Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Series - Seasons 1-7

When they can offer up "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Series," it is time for the fans of Joss Whedon's classic cult television series to admit once and for all that the party is over. Whedon wanted to create a cultural phenomenon and a pop culture icon and since Buffy was named the 13th greatest television character of all time by BRAVO, he has clearly succeeded. He took the standard horror film cliché of the blonde in the alleyway being attacked by a monster and turned it upside down by having her slay the monster and for seven seasons "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" kept on with her mission. Watching these episodes again is a great walk down memory lane:Season 1 (4.6 stakes) is only a dozen episodes but it sets the Buffy verse back on track as we get to forget the campiness of the theatrical film and face the fact that High School is Hell. Buffy Summers arrives in Sunnydale and has to contend with the Master and his minions, and then learn that Angel is a vampire. Meanwhile, Xander and Willow have their own dating problems, with giant insects and robots respectively. In "Prophecy Girl," when the Master kills Buffy, the Slayer returns the favor and then it is time to party.Season 2 (4.8 stakes) contains what I consider to be the dramatic highpoint of the entire series, when Buffy tells Angel that she loves him, kisses him, and then kills him in "Becoming, Part II." It also has the episode that Whedon considers the show's mission statement in "Innocence," when Buffy learns that Angel has become Angelus after their night together and has to face down the Judge with a decidedly unforged weapon. But there are also the memorable moments when Buffy dances with Zander at the Bronze, Spike and Drusilla first arrive in Sunnydale, our first "Halloween" episode, Kendra the Vampire Slayer shows up, Joyce dates Ted, and Angelus arranges a grissly tableau of Jenny's corpse that sends Giles into a murderous rage. I can ever argue this season has the last truly bad "BtVS" episode with "Go Fish."Season 3 (5 stakes) on balance is the best season of the show, with the first half story arc focusing on Faith the new Slayer in town combining with that of the Mayor in the second half to set up a most eventful "Graduation Day." Along the way we have SlayerFest '98, "Band Candy," "The Wish," a snow day in Sunnydale, the idiot ritual of the Cruciamentum, "The Zeppo," "Dopplegangland," Buffy's mind reading ability, and Angel showing up to dance with Buffy at "The Prom." At the end of the season Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley wander off to their own television series (see: "Angel: The Complete Series (Seasons 1-5)".Season 4 (4.6 stakes) takes Buffy to college, which does not take. After dealing with demons, such as her roommate and Gachnar, Buffy has to deal with the secret military organization the Initiative, which is responsible for putting a bloody chip in Spike's head so he doesn't chase the other puppies anymore. The two memorable episodes come back to back, with Willow's will making some changes in "Something Blue" and the Emmy nominated "Hush." Buffy gets a new boyfriend in Riley Finn, Xander dates Anya, and Willow falls for Tara. The new Big Bad is Adam, and there are return visits from Faith and Angel to go with a first meeting with the First Slayer.Season 5 (4.7 stakes) starts with Buffy meeting Dracula and ends with her sacrificing her life in "The Gift." Suddenly Buffy has a sister named Dawn, who turns out to be the Key sought by Glory, who is not a demon but a god. Buffy gives up on college, Riley gives up on Buffy, Spike orders up a Buffybot, Giles reopens the Magic Box and rebecomes Buffy's Watcher, and Joyce suddenly drops dead, a true portend of the WB finale.Season 6 (4.5 stakes) begins with Willow calling Buffy back from her grave and ends with Darth Rosenberg trying to put the Slayer back in it. Buffy comes back somewhat different, as does Amy, Dawn becomes a kleptomaniac, and everybody ends up bursting into song. Buffy and Spike end up together, Willow and Tara end up apart, and Xander leaves Anya at the altar. That Dark Willow turns out to be the Big Bad instead of the Trio is one of the biggest surprises in the entire series as comic relief turns to real tragedy.Season 7 (4.4 stakes) has the final Big Bad, the First, after Buffy from the very beginning. With potential Slayers all around the world being killed, Giles brings all the ones he can find to Sunnydale so that they can be trained for the Apocalypse to end the television series. Also added to the Scoobies are Principal Wood from the rebuilt Sunnydale High, and Andrew, the reformed and only remaining member of the Trio. Buffy and her friends have to get through the Ubervamp and Caleb to get to the first, and Faith and Angel return for the final battle, although the latter is just an errand boy.Having watched the complete series from start to finish again this month only reconfirms how great this television series was, even if it did not end on the highest note possible. Whedon's vision remains intact along the way and concludes with a literal manifestation of female empowerment (it is too bad he could not do more commentary tracks, because his are far and away the best to be found on these DVDs). The cast proved to have a remarkable range of acting ability that allowed them to do everything from farce to high drama, often in the same episode. Sarah Michelle Gellar is one of the great criers of all time, there has never been a better best gal pal than Alyson Hannigan's Willow Rosenberg. The way that time and time again guest actors could turn minor roles into major parts, epitomized by James Marsters' Spike, is another key to the show's success. Add to this how all of the characters evolved over the years, although the process was usually something akin to a rollercoaster ride. Finally, the use of music throughout the series was exceeded only by its onslaught of pop culture references.Most amazing to me is that after this operatic series reached its greatest aria with the powerful climax of "Becoming, Part 2" that it continued to be such a solid show. Even if the top was never again as high, the bottom certainly got raised up considerably after that point. This is a cult series for a whole lot of reasons and the only reason I do not touch on more of them is that I know these words are only being read by the faithful because the only people who are probably going to buy "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Series" are going to be those who already have all seven season and are buying them for friends or family (so they will stop borrowing your copies).

Physical Packaging & Disc ReviewI received my Buffy set today and everything looked perfect upon first opening. The main box was in pristine condition, and I was very excited to dig into my new set. But then when I slid the covering off and started checking out the individual movie cases for each season that were inside the big red box, I found that seasons 2 and 3 were damaged.After inspecting the inside of the case for season 2 I found that the swing holder that secures discs 2 and 3 was unhinged and bouncing around freely, also a part of the plastic case on the right side where it opens was broken off with the broken pieces sliding around freely inside of the case. The sounds of those plastic pieces moving around in the case was clear when I shook the case before I opened it, which is never a good sign. I immediately knew something was damaged before I pealed the packaging off. This case must have been crushed somehow before being put into the big box. Luckily none of the discs were dislodged, so I breathed a sigh of relief.That relief was short lived, when I checked the underside of the discs I saw that at least 3 of them were scuffed or scratched up pretty badly, disc 6 was so severely damaged that it would not play without skipping. I cannot understand how a product that is "supposedly" brand new, and factory sealed could have such significant damage upon opening. I really am sick and tired of getting brand new DVD's that have scratches on them because I've had this problem with other sets before. I heard something loose moving around inside of the season 3 case also, which I suspected was probably the same broken case pieces I just discovered in season 2. I decided at this point to not even bother opening it, or any of the rest of the seasons. I'll let amazon get it back and realize that they sent me a defective unopened case.When I opened season 1 it was perfect on the inside, the case and discs did not have a single scratch on them, so it was strange that the next two seasons were banged up as if they came from a different set. I have concluded that these different seasons were probably not even manufactured and put together in the box off the assembly line at the same time. More likely the different seasons were acquired from different warehouses or stores then shipped around to be collected for this set in the big box. This is the only explanation I can think of for some seasons looking great and others looking more beat up and damaged. There is no way a season case inside could be broken with the outside big box not having a scratch on it.I'm sending this set straight back and I am demanding a full refund. I thought this would be a great deal for the price, $69.99 at the time I ordered. I waited a week for this to arrive and it was all for nothing. I do not recommend buying large DVD sets like this from amazon. I had to do a similar return for 2 seasons of a different TV show back in March, I thought that was a one time problem so I took a chance on this set and lost.One final note on the packaging, the movie style cases that hold the discs are the same type of cheap flimsy plastic cases you find in the $5.00 bargain bin at Walmart. They are in no way as sturdy or protective as the way they used to make individual DVD movie cases. The plastic is thinner, bends easily, and it actually has circular sections behind the covers where the discs go without any plastic at all, this makes it very easy to accidentally poke the paper of the covers from the inside of the case and rip it by mistake.They have re-designed the original movie style DVD cases which were made with tougher and stronger plastic that was a lot more durable, into a cheaper weak plastic design. This was obviously done just to lighten the weight so they could reduce the cost of manufacturing and shipping, while of course giving no regard as to how this would lead to increased damage during shipping, and less durability over time after being owned for years.We are seeing the results of this now, more damaged products that have to be returned. The cases just don't hold up well, shame on them for taking the cheap way out at the customers expense. I have no doubt that if they had just put these discs inside the original types of movie cases that they used to make that my cases and discs would not have been damaged at all. These lousy cases were probably made in China for 10 cents each.If you want to avoid a huge headache, DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT!Content On Disc ReviewI was disappointed when I popped the discs into my player to check them out to see that they are EXACTLY the same ones that were released a decade ago. The menu design has not been improved or brought up to modern standards at all. All of the old bad menus are still there, with the same short annoying music audio loops that get irritating very quickly while navigating the disc. No "Play ALL" feature has been added to the discs, which was something they didn't do back then, and they could have reduced the sub-menus a bunch by putting just one "set up" on the main menu for all episodes. Instead of each episode getting it's own "language selection", this was clearly an unnecessary design.It's apparent that 20th Century Fox only wanted to repackage the exact same product they put out years ago without making any improvements in the process. They just manufactured less stylish and weaker cases, then dropped them all into a shiny new box and called it new, just to make more money off of something that's clearly a very old product. They didn't even update the FBI Warning logo screen at the beginning of the discs to what you see now on modern discs which proves these are exact copies of the first releases with no changes at all.They chose not to provide the original episode guide booklets that went with each set in the first edition releases of the DVD's, even though the movie style cases have the holder clips on the inside for a booklet to be secured. They took the cheaper way out, and instead decided to put all of that episode information behind the plastic inside of the case where the discs go, but you have to take the discs out to read it all, and even then the plastic of the cases gets in the way and makes it very hard to read all of the words. Such a poor design that was given very little practical thought when it was being developed.They could have at least updated the menus to modern standards, a good example would be to mirror what Warner Bros. DVD has done with "The Vampire Diaries" releases they have put out. Those menus are simple, with far less sub menus that clutter the disc, and come with a nice "play all" feature so you can sit and watch for hours without having to touch the remote.Since this is the same exact product, I was very disappointed also to find that they didn't correct any of the editing mistakes that they made on the first releases. I'm referring of course to the editing out all of the "Previously On Buffy the Vampire Slayer" recaps for no reason at all. Those were on other regions of the DVD releases but were MORONICALLY cut from all of the region 1 sets.I was hoping that they would be inserted back into the episodes that should have them because they are a part of the show and are important to long term watching over weeks and months to refresh your memory. They could have added an option to play all episodes with or without those recaps so if you wanted to skip them you could, or you could begin playback with them and experience Buffy the way it was on TV when it aired. I personally like the memory refresher as there are a lot of details on the show to remember.Most importantly of all though, I was really expecting that the famous editing mistake on season 7 disc 6 that had the missing scene from "End Of Days" would be fixed. For those that are unaware, the scene with Faith and the potential slayers in the sewers where the bomb explodes was mistakenly edited out on the initial releases because it was thought to be a part of the recap when it clearly was not, because the editor was a moron we never even see this explosion of the bomb at all on the DVD release. In order to see that you need to check out re-runs of the show on TV, or watch Buffy on streaming versions because it's absent on the disc.To put this show out again in 2010 as a re-release and not fix any of those editing gaffs that occurred between 2001 and 2004 when the first discs were produced is just a total crime, and it's a solid round house kick in the face to all fans of this great show who were cheated the first time around.They had an opportunity to make it right after all of these years and failed miserably. Poor job by Fox to not fix such horrible and gross errors in editing that they have been totally aware of all of this time, it was their fault, and they've had the opportunity to fix this through later releases more than once and have chosen not to do so. They don't want to put in any extra time or effort to make the show whole. Buffy deserves a better release, Fox obviously cares nothing about the presentation of this show or its loyal fans. I'm really surprised Joss Whedon hasn't tried to intervene on this.In conclusion, the overall rating on the packaging is pretty low in my opinion, it's weaker and you get less then what you got in the original fold out versions, this just saves a bit more space but it isn't an improvement at all. This is just a repack of the same old discs and all of their faults. They didn't even have the decency to include the "Bonus Disc" of special features that you got with the old "Chosen Collection" box set of the entire series. Which would have been nice because the special features aren't that impressive to begin with. So this is definitely a downgrade from that set that came out in 2005.I didn't shed any tears sending this item back, I think I'm better off just waiting for a blu-ray release, one can only hope it's coming, and that maybe we'll get an improved version of Buffy on disc than what we've gotten on the DVD's. It looks as though these will never be updated or improved from their original bad design, and the mistakes that were made a decade ago will never be corrected by the studio. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is great! The product on DVD that Fox put out leaves much to be desired.

I've always loved the series, and finally decided to buy the whole 7 seasons. The shows are just as wonderful as they always were, but this set is an incredible disappointment.I'll skip over the flimsy, cut-rate packaging...The DVDs are, frankly, a disgrace. On EVERY SINGLE EPISODE you're forced to watch the copyright and anti-piracy guff. I can stand being force to sit through all that stuff once per DVD, but EVERY episode???Even worse, the picture quality on many episodes is far worse than you'd get on a cheap TV, At times you would almost think you were watching a bootleg set, because the picture is blurred and actually looks like it was just videoed from a TV screen.Buffy is a wonderful show, but if you want to enjoy it at its best, DO not buy this abomination.

We all know that Buffy is great so I do not need to discuss this however I would like to address the issues raised in some of the bad reviews.I originally owned the individual box sets for each season of this show and the quality of the actual dvds is exactly the same as the ones I used to own. The menu, in which some people have stated is difficult to navigate, is identical to the dvd menu of the original high standard box sets.As well as this the image quality is the exact same too, this is nothing to do with bad dvd transfers but actually to do with the fact that the TV show originally aired almost twenty years ago! Hence the not so brilliant quality however they can still be watched and there isn't actually anything wrong with them.If you want to spend loads of money on dvds (which are of the exact same quality) then go ahead but unless you want a fancy box there is no difference between these dvds and the original individual box sets. I'm so glad I ignored bad reviews!

I saw a few episodes of this years ago and had forgotten about it entirely until a 20 yr anniversary programme on TV where I caught a few of the favourite episodes. I laughed so much at these that I bought the box set and I am so glad I did. All of life's lessons are in here! it has made me laugh, cry and cringe (in a good way) throughout to the extent that I think I will be watching it all again. I can't remember when a box set has been so engaging, particularly when seeing it again with a bit more life experience under my belt from the first time of watching. I also can't believe how well some of the effects have stood the test of time, not all of it has to be clear, but enough to make it impressive. I can also see where other series such a twilight and Lord of the Rings have got some of their inspiration for their special effects from too. I would wholeheartedly recommend this. It is clear when watching it that the success of this is partly due to the writing, but the casting is where it is at. Like everyone else no doubt, I was always hoping for the happy ever after ending for Buffey and Angel but without all the others this wouldn't have been enough. Anyway I've gushed enough. Just buy it. You won't regret it! I've just bought the Angel box set so lets hope that's just as good!

If your a fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar then this is for you, before Supernatural, Charmed and Twilight we had the great heroine role model in Buffy who not only slayed vampires but other demons as well as trying to cope with being a teenager going to high school and then greater challenges when in the real world dealing with paying the rent, looking after her sister and friends who become intwined in this magical world in which she was chosen. Two standouts episodes written by the wonder that is Joss Whedon Hush and Once More With Feeling show he was ahead of his time and why shows today fail in comparison.

I love this TV serial... reminds so much good time in my youth....I'm really happy with the quality of image (it's a DVD... in the 21th century, it's really old tech...) and it's really better than this horrible PIVOT broadcasting.The extra goodies are not really "breath taking" but I have the complete Buffy show, so i'm happy.I'm French but I love watching Buffy in English (with subtitles.. in order to catch all the nice dialogue from Joss Whedon) but I was surprised.On the box of this complete edition, you can see ONLY :Voice : EnglishSubtitles: EnglishBUT... You have also :Voice : FrenchSubtitles: French !!Also there are some Dutch subtitles (sorry, no voice ...).That's strange because there are no information about this ON the box set....Don't forget : " Seize the moment, ‘cause tomorrow you might be dead. " (Buffy):-)