Buffy Season 1: Any Spoilers in Special Features? (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Grey]

Otherwise it seemed tailor-made for an Emmy screener. I'm surprised it didn't even get a screenplay nomination (which Hush did) though I thought the direction was the best part of both episodes.

 

[Scott_F_S]

I'd love to continue this discussion further, but shouldn't this take place somewhere else? Far afield of what the original intent of the thread was.

The guy came here asking if he should avoid spoilers, but then we start spoiling stuff, especially Jay_B.

 

[Holadem]

I would agree when he started but the guy in question is in the middle of S5... I think discussions are fair game at this point.

--
H

 

[Kevin Grey]

So far I haven't had anything spoiled and am enjoying the discussion. I suppose the Buffytastic or DVD discussion thread would be better but both of those contain spoilers for the entire series so if the discussion moves over there I'll have to bow out for the time being but that's understandable.

 

[DaveGTP]

This phenomenon, I've seen, comes from the nature of the shows. I notice any Buffy or Babylon 5 thread tends to spin out into a as-the-original-poster watches it (like the Buffy-hater watches the show thread over on dvdtalk). And new viewers can't generally post in the big threads because of all the spoilers.

P.S. I thought the Body episode was the best damn episode of anything I had seen in ages. Talk about a well done episode, I think this is one of the best of the show, despite its basically offtopic content.


The vamp appearing IMO was an issue of showing that despite whatever is going on in Buffy's life, work must always go on for the Slayer...

Plus, I thought at how Buffy struggled with it and it almost gets her: it illustrated how Spike was right about slayers being killed when they lost the will to live. One lowly, justborn vamp and Buffy is barely able to kill it. Without the zest and willingness to keep going a slayer is toast pretty quickly.

 

[Ray H]

It's actually pretty odd to go back and revisit Season 1 of Angel. It's filled with all these strange stylistic choices that they used before they found the show's voice. For example, there are a few stylized montages set to techno and rock songs that you'd never find in any other season of Angel (or even Buffy).

 

[MaraKM]

Personally, I love these "Newbie watching all seasons of show-X" threads, they have a unique appeal, much more fun than a general discussion thread. Maybe someone can change the thread title to indicate it's now a "Kevin Watches Buffy and Angel" thread?

 

[Kevin Grey]

Quick question- just finished up Season Five and was watching the "Season Five Overview" special feature and it was mentioned that Warren
is the villain for Season 6. Is that a big spoiler or it something revealed early on in the season like the identity of most of the Big Bads?

 

[David Williams]

The latter.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Great, thanks David!

Thought Season Five was great. I'd say it was the most consistent season throughout, not a clunker in the bunch IMO (I've read that some don't like Triangle but I thought it was a lot of fun).

I am finding some of the arc story-telling frustrating. I'm drawing a specific distinction between the seasonal story arc and the character arcs here. The character arcs in S5 are absolutely fantastic but I think that thrives at the expense of some plotting. Season Five was probably the most complex season arc from a story standpoint yet but I also found that frustrating because it serves to highlight some of the shortcomings in that area from the team.

In particular I thought the macro story took a bit of a stumble following "The Body." Now that's completely understandable considering the events of "The Body" and, the character work following that episode was impeccable. Unfortunately once again its at the cost of some pacing of the overall storyline as it closes in on the finale. Not nearly as disasterous as the hit that the pacing took in Season Four though.

In contrast I thought Season Three had an almost perfect build-up to the finish starting with Helpless which more than made up for an uneven first half.

But the character arcs in Season Five- wow. I thought every member of the cast was used perfectly and saw significant change by the end. Both Xander and Giles were given renewed purpose following their rather understandable loss of focus in S4. The Spike stuff was amazing for what would seem to be an incredibly difficult arc to pull off. And while I never had anything against Riley in Season Four, I loved his stuff in Season Five.

I'll have to let it gel a bit but right now I'd put it slightly below S2 & S3. S2 is probably still my favorite if for no other reason than it contains probably my two favorite episodes- "Innocence" and "Passion". I think "Hush" and "The Body" are better from a pure filmmaking standard but not only are "Innocence" and "Passion" home-runs on emotional levels but they represent fundamental shifts in the story arcs too. While I initially rated S2 a clear victor over S3, I'm finding that Season 3 continues to grow in my estimation as I think about the great second half and its almost tied with Season 2 in my mind now.

I find it interesting that Wheedon's more notable contributions in the later seasons were essentially stand-alone episodes that didn't relate directly to the season arcs. I can't help but wish Wheedon had helmed a few more of the key story arc episdes for Seasons Four and Five (though "The Gift" was pretty damn amazing). It looks like this trend will continue in Seasons 6 & 7 too. The directing pool on Buffy is generally very good but Wheedon's stuff is a dramatic step above them and I wish he was behind the camera more often.

The only real let down for me on Season 5 was the music. Thomas Wanker's scores were serviceable but nowhere near the greatness of Chris Beck's work in Seasons 2-4. It was very much noticed when Beck returned just to score "The Gift" (I can't help but wonder if Wanker found that insulting).

 

[Eddy-C]

Yeah Whedon got less and less involved with Buffy as the show went on. He says he was always involved with the episodes but the show is just BETTER when he's writing full-time.

You're now coming up to Season 6. Be prepared for a rocky ride.

Wanker's scores aren't that good. They play the same ones over and over throughout season 5 and 6. But they got a new composer in Season 7 who I thought was ok.

 

[DaveGTP]

Personally the Mayor was my favorite villain. I found S3 the peak of the show, and overall the best Season, with S2 and S4 trailing behind it.

It's gonna be weird not having Buffy to watch. We just finished watching S7 like 10-12 days ago. It's been kind of our staple for like 7-8 months, even more so since we finished B5 a few months back (being my 3rd viewing of B5 and her first).

I'm interested to see how you like the later seasons, as I wasn't nearly as keen on them (in fact Stacey had to start bugging me to watch S6 - whereas I was marathoning Angel until the sun was coming up)

 

[Kevin Grey]

I think Angelus has far and away been the best villain so far. I enjoyed both Glory and The Mayor because they were very "quirky" but neither ever projected a serious threat to the group in my mind. Not only did Angelus kill Jenny Calender
but he also effectively waged psychological warfare on the group and Buffy in particular that made them feel far more vulnerable than any other villain has.

I'm very interested in Season 6 because it provokes so much emotion in people, both love and hate. I can't help but look forward to something that controversial as well as a supposed "darker" look at the characters.

If anything, it's Season 7 that has me worried because there seems to be an altogether lack of passion about it either way. It seems to generate the least amount of discussion of any of the seasons.

I might have to wait a bit on Season 6 unfortunately. My DDD order containing it has yet to arrive. I'm starting in on Angel S2 but, with the weekend at hand, I expect to finish it up by Sunday. Unless my Buffy S6 order arrives tomorrow I may have to move on to Angel S3 first since I already have it.

 

[Ray H]

I hope you enjoy season 2 of Angel! I recently rewatched the beginning of the season opener and was surprised by how cinematic it seemed (maybe it's the new widescreen) and it perfectly reintroduced us to the gang in the teaser.

Just be prepared for a VERY different last few episodes in Season 2. It kinda sidetracks from the story arc but it does resolve some stuff character wise and it's a lot of fun.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Yeah, I definitely noticed that. I don't know if Angel has a bigger budget than Buffy or what but it feels much slicker and more polished even when using the same directors. I also really like the widescreen. I know its a bit controversial if Season Two was really meant to be in widescreen but four episodes in and I've noticed several shots that I can't imagine would have worked very well cropped.

It also seems like David Boreanaz does a lot more of his own stunts than SMG. I found the stunt doubles in the first few seasons of Buffy distracting on some occasions. Everything seems to blend much better on Angel (also due to superior editing I think). Admittedly I did think the integration of the stuntwork was also much improved in Buffy S5 but still not at the level of what I've seen in the first four episodes of Angel S2.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

S7, like S6, STARTS out great. About 7-8 good to great shows, before they start to meander into some less enjoyable plots.

Dave,
I know how you feel. When we finally finished Buffy, my wife and I had a period of withdrawal. And not an easy one.

Take care,
Chuck

 

[MaraKM]

There's no controversy about Angel aspect ratios that I recall, the seasons that were shot for widescreen were released in widescreen. Its Buffy that was always shot for full-screen (except for the musical ep) but was released widescreen in certain countries. I don't remember where I saw it, but someone had put some comparison screenshots up--the one that I can never forget was a shot where Xander is leaning over a chasm. In the full-screen shot, you can only see his upper torso, since he's at the edge of the screen. In the widescreen shot, you can see the safety cable he's belted to, and his butt-crack and underwear.

As far as Boreanaz's stuntwork, his stunt double is a much better physical match than Geller's, so, I'm not sure if he's really doing more stuntwork himself, I think it's just more well concealed.

 

[Holadem]

I typically don't pay attention to this sort of stuff so the only time I noticed Boreanaz had an obvious stunt double was the sword duel in Becoming pt 2.

The girl in Buffy S4 (i think) was also obvious as hell. She had a much stronger upper body.

--
H

 

[Eddy-C]

That was Sophia Crawford who I thought was Buffy's best stunt double. She and her husband Jeff Pruitt(the stunt coordinator) were fired after Buffy season 4. Its a interesting story. He started telling lies about people online to the fans and some of it got back to Whedon and he was fired. Then they were all arguing about it on the buffy bronze.

Its all still online too.

http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~hsiao/media...onze/archives/

check out May 17 & 22 of 2000, plus June 22 of 2000

and heres his crazy post

http://www.geocities.com/comeoutandd...ttparable.html

And heres a interview of them

http://www.smgworld.net/interview10.htm

 

[Kevin Grey]

There was a mild amount for Season Two at first. It aired 4:3 which brought in some question as to what OAR was. Then Tim Minear made a comment about how Angel was 4:3 for S2 and 16:9 for S3-5 which just added fuel to the fire. Finally Wheedon made a statement to the effect of "it wouldn't be 16:9 on the DVD if that's not the way we intended it" which was enough for most people. There is a 7 or 8 page thread on it on this forum.