Cast

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
David Boreanaz as Angel
Mark Metcalf as The Master

Crew

Written and Directed by a variety of people. The IMDB has a list of the people involved in all the seasons right here. The driving creative force comes from Joss Whedon.

Original Airdate

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season One originally aired between May 3 1997 and June 2 1997.

Premise

Joss Whedon got sick and tired of seeing the little blond cheerleader get shredded and eaten by the creature in various monster movies. He created Buffy, the little blond cheerleader who will kick the ass of the creature that traps her in the alley.

Relation To The Movie

This excellent TV series follows an abysmal movie. A few modifications were made, such as Buffy's age (which didn't really settle down until the second season) and the way vampires die. Also, the actors playing the roles that are in the movie have all been changed. Finally, the biggest difference would have to be the quality.

High Point

The best of these twelve episodes, in my opinion, is the seventh episode, "Angel."

Low Point

The low point of the season has got to be the fact that they obviously hadn't planned things out very well when they started out. The first two episodes make references to the souls of vampires. This dialogue conflicts greatly with, well, just about every episode from then on. There are other minor details, like the year of Buffy's birthday changing depending on which computer to use to read her file in "I Robot, You Jane."

Quirky, Nagging Doubt

Does anybody else get the impression that Xander's nightmare in "Nightmares" was originally intended to involve Nazis? He made a comment about Nazis early in the episode, the set his nightmare was filmed on had at least one swastika on the wall, and his nightmare was something completely different, and rather lame. I get the feeling that somebody told them they couldn't use the original nightmare after the set had been built, and they came up with a last minute substitute.

The Review

This series goes out of its way to include the traditional horror movie setups, and find original things to do with them. (They even open with that sort of thing in the teaser to the first episode.) I give it 5 out of 6.

The effects were made on a plainly limited budget. The vampire morphs looked cheesy, the tentacles in "Prophecy Girl" looked rubber, the final shot in "Witch" looked pretty poor, the beast in "Teacher's Pet" looked like a bad puppet, etc. The money just couldn't cover the aspirations of the writers. I give the effects 2 out of 6.

The story is where this series shines. Most TV series will start off with a collection of independant episodes so that people can watch them whenever they get around to it. This series doesn't do that. Instead, it writes each new episode as just the next part of the lives of the characters. While a lot of episodes will make sense on their own, they often make references to past events without filling in the details with long exposition. The full season DVD releases are a great way to really show off the subtle strengths of the scripts. Unfortunately, some of the "freak of the week" episodes have villains that aren't quite as threatening as they should be, like the creature in "I Robot, You Jane." I give the story 5 out of 6.

The acting this season had its ups and downs. It was a small show on a small network, so it couldn't pay for big names. Instead, they found some people with talent, and some other people with looks. Nicholas Brendon and Alyson Hannigan are both excellent, and they really play on screen like people who've been friends for life. Sarah Michelle Gellar is competant, but not spectacular. Anthony Stewart Head and Mark Metcalf were perfect in their limited roles. David Boreanaz was hired for his looks rather than his talent. (Joss admits as much in the commentary over the first couple of episodes.) I give the acting 4 out of 6.

The emotional response this set inspired was uneven. The always lame creature-in-the-computer plot was tiresome, while the season finale was fantastic. For the season overall, I'd have to give it 4 out of 6.

The production was as limited by the budget as the effects were. I disagree with Joss' comments in the commentary; it looks like it was filmed on 16mm film. This is even more apparent when the season is being viewed on DVD. The blocking was often ham-handed, probably because they were limited by the fact that they were filming in a warehouse and not in a studio. The directors were very good, Bruce Seth Green in particular, which helped to compensate for the limited technology they had to work with. I give the production for the season a 4 out of 6.

Overall, this is a great series that doesn't really shine until you can watch a set of consecutive episodes in order, as you can with this DVD release. Unfortunately, they were still finding their footing and their niche at this point, and the truly long-term arcs didn't come about until later seasons. (This may be because the first season was 12 episodes instead of the typical 22 episode run.) I give the first season 4 out of 6.

In total, Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season One has earned 28 out of 42.

Additional Notes And Comments

This DVD set is missing something that all DVD releases of TV shows should have: a "Play All Episodes" button. It's got to be easy to do, but it's often neglected.

You can buy this from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca