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List Price: $199.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 1574
Released: August 1, 2006 |
| Our Price: $164.99 |
| Used Price: $179.99 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
No Description Available.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 19-SEP-2006
Media Type: DVD
Description of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Collector's Set (40 discs):
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
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Collector's Set (40 discs) Reviews:
Best Show Ever! 
2008-09-04 - I love the convenient packaging, and the show is great, I grew up watching it. I highly recommend for any Buffy fan!
GREAT! But some discs don't work! 
2008-08-25 - My Husband gave me this complete set as a Christmas gift. I was so excited...until I got to season 3 and two discs didn't work. I immediately started playing them all and found similar non-readable discs in seasons 4,5,& 6. My husband emailed Amazon immediately, but was told that it was past the date for exchange due to defect.
This was a lesson learned: Even if your purchase is a gift, OPEN IT! Make sure all of the discs work or you will be stuck having to purchase whole seasons for just one disc.
The extras in this set are awesome!
Great Show, and packaging
2008-08-08 - Buffy is a fun show that's really enjoyable for most everybody. The series packaging is the best I've seen out of any show, much better then Stargate SG-1's.
I have found that the episodes are pretty dark at some points and it makes it hard to see what's going on. I just assume that's the way they had taped the show, and not anything wrong with the discs themselves. Otherwise, I'm extremely pleased with the purchase.
CANCELED BY 2 NETWORKS. THIS IS JUST A BAD SHOW 
2008-07-29 - Buffy was canceled twice because of the show just being over the top pc and add to that poor scripts and awful acting. Sarah Michelle Gellar was so wasted i nthis show. No wonder she couldnt wait to get away from it. Save your money for something better because this show is down right bad
The Complete Series 
2008-07-12 - 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.
