2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Four "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episodes featuring Cordelia Chase, December 17, 2005
This review is from: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (DVD)
It seems a bit superfluous to me that in the United Kingdom they had these "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Slayer Collection" DVDs, because our fellow fans across the pond had each season of "BtVS" out on DVD long before we got them. So why would they need these DVDs that offered four choice episodes for each of the main characters? That being said the intellectual exercise is to judge how good of a job they did in selecting this particular quartet of episodes highlight the comedy stylings of Miss Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter). Since she left Sunnydale and "BtVS" after graduation to go to Los Angeles and end up on "Angel," they only had to pick from the first three seasons of "BtVS":
"Out of Mind, Out of Sight" (a.k.a. "Invisible Girl") is the perfect choice for a Cordelia episode from the abbreviated first season. Cordelia and her friends are being attacked by an invisible force, and Buffy and the gang figure out it is Marcie Ross, a girl that no one remembers although they all had classes with her (they all signed her yearbook with "Have a nice summer," which is not a good sign). Cordelia and Buffy are taken prisoner by Marcie, who plans to disfigure her chief tormentor. However, Buffy saves Cordy and Marcie is taken away by the government to be "rehabilitated." This is a key episode in terms of setting up Cordelia to become a Scooby in the second season because it confirms that Buffy can deal with weird stuff like this.
Your first guess for a second season Cordelia episode might be "Reptile Boy," but instead it is "What's My Line? Part 2," which is the one where Cordelia and Xander are trapped in Buff's basement by one of the Tarakan assassins. They get into a giant fight and end up kissing for the first time. Certainly a key moment for Cordy, but I think "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" is her best episode from that season (plus Buffy and Kendra are clearly the focus of what is obviously the second half of a two-part story).
The third season was senior year and so it is not surprising that the two episodes selected reflect the social high points of that last year of high school. "Homecoming" starts with Cordy and Buffy waging war to see who becomes Homecoming queen at Sunnydale High, with everybody else caught in the middle. The Scoobies decided to put the two in a limo together, hoping that they will make up. But Mr. Trick was expecting it to be Buffy and Faith together in the car and so it is that Cordy becomes part of Slayerfest '98, which involves a bunch of little bads showing up to hunt down and bag a slayer or two. This sets up one of Cordy's best scenes when she explains why a ticked off would be Prom Queen is a lot more dangerous than a Vampire Slayer. Definitely a top four Cordelia episode
"The Prom" does have a couple of nice moments when Cordelia realizes that Xander has made sure she looks spectacular for the big dance, and watching Wesley weigh the ethics of asking her to dance is okay, but Cordy really is a minor player in this one. The emphasis is on Buffy, who is determined that since they all might be killed when the Mayor ascends the least she can do is make sure her friends have a hellhound-free prom. The two great moments in this one are when Buffy receives a special award from the senior class and when Angel shows up in a tux (the selection the Sundays of covering the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" is a Top 10 nominee for best use of a song on "BtVS," just on the strength of the tragically ironic line, "Let's do some living, after we've died").
Even though she dies halfway through the episode, "The Wish" is a better choice than "The Prom," even though the last half of that way is all about Vamp Willow wearing leather. My final verdict is that this DVD ends up having two of the four Cordelia episodes that should be here with the first and third selections. The second is a second tier Cordelia episode, but the fourth is on the third level by that standard, although overall it is the best episodes here, which is why I ended up rounding up on this one.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
How many times can Ethan Rayne cause problems for Giles? Half the time on this DVD., December 16, 2005
"The Slayer Collection" was a British invention that put together a series of four episodes for each of the major characters on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Of course, fans of the show already have all seven seasons on DVD so we hardly need to pick up any of these specialty discs, but there is still the academic question of whether or not they did an adequate job of selecting the right four episodes for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Slayer Collection: Giles."
"The Dark Age" is an early second season episode that starts off with a demon that possesses bodies coming to Sunnydale as it tracks down anyone representing a particular Etruscan tattoo. The latest corpse turns out to be someone from Giles' past and the tattoo is revealed to be the Mark of Eyghon, a demon that Giles and Ethan Rayne worshipped when they were young punks. Now Eyghon is making the rounds killing everybody in the old gang and Giles and Ethan are last on the list. Then, just to make things interesting, Eyghon takes over Jenny's body. If you think this causes problems for her relationship with Giles, then wait for the next episode on this DVD.
"Passion" from later on in the second season is probably my favorite Giles episode containing three memorable moments. The first is when Giles discovers that Angelus has killed Jenny Calendar and left her in his bed, the second is when Giles launches an assault on Angelus at the warehouse, and the third is when Buffy knocks some sense into her Watcher and tells him that she cannot do this without him.
"A New Man" from Season 4 is when Ethan Rayne returns to Sunnydale, talks Giles into going out for a beer, and turns the former Watcher into a Fyarl demon. Those are the ones that are very strong and have a paralyzing hard-as-rock mucous (but no sizzling eye beams). Unfortunately Buffy things that this particular Fyarl demon has done something to Giles so she is hunting him down and Giles has to turn to Spike, who happens to speak Fyarl, for help.
"Lies My Parents Told Me" comes from the show's final season and to my way of thinking is more of a Spike episode. Giles returns to Sunnydale with news that he found a way of removing the trigger that causes Spike to do bad things. While Spike flashes back to 1880, just before Drusilla turned him into a vampire, Principal Wood reveals to Giles that his mother Nikki was one of the Slayers killed by Spike. Giles tries to keep Buffy diverted while Wood goes after Spike, but she catches on and ends up turning her back on Giles, so it has some minor importance but not enough to be in the top four for Giles.
That last one is the obvious one to replace in this quartet and I would think that "Helpless" from Season Four (a.k.a. "Giles Gets Fired") is the obvious one to substitute here to most easily justifying bumping the rating up to a legitimate five stars. I think they made a conscious decision not just do all Ethan and Giles episodes, because having "Halloween," where we first learn about Giles good old Ripper days, and "Band Candy," where Giles goes back to being Ripper, could make sense here as well. Giles goes back to England for most of the last couple of seasons so the pickings are rather slim there and his surprise appearance at the end of "Two to Go" is a great moment but the one line hardly constitutes a "Giles" episode.
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