Buffy: Season 7 or... When will Fox stop spoiling the series? (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan_Clarke]

You bring up an interesting point. I wonder how many people buy tv sets without seeing the episodes first. 30%?

The studios assume that it's the die hard fans that buy these sets and that they know all the episodes backwards and forwards. But seeing how many people are discovering shows through dvds, I wonder if there will be a shift.

 

[WoodyH]

That's how it's been for me lately.

Roundabout ten or twelve years ago or so, I got sick of television, and quit watching it. The signal to noise ratio was far too heavily weighted in the wrong direction, and even on the few shows that were worth watching, I still had to sit through commercials that drove me up the wall.

Over the past decade or so, aside from a couple months on either side of the 2000 elections, I haven't had TV in my apartment. It's become something of a joke with my friends that I don't have a television -- I have a 27" movie screen.

Since I know that there are occasional good shows, though, I rely on my friends and family to let me know what I should pay attention to, then I seek those out on DVD when they start showing up. I figure that being a few years behind the times is more than made up for by getting to watch shows that I'm pretty sure I'll like in full DVD quality, with no commercials, on my schedule, a season (or more) at a time. I'll usually rent the first season to get a feel for the show, then decide whether to quit, keep renting, or start purchasing.

So far, I've purchased all of ST:TNG (the only one in this list that I'd actually seen any of when it was broadcast, and that was only about 4 seasons) and STS9, the first four seasons of X-Files, and the first season of The Simpsons; and through Netflix have seen six seasons of Buffy, two and a half seasons of Angel (not as good as Buffy, but still enjoyable), and a season and a half of West Wing. More will make it into my queue eventually, I'm sure.

 

[Joshua_W]

My Buffy experience... I started Buffy the Vampire Slayer cold. I bought the first season sight unseen.

Going in, I knew very little about it. Only that Angel was a vampire, Giles was her Watcher, and that Alyson Hannigan is just as cute as bug.

I thought the first season was only okay, and didn't know that it was worth the hype.

Anyway, I kind of liked the character Jenny Calendar, and was a bit curious about whether or not she'd play a bigger role in the rest of the series, so I went to a Buffy site and looked up her character. When I found out the she would be killed by the recently unsouled Angel
getting all of the subsequent seasons was kind of a no-brainer.

 

[Matt Thompson]

...which reminds me, "Passion" is fantastic

 

[John McM]

I think at this point, there's no need to "spoilerize" Passion.

 

[Blu]

Are there any reviews yet?

 

[Josh Simpson]

I did watch Buffy blind however, and found the season 6 spoilers annoying. I did know some of them, but still.

That's why when I recently bought Angel Season 1, it was nice to see all six discs with no spoiler pictures on them...

Still, I love these shows...

 

[Andrew Bunk]

Well if you want to consider it a review, I blew through the whole season this weekend. It's pretty much on par with the quality of Season 6, except some low light scenes (even towards the end of the season) do show a good amount of grain. I had a thought that maybe they were trying to reproduce the look of the first season in some scenes, since they make numerous other references to S1 in the script. I thought the ending was a little rushed, but that could be a result of watching them rapidly. I realy liked Nathan Fillion (sp?) in his role.

I've only watched a little of the extras so far so no info on that.

 

[Matt Stone]

It definitely seems rushed when they spend the middle ~10 episodes of the season with no real plot movement. The final 5 episodes are pretty solid, and the first 7 are great, but the middle really sags, IMO.

I agree with you about Fillion though. One of the great villains. Too bad he didn't show up earlier.

 

[Matt Thompson]

I just finished Selfless myself -- I forgot how good quite a few of these early episodes were. Hopefully the middle portion improves now that I know where everything is going.

 

[Tom June]

I absolutely love BTVS and consider it my favorite television show, but I have not seen season 7 yet. When the season originally aired I was too busy with work and school to keep up.

I told myself that I would just wait for the DVDs to experience the season for the first time.

And seeing the shot of Xander with an eye patch in the season 6 packaging ticked me off!


I turned my GF on to the show who, at one time, wouldn't give the show a chance because of the name, but now loves it! I can't wait to get my hands on the set and I'll try not to look at the packaging as not to ruin anything.

 

[Matt Thompson]

I've managed to turn my girlfriend on to Angel, but alas, she is not yet a Buffy convert.

 

[Ryan_Guah]

I'm hoping to go a little later to pick up my set. I'm not that upset with the packaging, because I've seen the season in its entirety at least once before, and I love the colors/graphics they used. The art is the best on any Buffy set thus far. I can see how those who haven't seen the show would be upset though.

But there's a point where you have to draw the line. The only true way to not have any spoilers is to make everything blank, and that's no fun. If you're coming into this blind, perhaps you should be prepared, or just deal with it.

 

[Eddy-C]

I was reading Televisionwithoutpity.com and saw this, I'll invistoext it for anyone who hasn't seen the penultimate episode of season 7, its about Fox editing out the previouslies.

Well, once again, a screwup by Fox on the DVDs -- always concerning the episodes where the previouslies actually bleed into the episode.

On "End of Days", the ticking bomb and explosion gets cut off. It starts with Buffy and the scythe, I know they did the same on one of the Pylea episodes on the the Angel Season 2 set.

GAH! stupid fox. This won't stop me from buying the DVDs but I hope Buffy and Angel are re-released WITH the previouslies on another format eventually.

 

[Matt Thompson]

I don't know -- I still don't like the previouslies. I mean, I don't like the fact that little bits of episodes are being cut off, but the previouslies were designed for people who didn't watch the show week to week. When going through the sets in a couple of days, they become very annoying.

 

[Adam_ME]

Yeah, but what happens when you're revisiting the episode months if not years later? The "Previously on" intros help refresh your memory. And of course, there's always the example of "The Gift". If that's not reason enough to include the intros, I don't know what is.

 

[Tom June]

I thought I read somewhere that the previously for "The Gift" was going to be an easter egg on the season 7 set.

Is this true? If it is, could someone post how to access it. Please!

 

[Adam_ME]

On Disc 6, go to Special Features and select Featurettes. Then press left and you'll highlight a "B". Click on that and you'll see the "Previously on" intro for The Gift.

Let me know what aspect ratio it's in. The R2 set has it in 16x9.

 

[Tom June]

Just checked it. The previously on "The Gift" is 16x9, and rather cool I might add.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I can confirm that the trim has indeed been made at the beginning of episode 21, "End of Days". However, I'm not convinced that this is an error by Fox. AFAIK, the oversight of these discs is done by either Mutant Enemy or an outside producer hired for the purpose, much in the way that Ten Thirteen Productions oversees the X-Files sets. On the two other occasions when such trims have occurred (both of them with Angel), it's always struck me as a conscious editorial decision -- maybe not one I'd agree with, but one that's at least understandable.

In this case, the shot that's been dropped is one of the cheesier effects shots from series 7. It also contains a continuity error with the final shot of the previous episode (the timer reads differently in the two shots). I can see someone deciding to open on the scene with Buffy (maybe the script was even written that way) and let the other short scene play out off camera. It was an inevitable event (I'm being deliberately cryptic to avoid spoilers), and since you get to see the immediate aftermath, there's no question what happened.

I'm not justifying the decision. If it were me, I would have left the "previously" segments, all of them. But I don't think it damages the episode.

I've often wondered if the relative scarcity of "previously" segments in Angel season 5 was, at least in part, a reaction to some of the problems they've encountered with leaving them out of the U.S. DVD sets.

M.