renaldow

I just received this set today, and after checking out all 3 discs, I thought I'd share my thoughts:

Yeah, it is grainy and dark, but as has been mentioned in other threads the first season was shot 16mm full frame and on a budget. It looks as the show always looked, just not as nice as the later seasons. The video quality definitely is good for what it is, though.

The features are OK. There is only 1 trailer, not 'trailers' like the back suggests; and the spots with Joss Whedon don't last very long. He comments on a few episodes and each segment with him only lasts about 3 minutes. Since each segment is heavy on showing clips from the episode, what it really amounts to is about 30 seconds of Joss talking.

The biographies are good. Not only do they give the actor's biography, but they give the character's bio as well. It's actually pretty interesting.

There's a photo gallery, which is pretty much what you'd expect. About a dozen cast photos, nothing you probably haven't seen before.

The annoying part is that the Special Features menu is odd to get to. The Main Menu of the DVD just lists the 4 episodes, and at first it appears that there are no special features. You have to pick an episode, then on the next menu you're able to pick the Special Features menu. This might lead you to believe that each episode has different features, but they don't. All the Special Features on the disc are located there. Also, Special Features are spread throughout the 3 discs, so be sure to check each one out.

The cover and box are covered gratuitously with pics of SMG, actually about the same 3 pics blown up or cropped differently, kind of boring really. I think my 12 year old nephew could've designed better artwork. There's a small booklet that is easy to remove but a pain in the butt to replace, as well as a flyer advertising Season 2 to be released 6/02.

All in all, a good set IMHO. It looks and sounds better than FX or WB has ever shown it on my cable system, and it definitely beats VHS copies of the show. I don't see anything to complain about with this set, other than perhaps adding more features but since there's 5 more episode sets to go I'm sure they've got to spread out what they do have.

I haven't had time to watch the Whedon/Boreanz interview or the Whedon commentary on Ep1, so I'll leave that up to someone else to review.

Pointyskull

Very nice set.

Here's my take on Buffy: Season One

Randomness

I have the British (region 2) releases of Buffy and Angel and just picked up the US release. The content of the US release seems identical to the UK releases. I'd heard that there would be additional features on the US release, but I haven't noticed anything new.

I'm not too enthused about the packaging of the US collection, the UK packaging is of a much higher quality. The UK collections are bound into individual books with thick cardboard covers. The last six pages of the books serve as protected disk sleeves. The disk sleeves themselves are of the soft fabric sort, not just plastic CD sleeves.

The UK release also has a thick cardboard box to enclose the collection, unlike the thin folded paper box the US release has.

As I don't suspect they'll add anything new to the next releases either, I'd suggest getting the UK releases from amazon.co.uk if you have a multi-region player.

apowers

How does the grain in Buffy Season 1 compare to the grain that is present in Sex and the City Season 1?

renaldow

Very similar. You have to take into account that Sex and the City is a very bright show and BTVS is mainly dark, so you can't really do a show by show comparison of graininess, but in my estimation they're about the same.

Pointyskull

As for grain, the first season of BtVS was shot on 16mm, and probably had a significantly smaller budget than Sex In The City.