Thoughts on Buffy: Season 2 (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Beacom]

Dave,

Disc 1 Ep 2 first 5 minutes where Willow signs up for the Science Comp and then Buffy turns up talking about the "Bat Signal". This is possibly one of the worst scenes. Lot's of kids walking past in the background.

The first thing I tried was turning off progressive with the RP91 still set to Auto. This pretty much fixed everything. Next I set it to Video and tuned progressive back on. This showed less combing than I saw initially but still a sigificant amount. I then turned off progressive and watched with interlaced + video mode. This looked the same as the first option.

For now I'm leaving the player set to Auto and just turning progressive off when I throw Buffy in.

I didn't notice the same amount of problems in S1 but perhaps it's that the scenes in S2 make them easier to spot.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Welp, i'm late to the party as usual. I picked it up on Friday for 40 bucks and have watched all up until 'Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered'. I love that ep! Seeing Xander all in a tiff bags me up! That shot of him walking down the hall in slow mo while that song plays over the scene and every female in the school leering at him had me rolling!
As with the first season set, I feel damn proud to have this on dvd! Having this series on dvd feels like winning the lottery or something, too good to be true! I couldn't wait to get it home and open it, and when I took the shrink wrap off, this thing seemed to unfold for a mile!
Quality wise, it's solid. The best the show has ever looked and sounded. Yes, it does exhibit grain, but it's tolerable. Hey, for a show shot on 16mm it could have been a lot worse.
My only gripe is with the timeliness of the releases of the seasons. At this rate it's going to take a couple of years to get the whole series! :frowning:

 

[Dave_P.]

My only gripe is with the timeliness of the releases of the seasons. At this rate it's going to take a couple of years to get the whole series!

Yeah that does suck. R2 is up to Season 6 already! :frowning:

 

[Dave F]

R2 is only up to season 4 so far.

-Dave

 

[DeborahK]

About the timing of the BUFFY R1 releases: What I don't get about this is why wait until January of 2003 for Season 3? This set is crying out to be on everyone's holiday gift list and it seems like a missed opportunity not to release the disks in November or December of 2002. It would be different if the thing weren't basically already good to go or if there were still a syndication issue that had to be waited out, but neither of those things is true so what is their reasoning here? I don't get it.

Deborah

 

[Joseph Young]

if there were still a syndication issue that had to be waited out, but neither of those things is true so what is their reasoning here?

It was my impression that the R1 delays were due to the advertisors continuing to benefit off the FX syndication. Wasn't the advertising deal regarding Season 3 in effect until Winter 2003? Am I wrong on this? What other reason could possibly be given for the delay? Again, I don't read up on Buffy sites or what-not, so I could be totally mistaken.

Since the other regions will have released the full series long before Region 1, it has to be an advertising/syndication rights (in the States) issue still.

Believe me, I want the next season sets as much as the next person (and the sooner the better). My intro to this show was 'Once More, With Feeling' I had never seen season 1 and 2 prior to getting the boxed sets. I still have over 3 seasons to watch for the first time, so I am especially anxious to see more.

-j

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Broadcast syndication just started Season 3 about a month ago. We have to wait till broadcast has their run, ending sometime in December. There are 2 broadcast tracks, 1 started in season 3, one in season 1. the Season 1 track is the one that counts for our DVDs

 

[DeborahK]

Joseph,

You must be right -- it would make sense that something such as this would have to be the only reason they would hold this set up, but it still does not seem very logical. Why would they get the right to show season 3 so much longer before the DVD release than the rights to show season 1 or 2? After all, you can run through every episode in each of the seasons currently in syndication in less than a month, so it just seems odd that they need to run some seasons only a year (before releasing the DVDs) and others two or more years, don't you think?

Oh well, what do I know, after all?

Deborah

 

[DeborahK]

Ooops -- it is FX that can run through a season's episodes in only 22 days, not the stations that have the show in syndication. My bad, as they say.

None-the-less, they have still syndicated season 3 at least once already and perhaps even more than that. In my area, the first round of syndication showed season one and season three and skipped season two. Not sure when season two showed up, but later than season three. So, it seems to me that season two potentially got shown by the time the season 2 DVDs were releasedless than season three will have been shown by the time this set hits the market.

Deborah

 

[Joseph Young]

I know next-to-nothing about advertising revenue and costs, but my guess is: there are a certain number of episode rotations which must be met before the advertisers 'break even' for their commitment to the airtime. The fact that this is exclusively a region 1 phenomenon, and knowing that Whedon has already recorded commentary for several episodes, even up to the latest seasons, is kind of frustrating.
I don't use my set for broadcast television, and I missed out on the majority of Buffy's run (both original and syndication). The DVD releases will be technically my only chance and it will take several years for me to catch up with this surprisingly good show. Despite the legal/financial reasoning behind the Region 1 delay, I still think it's dumb... and stupid... and, like, other words for dumb and stupid I can't think of right now.
-j

 

[DeborahK]

Amen to that, Brother Joseph!
I actually think that the whole US model of commercial will need to be re-thought very shortly. You can see a crisis brewing with some of the issues raised by PVRs and the like. And let's face it -- even with yucky old video tape, more and more people have been time shifting and simply skipping commercials for quite a while now. Personally, I hate the whole way the system pits good shows against each other and the way it panders to certain age groups and geographical areas. There just has to be a better way than this.
But I digress ... this is after all a BUFFY season 2 thread and not a "What's Wrong With Amercian Television" thread.
So, back to BUFFY S2: I think the packaging is gorgeous on this set, but it is *very* awkward to handle if you don't have a surface on which to place the set while extracting one of the disks. I have gotten down right annoyed with it of late.
I am almost through all the episodes now and looking forward to going back to check out the commentaries and such.
Deborah

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I'm not very happy with the US packaging. I really wish it was like the X-Files boxes, the graphic design is great on those. With Buffy it looks like someone took a couple hours with Photoshop

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I actually think that the whole US model of commercial will need to be re-thought very shortly.

I think that this is already being done by Fox if the rumors of a domestic "24" season One release prove to be true. They basically have to look at a property's potential revenue from video and syndication and how they interact, and I'm sure the A+B=C of it all varies widely by series.

Regards,

 

[DeborahK]

Hi, Jeff,

I remember you saying a while back that you thought the package design for this set was chintzy, so I was surprised that I liked it. I agree that it does not have the same sophisticated look of The X-Files sets, but none the less I thought it was quite eye catching and pleasing. Somehow it sort of suits that whole Mall Girl look they say they were going for in the Beauty and the Beasts featurette. BTW, I just watched all the set's featurettes last night and I really enjoyed them.

Ken,

21 does seem to be a thing apart and the first season may well work better as a DVD set than as a syndicated show. But that has more to do, I think, with the nature of it's first season than with anyone re-thinking the way networks construct their seasons by day, hour, and placement within particular weeks and months of the year to "win" time slots and to conform with the sweeps system. I think that placing some show carefully at 9 pm on Thursdays loses meaning when a large segment of your audience is going to watch it whenever anyway. Slowly but surely all these machinations seem to be coming more and more meaningless and I wonder what we will end up with 5 or 10 years from now. Could be they will start putting adverts on the DVD sets (or what ever format we end up with) I suppose, or think of some other way to relentlessly market to the only segment of our population that seems susceptible to adverrtising, i.e. young, white males. On the other hand, the advertisers have basically paid for the production of the programs themselve so there may be no way around this in the end.

Deborah

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The X-Files sets do the "look at my noggin" style with, well style. These are just promotional shots slapped on a generic background.

24 is coming early because it's VERY syndication unfriendly. You can't show it out of order. I'll be very suprised if the Malcom in the Middle sets they're working on come out in the next 2 years in the US

 

[CamiloCamacho]

The problem you are facing is the same that people from other regions have been suffering since the launch of DVD (well, at least you finally get those sets and at a reasonable price)....

And the solution is a MultiRegion DVD. There are a lot of models with a great range of prices... Without this sets, my only TV DVD's will be the V ones.

 

[Brian Kidd]

I'm not crazy about the packaging either. I'd much rather have one of those 6 disc keepcases. Still, it's a small complaint about a great series with an even better price tag. Let's hope it's the start of a trend.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Camilo, I am well equipped for getting the sets early
However, I really hate PAL speedup and would like to avoid it whenever possible

 

[DeborahK]

If it was just a matter of a multiregion disk player, no problem. But having to convert from PAL to NTSC is expensive to do well and, even when done well, the result is often less than satisfactory. Also, in the USA, having to have a multiregion player that does the conversion really cuts down on the choice of players one can buy. To me, it just doesn't seem to be worth the extra expense and sacrifice of player features and choices. A really good and economical solution might come along at some point but right now I don't see one -- at least not for me.

I know we will get all this product eventually. My gripe is the common one of US viewers: We chafe under the knowledge that product created here and for us is offered on DVD (previously on tape) to people all over the world long before we can get out hands on it. At least now that there is DVD we are getting whole season's of these shows. Even as soon as two years ago, we could'nt even buy a complete season of shows such as BUFFY or The X-Files here -- only tapes of a few highlight episodes. And for those who came late to some of these shows it also wouldn't be so bad if they would just syndicate them earlier. But those who miss the early seasons of shows have to wait until there are 100 episodes in the can (a little more than five years) before they can catch up with a show, even on television. Meanwhile, people elsewhere can just buy or rent what they have missed and track along almost in real time. It 's just so dumb and aggravating.

Deborah

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Deborah, DVD-ROM drive, Radeon 7500 card w/TV out
Total cost $100
Hack the drive, download DVD Region Killer, and you have very nice PAL-NTSC conversion