came out a couple of weeks earlier, but it is censored). If you want to pay more for Season 3, you can always get the Region 2 version...

    Buffy, complete and uncut on DVD. Very cool.

    The video quality is significantly improved, and quite acceptable.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall