'Buffy' series lives on through DVD
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has ended its seven-year run, but fans can hope for a few new tidbits as the television series is released on DVD.
Today, the fourth season of the series (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, $46) hits store shelves. The season's 22 episodes are contained on six discs, each of which contains "extras." An advance press copy included discs one and six, which offered scripts and commentaries for a couple of episodes, as well as an interesting overview of the season.
But the mother lode is on the third disc -- four featurettes, including something called "Spike Me" and one about the episode "Hush."
"Hush," which originally aired Dec. 14, 1999 -- halfway through the season -- reigns as "Buffy's" scariest episode. It's not the most squeam-inducing; it lost that distinction to an episode in season seven, when a cannibalistic demon slowly gnoshes on Buffy's pal Willow. In that episode, "Same Time, Same Place," Willow can't scream. In "Hush," no one can.
When the ghastly, grinning Gentlemen of "Hush" invade Buffy's town of Sunnydale, Calif., they first steal everyone's voices. Then they haunt the residents' nights, floating through the streets and looking for vulnerable hearts -- which they will extract while their hapless victims try to cry out in pain and terror.
The commentaries for the season's final two episodes offer few revelations, but Joss Whedon, series producer, writer and director, does expound on why the year's finale differs from others. Each season of "Buffy" has a story arc revolving around one main threat, building to a big battle in the finale. But season four's Frankenstein monster is dealt with in the penultimate show, with the finale being "Restless," a collection of dream sequences.
The reason for "Restless," Whedon elucidates, was to hint at coming upheavals in Buffy's home life and, more importantly, to begin dealing with the spiritual aspect of being a Slayer -- a theme that would be explored throughout the rest of the series.
Although the fourth season's main villain was lackluster, it's a year of transition in Buffy's world. This is the end of the pre-Dawn era; Buffy's sister would arrive the next year. But the core "Buffy" group is undergoing changes enough: With high school over, the women leave home for dorm life and college, while Xander finds a job and Giles tries to cope with being out of one.
Also, two love interests -- werewolf Oz and heroic vampire Angel -- leave town, and their girlfriends move on, too: Willow finds out she's a lesbian, while Buffy discovers human men to be nearly as confounding as her demon lover. Speaking of which, vile vampire Spike returns to Sunnydale, and the episode "Something Blue" flirts with the transformation his relationship with the Slayer would undergo in seasons five through seven.
