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List Price: $59.98 | | Label: WB Television Network, The
Salesrank: 18074
Released: January 7, 2003 |
| Our Price: $26.60 |
| Used Price: $14.00 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
All 22 classic episodes are available for the first time in this exclusive 6-disc collector’s edition. From "Faith, Hope & Trick," "Band Candy" and "Bad Girls" to "Consequences," "Enemies" and "Graduation Day, Part Two," these Season Three episodes are a must for every true Buffy fan.
Description of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Complete Third Season:
The third season of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was marked by the arrival in Sunnydale of renegade slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku), a moody loner who seemed to like her demon-staking calling just a little too much. While Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was always wary of Faith, the two developed a deep friendship and appreciative rapport--that is, until the evil mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener) tapped into Faith's dark side and lured her into his plot to take over the world, first as a double agent spying on Buffy, then as out-and-out nemesis. And as the mayor's ascension approached--which happened to fall on Sunnydale High's graduation day--Buffy and Faith's battles got nastier and nastier, as Buffy attempted to wrestle with her dark side (literally and figuratively), save the world and her friends, and keep her lover Angel (David Boreanaz) out of Faith's evil clutches.
Chock-full of exceptional episodes, this third season started out with a bang (the superb season opener "Anne," in which a runaway Buffy finally returns to her Slayer calling) and never let up. Among other highlights, the season introduced former vengeance demon and soon-to-be regular Anya (Emma Caulfield), fleshed out Angel's tortured character (and readied him for his own series), and featured a hilarious doppelganger Willow (Alyson Hannigan), a vampire from a parallel universe, who in Willow's own words was "evil and... skanky... and kinda gay!" (Total foreshadowing there, folks.) The season's pièce de résistance, though, was the two-parter "Graduation Day," wherein Faith tries to kill Angel, and the students of Sunnydale High prepare to do battle with a mutated mayor and his army of demons. Aside from the series' exceptional writing and acting, this compelling year of Buffy was anchored by the consistently excellent Gellar, as well as Dushku's complicated Faith, a girl you truly love to hate. By the time you finish these episodes, Faith will have cast a spell on you that you'll find very hard to shake. --Mark Englehart
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Complete Third Season Reviews:
Great 
2009-12-05 - This is a great season of Buffy. It is a wonderful addition to anyone's collection. I highly recommend it.
Buffy's best season ever?
2009-12-03 - And so we move on to season 3 of Buffy, doing the impossible and pretty much topping season 2, or close to it, with even better stories, new characters--hey--come on, who is as hot and as evil as Faith? while ringing more emotional turmoil out of us Buffy love slaves!! Oh and lets not forget our first intro to Anya, Xander's soon to be love demon no longer a demon love interest. The entire town is turned upside down thanks to Cordelia, in what is to me one of the top three episodes of all time "The Wish." when she makes her desires known to Anyanka. If you havent' see it, wow--perfect television. Other episodes to watch "Band Candy" which will continue to have hilarious reprecusions and come up as an in joke for the next few seasons regarding Giles and Buffy's mom, "Faith, Hope, and Trick," which showcases Faith for the first time in a wicked intro for a tv series, and of course, the saga of the mayor of Sunnydale. To me it is still one of the all time best story lines on the show hands down. Terrifically acted, and played by all the characters with ease, if you were not hooked by season three you are not human!!!! Great great television. No one does it better then Joss Whedon and his crack writing staff.
Season 3, Episode 1: Anne
Original Air Date--29 September 1998
While Cordelia went to Cancun, Xander, Willow and Oz learned to control the vampire population without the slayer, Giles follows falls trails all over the States, but the new school year starts without expelled Buffy. Under her middle name Anne, she became a waitress in L.A., still dreaming of eternal love with Angel but is recognized by another Sunnydale exilee, whose present alias is Lilly, and helps her search for her sweetheart Rickie, whose life-drained body she finds. Only painfully later they realize that Ken is the culprit, when he pushes them trough a portal to a hell of hard labor- can a slayer handle the taskmaster demons?
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Season 3, Episode 2: Dead Man's Party
Original Air Date--6 October 1998
Buffy is back home, to her mother Joyce's great relief, which calls for a dinner invitation for the while gang, but the mood remains gloomy, despite her resuming the main slaying tasks although for the others things can't just return to their former state, not in the least because the obviously amused principal Snyder pays no attention to pleas to take Buffy back (mother's threat to take the case to the mayor even has an inverse effect), while Buffy still dreams of Angel. After a dead cat found in the Summers bookcase, other stinking corpses come to life again, a phenomenon which must have something to do with a the mysterious Nigerian mask with lighting red eyes mother Joyce bought, fortunately no secret to Giles...
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Season 3, Episode 3: Faith, Hope & Trick
Original Air Date--13 October 1998
The gang enjoys being Seniors now. The Summers girls gloat the school board overruled the principal's refusal to allow Buffy back after make-up tests, but guilty nightmares about having slain her beloved Angel still plague Buffy, who remains too gloomy to accept a charming dance invitation from cute student Scott Hope, but he sweetly persists his charm offensive. Following a suspected vampire, Buffy finds the presumed victim is the new second slayer, Faith, who considers Giles hunky for a watcher. A limousine arrives in Sunnydale with upper-class vampires: the gravely mutilated Kakistos and his lieutenant, Mr. Trick. When some underlings attack the slayers in Kakistos's name, Giles warns it's Greek for 'the worst'... Buffy admits Willow's spell had cured Angel just before she slew him; somehow he reemerges from the hell-dimension her slaying sent him to.
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Season 3, Episode 4: Beauty and the Beasts
Original Air Date--20 October 1998
Xander minds Oz, caged in the library for his lunar werewolf nights, but dozes off; a boy is kill in the woods and the window is open, so Faith takes second watch. Buffy dates gentle Scott Hope and takes mandatory school counseling with Mr. Platt, who says she must conquer her 'demon', obsession with a lost love. Looking for the werewolf, Buffy bumps into Angel, now a half-naked beast, and locks him up cuffed to chains in the mausoleum but tells nobody, not even Giles who says even after centuries of torture in the hell-dimension he may still be a redeemable monster, then finds Platt, murdered during the day. Scotty's school friends Pete Clarner and Debbie Foley share a horrible secret. The gangs suspects them because of links to the victims, meanwhile Angel breaks his chain...
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Season 3, Episode 5: Homecoming
Original Air Date--3 November 1998
Buffy and Cordelia battle against one another for Homecoming Queen. Meanwhile, Mr. Trick puts together a group of hunters to track down Buffy and Faith in "Slayerfest '98."
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Season 3, Episode 6: Band Candy
Original Air Date--10 November 1998
As Buffy deals with Giles and her mom treating her too much like a child, the mayor hires Ethan Rayne to make special kinds of candy bars. The more candy the adults of Sunnydale eat, the more they begin to act like teenagers.
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Season 3, Episode 7: Revelations
Original Air Date--17 November 1998
Gwendolyn Post, an uptight, by-the-book English Watcher, arrives in Sunnydale claiming that the Watchers Council sent her as Faith's new one, or rather to assess the whole situation in Sunndydale, looking down upon understandably stressed Giles as on his library. She takes charge of their next, common mission: slaying the demon Lagos and destroying his weapon, the glove of Myhnegon, which is in the tomb of the von Hauptman family on Restfield cemetery. Meanwhile, Angel, back to his tender self, gets it for Buffy, but is seen kissing her by Xander, who reports this to Giles, who is deeply hurt, especially with Miss Post breathing down his neck, but doesn't tell her. With all of her friends angry and upset that Buffy didn't tell them that Angel had returned from Hell, Xander, worried and (despite kissing Willow again) again maliciously goes behind Buffy's back and informs Faith about Angel's return and persuades her to kill him before he may turn evil again. When Giles shows the surprised Gwendolyn the glove Buffy brought him and the rit all he found to destroy it, her hidden agenda proves a huge problem for everyone, the gang only finds out when Faith is already on the wrong foot...
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Season 3, Episode 8: Lovers Walk
Original Air Date--24 November 1998
The gang plans to celebrate their SAT scores bowling, Buffy's mother's insistence to go to a decent college is promoted by Giles and Angel. Willow has a worse regret then her relative failure, rekindling passion with Xander; determined to save their relationships with Oz and Cordelia, she visits a magic shop for the necessary ingredients for a reverse love potion. Xander finds her and objects to another inexperienced witch messing with him. They are actually stopped and captured by Spike, who has returned, observed Angel, followed Willow and now forces her to make a love potion to return Drusilla to him. Before Buffy and Angel have got hold of Spike and made him tell they're in the abandoned factory, the crypto-couple is found, kissing fearing their last hours, by Oz and Cordy, who thus get hurt in more then one way...
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Season 3, Episode 9: The Wish
Original Air Date--8 December 1998
Wanting to be rid of Xander for good, Cordelia comes to the conclusion that Buffy is the cause of all her problems and makes a wish to the new transfer student, Anya, that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. Anya, being the evil and powerful vengeance demon Anyanka, grants that that wish and in a heartbeat... the entire world changes... and everything Cordelia knows is completely different. In this alternate reality of 'It's a Wonderful Life gone to Hell': the Master is alive and rules the town after dark from the Bronze; both Xander and Willow are vampires; and Giles with a small group of brave students, called The White Hats, are fighting a losing war of attrition against the vampires on their own. Then in a shocking turn, Cordelia gets killed by the vamps, leaving the alternate reality Giles to figure out on his own what has happened to this world they currently live in, leading to a meeting with the alternate reality Buffy.
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Season 3, Episode 10: Amends
Original Air Date--15 December 1998
People in Sunnydale prepare for Christmas tide, except Jewish Wilow, who tells lover Oz she's ready for physical intimacy, he decides to wait. Now his physical suffering is over, Angel is haunted by a new kind of nightmares and visions, always and everywhere, about Angelus' horrible past since the 19th century, with victims and other persona appearing and talking to him. Learning those visions even enter Buffy's dreams, focusing on sex with her to lose his soul and then killing her, Giles agrees to do research as Angel desperately begged him; he is helped by Buffy and Xander, for whom Christmas is a nightmare of lacking any family celebration. They find that Angel is tormented by the Bringers or Harbingers of Death, the three high-priests of the First Evil, older then demons and incorporeal, and Buffy finds the mark of its residence. Angel can't stand the fear of giving in to temptation at the price of her life and resolves to commit suicide by sunrise, Buffy's pleading to make him resist seems to fail, only a Christmas miracle can save the seasonal day...
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Season 3, Episode 11: Gingerbread
Original Air Date--12 January 1999
The discovery in Sunnydale park of a boy and girl aged 7-8, apparently murdered ritually as indicated by markings, soon tracked to witchcraft -as used by sorcery apprentice Willow-, has an unusual emotional effect. Buffy's mother, who was there in an attempt to bond, founds the soon influential Mothers Opposing the Occult, MOO, actually including fathers and sympathizers, which alas targets white as well as black magic, even slaying, actually urged by the two killed kids to 'hurt the bad girls'. Eagerly helped by principal Snyder, mayor Wilkins and the police, MOO manages to have the school lockers searched, Giles' books confiscated and risking to end up a stake, where they believe witches must be solved, even if this extreme 'punishment' concerns their own daughters. When the gang realize nobody ever identified the kids, they find there's more to Hans and Greta Strauss, in their dark past...
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Season 3, Episode 12: Helpless
Original Air Date--19 January 1999
For her upcoming 18th birthday, Buffy declines the Scooby gang's offer of a big party, hoping to celebrate with quiet reflection and a traditional trip to the ice show with her father. But Buffy doesn't know that preparations are being made for a life-threatening rite of passage that drains the slayer of her powers and then entraps her with a powerful and psychotic vampire foe.
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Season 3, Episode 13: The Zeppo
Original Air Date--26 January 1999
When Xander realizes that he isn't needed as much as he'd like to believe, his quest to prove he's cool leads him to an unforgettable night that finds him consorting with fast women, raising the dead and rolling with a dangerous crowd that could put Sunnydale in a world of hurt. Meanwhile, Buffy, Giles and the rest of the crew engage in a furious battle with the Sisterhood of Jhe, an all-female demon apocalypse cult that intends to reopen the Hellmouth and bring about the end of the world.
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Season 3, Episode 14: Bad Girls
Original Air Date--9 February 1999
The gifted students enjoy early college admissions, while Xander and Buffy rather worry about present high-school exams. The mayor and his cronies look forward to his demonic ascension, after 100 days of invulnerability. Buffy's council-appointed new, young Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is received coldly, forbids Giles even to be kept informed but proves his research-excellence by identifying instantly swords as belonging to the 15th century duelist vampires sect El Eliminati, the survivors of which still look for demon Balthazar's buried amulet; Buffy and Faith successfully search for it at the cemetery and clean out a vampire layer. Angel takes the amulet: it's not safe enough with greenhorn Wesley. The order reports to Balthazar's blob-shaped representative about his amulet. Impetuous Faith drags Buffy along, they get arrested and kill the innocent deputy mayor Allan Finch. Both watchers get captured by the sect, Angel brings the slayers...
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Season 3, Episode 15: Consequences
Original Air Date--16 February 1999
Buffy tries to convince Faith to face up to the consequences of her actions, but Faith thinks that being a Slayer puts her above the law. Buffy confides in Giles about the accidental murder and he decides not to involve the new Watcher, Wesley, knowing that Faith is extremely unstable. Angel tries to get through to Faith, but when Wesley discovers the truth and comes after her, Faith's trust in Buffy and the gang is destroyed.
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Season 3, Episode 16: Doppelgangland
Original Air Date--23 February 1999
Anyanka, the demon who used her power to grant wishes to let Cordelia unwillingly create a world without Buffy as Sunnydale slayer, failed since then to get top-rank demon D'Hoffryn to rehabilitate her, but finally gets a chance to succeed in her menial incarnation as Sunnydale High pupil Anya: Willow, who is frustrated as a girl and individual, always taken for granted, in Buffy's shadow and just got railroaded by principal Snyder to 'tutor', or in fact slavishly do the paper writing on her own, for a spoiled jock brat, hunky Percy West, who even explicitly barks at her as his menial flunky, naively accepts to help 'Anya' with a black magic spell. Willow realizes only too late she's really working for the wrong side, stops before Anyanka's power-amulet is revalidated, but still summons a parallel Willow from a black dimension where she's a master vampire, who now makes her grand entry in Drusilla-style at the Bronze, co-existing with gentle Willow. The gang has no time to mourn 'the best of us', who urgently must join in again with Angel, while the new official Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce from England, proves of little use, to survive and get rid of the dark 'alien' version, while both go undercover as the other...
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Season 3, Episode 17: Enemies
Original Air Date--16 March 1999
As a part of her new alliance with the Mayor, Faith tries to seduce Angel so that he will again lose his soul. When that fails, the Mayor summons a powerful demon to remove Angel's soul with dark magic.
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Season 3, Episode 18: Earshot
Original Air Date--21 September 1999
After an encounter with a mouth-less demon, Buffy is infected with the demon's blood and she gains the ability to hear people's thoughts. At first her newfound ability is useful for cheating on schoolwork and eavesdropping on the thoughts of those around her, but when the voices continue to flood her mind, she realizes that she cannot control the power. Amid the chaos, Buffy hears a killer planning a mass murder at the school. Now she must keep herself from going mad long enough to prevent a catastrophe.
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Season 3, Episode 19: Choices
Original Air Date--4 May 1999
Nearly all the gang is admitted to colleges, Willow even Oxford; only Xander plans to tour instead. The mayor gives Faith a precious weapon as reward, and the mission to intercept at the airport the box of Gavrok, a container of mystical energy he needs for his demonic ascension. Mother Joyce hopes Buffy goes to Northwestern University, near an aunt in Illinois, but the watchers doubt if her slayer-duties allow any long absence from the Hellmouth; maybe if she first prevents the ascension, therefore Giles agrees to seize the initiative once they know more, quickly done ignoring Wesley's caution by the Council's book. Angel helps Buffy steal the box from the town hall, but Faith takes Willow hostage, only Wes would refuse to exchange her. First Willow kills a vampire guard and consults the Books of Ascension; at the meeting of both sides, the box is dropped, spilling some of its spider-scary content...
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Season 3, Episode 20: The Prom
Original Air Date--11 May 1999
The gang insists the watchers should at least allow them a glorious prom night before fighting the mayor's ascension. Mother Joyce Summer's speech it's up to mature lover Angel to make hard choices her teenage daughter is incapable of gives Angel nightmares about a wedding in an empty church after which Buffy burns in sunlight, so he decides to give her a normal love-life by breaking up, he'll leave Sunnydal after the ascension. Xander finds out spoiled Cordy has to work in a fashion shop now the IRS has taken her dad's last dime, they are attacked by a hell-hound which seems trained to target formal dressers and is electronically brainwashed by Buffy's scorned admirer, chemistry student Tucker Wells. Buffy decides to slay-chaperon the prom for the others, hunts the hell-hounds and gets surprising bonuses...
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Season 3, Episode 21: Graduation Day: Part 1
Original Air Date--18 May 1999
The gang seeks a cure for Angel, who has been shot by Faith with a poison arrow. Meanwhile they try to find a way to stop the Mayor's Ascension and Buffy has a showdown with Faith.
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Season 3, Episode 22: Graduation Day: Part 2
Original Air Date--13 July 1999
Buffy forces Angel to drink her own blood to rid his body of Faith's poison. With Buffy in a severely weakened state, the gang decides to rally the masses of Sunnydale High to defeat the Mayor once and for all.
Not quite what I expected.... 
2009-11-22 - I ordered the slim set, and received the older wide set. I'm not too upset because the discs still worked and the delivery was pretty fast, but still, you expect to get what you ordered.....
When door closes another one opens
2009-10-17 - Angel's last full season on Buffy, Faith's first. Just as the final year of high school ushers in a new chapter in the characters lives, it also brings in a rogue slayer as a protagonist for Buffy and the Scoobie Gang. Dusted Vamps, killed critters, heroic action, just what the doctor ordered. The big finale sees the loss of the high school and Buffy's one true love. Excellent writing and compelling acting with plenty of special effects to boot. The Joss Whedon blueprint.
Great follow-up 
2009-10-16 - This third season of Buffy was great, it picked up right where season 2 left off. Buffy is now living in LA, in a depression after being forced to kill Angel at the end of the last season. Back in Sunny dale, her friends are trying to fill the void left by her absence, hunting the vampires on their own. The very first episode, "Anne", is one of my favorite episodes in the series, and also my favorite season premiere. I mean, the season just opened with a bang. Somehow, that whole slave thing underground reminded me of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Anyway, Buffy eventually returns to Sunnydale after remembering her calling. At first, her mom and her friends seem happy to have her back, but with time, Buffy realizes that they are all very angry with her for leaving the way she did.
Now I just want to say something here that I haven't said in my earlier reviews of this series. I hate Buffy's mom. She's such a control freak. I mean, in the first two seasons, it was understandable for her to be so overbearing. She didn't know that Buffy was the slayer. She thought Buffy was just immature. Now that she knows, she's going to be more understanding, right? Well, no. She, along with Willow and Xander, are very angry at Buffy for leaving Sunnydale. Um, WHAT!? Buffy just killed the man she loved, she sacrificed him to save the world! And let's not forget the fact that she lost just about everything else, too. She was, at the time, wanted for murder, expelled from school, and kicked out of her house by her mother. You know, the same one who's angry at her for leaving. So Buffy left for a few months to be alone for a while. Only someone as strong as Buffy could have had all that happen to her and not gone insane or committed suicide. And her friends are mad at her for putting them through...what? I would have expected this from her mom, but her friends? I don't know. This whole thing seemed kinda contrived to me.
So Buffy makes up with her mom and her friends. The next episode, "Faith, Hope, and Trick", introduced Faith, a character that many people love and/or love to hate. She's a new slayer, the one who was called after Kendra's death. Faith is the polar opposite of Buffy. Not a lot is said about her childhood, but we get the impression that she came from a very disfunctional family. Her watcher has been killed, and a very dangerous vampire named Kakistos is after her. Her and Buffy are able to kill Kakistos, and they start to become friends. However, Faith's dark side starts to take over her, and she ends up allying herself with the Mayor of Sunnydale, who wants to take over the world by turning into a pure demon. I love the character of Faith, and I love what they do to her in future seasons of Buffy and Angel.
Angel is somehow brought back from Hell. How? We don't really know. It's hinted at that the First brought him back, but we never really find out for sure. That's kind of annoying. Angel and Buffy try to stay apart, but find it too hard to not be involved with each other. At the end of the season, Angel decides to leave Sunnydale and seek out his own spin-off show in LA. I think this was a wise move on the part of the writers, since Angel didn't really have all that much to do in this season. And his show was awesome.
There were a few things I didn't like about this season. First of all, the relationship between Cordelia and Xander ends when he cheats on her with Willow. And then Cordelia goes back to being a snotty brat like she was in season one. That kind of disarmed what they did to her in season two, starting to make her into a nicer person. Secondly, Principal Snyder. At the end of season 2, when he expells Buffy from school, they make it seem like he's working for the mayor. He knows that they are on a hellmouth, and it's hinted at that he knows Buffy is the slayer. However, in this season, it seems that he does not know anything about the mayor's plans. Thirdly, this season introduced the character Anya. I loathed this character. I will have more to say about her in upcoming reviews. There are a few instances here and there where you can see small mistakes the writers made. They are not huge, but you can see that this was leading to the crap we had to watch in seasons 4, 5, and 7.
Even with my minor complaints, this season is very good. There are excellent comedic episodes, such as "Homecoming", "Band Candy", "Lover's Walk", and "The Zeppo". There are also dark episodes, such as "The Wish", "Amends", "Bad Girls" and "Helpless." There are also some stupid episodes, like "Dead Man's Party" and "Gingerbread". The season finale, "Graduation Day", was excellent. My friends and I actually did something like that at our high school graduation. Only we used guns. Lots of guns. Overall, this season was very well-done, and a good followup to season two. I didn't like it as much as season 2, but it was still very entertaining.
