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75 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Difference between boxed sets, June 16, 2006
Hi there, I own this slim boxed set and it has:
6 DVD in 3 boxes (i've shared images of this)
subtitles and spoken in spanish, english and french
It also contains closed Caption.
No cuts from the original boxed set. IT'S THE SAME!!! but in other package.
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128 of 137 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The fifth season is as stunning and original as any, August 30, 2003
One of the most extraordinary things about BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER is that in Season Two they managed to produce one of the greatest seasons in the history of television, and then managed to pretty much equal it for the entire run of the show. Amazingly, each year they did this by taking the show in completely different directions. In the season opener Buffy meets and defeats the most famous of all vampires, Dracula, but the show demonstrated its willingness to take extraordinary risks by ending the episode with the startlingly revelation that Buffy has a sister. Buffy, of course, is an only child, but the brilliant thing was the way the show continued for several episodes as if Dawn, Buffy's new sister, had always been a part of the family. Moreover, Dawn isn't just a part of her immediate family: all Buffy's friends have their own relationship with Dawn, and she is clearly completely integrated with everyone in the community. There are Buffy fans who like and dislike nearly every aspect of BUFFY. Some did not care for the addition of Dawn to the cast, but I loved it, partly for the virtuosic manner in which they integrated her in the cast, and partly for the astonishing story line that developed out of who she truly was. Dawn, an entity of pure energy that is a key to a demon portal, was created by monks as a real human being, a real sister to The Slayer, in order to guarantee that Buffy would protect her with her life. I love the way that all the Scooby Gang completely accepts her, and the profound questions it raises in Dawn herself, as she desperately attempts to come to terms with the knowledge that she isn't who she remembers herself to be. Old subplots are resolved and new ones emerge. Buffy's romance with Riley, nearly universally loathed by Buffy fans, thankfully ends. Giles takes over the ownership of The Magic Box and Anya becomes his enthusiastic assistant. Spike, still harmless due to his implant, is horrified to realize that he is in love with Buffy. Joyce is stricken with a brain tumor and eventually dies of a brain aneurysm, which leads to what is in many ways the most remarkable episode in the entire history of the show, "The Body." Most of Buffy is shot employing a quick, fast moving pace. But this episode intentionally slows down time, intensifying and emphasizing every nuance of Buffy's overwhelming grief and panic at discovering her mother's body. In my opinion, it is the single best representation in either film or TV of human reaction to the death of a loved one. Season Five's primary story arc is, however, that of the hell goddess Glory and her attempt to recover The Key (Dawn) that will allow her to reenter her hell dimension. Glory is, with the possible exception of Angelus, the best villain in the history of BUFFY and ANGEL. She is a goddess portrayed as super consumer (her nice shoes and pedicures causes Dawn to remark, "She has really nice feet"), going on spending sprees to placate her sorrows at being trapped in a dimension not her own. Her whacky wit and (for a goddess) naive stupidity combined with her considerable power creates excitement nearly every second she is onscreen. In a season of many highlights, I especially love the episode where Glory's minions wrongly assume that Spike is The Key, and bring him to Glory, who tortures him to find out who The Key truly is. Despite beating him badly, he refuses to tell. Buffy's intense and heartfelt gratitude signals a change in attitude on the part of the Scoobies, and hints that behavior and compassion are as much a mark of someone becoming good (despite being a vampire) as having a soul (in the case of Angel). The final episode, "The Gift," is one of the truly epic moments in the entire series, and yet another of the classic moments that BUFFY left us. The final shot of the season is simply heartbreaking.
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56 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly great show at its very best, May 1, 2006
Although spoiler warnings are not normally required by Internet etiquette for shows that ended several years ago, let me offer one anyway. In other words, Spoilers ahoy!
Although Season Five of BUFFY isn't considered by most to be the shows best year (Season Two probably would get the nod by more), I personally consider it to be the most impressive of the seven seasons of the show. This was a season with few or no weak episodes, the most unified central story line, a host of superb lesser plot lines, several brilliantly written episodes, and an absolutely stunning season finale. When I saw Season Two I was convinced that it would long stand as the single finest season of any show I knew, but Season Five changed my mind.
By Season Five BUFFY was a mature show. It never achieved a large audience, and much of the early hype had started to fade, though critics and fans continued to celebrate it as one of the most brilliantly written shows in the history of TV. Had it ended at the end of its fourth season, its status as one of the most crucial shows in the history of the medium would have been assured. But no one familiar with the show was surprised when they pulled out all the stops and somehow, improbably managed to top all that had gone before.
Season Five begins with a doubt planted in Buffy by none other than the most famous vampire of them all, Dracula, who had traveled to Sunnydale to meet the Slayer. Although in many ways the weakest episode of the season, the Count's encounters with Buffy caused her to question who she was and what she was all about. Season Four had ended with the great episode "Restless," in which Buffy in a dream sequence had encountered the First Slayer, who told her that the kill was all, implying that her rich social circle and group of friends interfered with her being the Slayer. Dracula tells her that she is a hunter and that she thrives on the thrill of the hunt. In a way, the question raised in Buffy's mind is whether she is good, whether being the Slayer is compatible with being a decent human being. For the whole season Buffy will ponder questions of friends, family, death, and love. And for her everything will be clarified in a single moment of great self-sacrifice.
At the end of the first episode, after having dispensed with Dracula and asking Giles to once again be her watcher (she even agrees to read books in order to become more proficient, though she typically asks if any of them are on tape read by George Clooney), Buffy tells her mother that she is going to meet Riley. Buffy walks into her bedroom, where a girl we have never seen before is standing. Joyce then calls out to Buffy that if she was going to meet Riley, she should take her sister, to which both Buffy and this strange girl turn and irritatingly yell, "Mom!" It was an astonishing plot development, the literary equivalent of a skater announcing that they were about to perform a quadruple axle with back flip. They created a plot twist that seemed almost impossible to resolve in any satisfying kind of way. Any fan of BUFFY knows at least one thing: Buffy is an only child. She has no sister, no brother, no half-brother or half sister, no adopted sibling. There is ONLY Buffy and her mother. To make things even more bizarre, for the first four episodes of the season things proceed as if Dawn, her sister, had always been a part of the show. She was known and loved by the other permanent characters of the show, shared their memories, and apparently had always been there. Only gradually do we come to learn the truth. Dawn is a newly created human being. She is, in fact, a mystical key to a hell dimension who had been magically transformed into the sister of the Slayer by a group of monks in order to try and hide her from a hell god who was intent on using her to open the door between this world and hell. The monks had created Dawn as the Slayer's sister because they believed that she could best help protect her. They made her a real girl, unaware of her metaphysical reality, and had "built" the memories of all those connected with the Slayer in order to hide the Key as well as possible. It was an outrageous thing to attempt. The miracle is that they were amazingly successful. Many don't care for Dawn because they see her as whiney, but few dislike her because they find her hard to accept as The Key. Gradually, of course, first Buffy, then Giles, then Joyce, and finally the Scoobies and Dawn herself come to understand who she is.
Meanwhile, the hell god is searching for The Key. Being a subversive show, BUFFY was always intent to take some new slant on the traditional villain, and so here. Glory, or Glorificus to give her full name, may be a hell god, but visually she looks like a very beautiful, vain, pampered (you know she gets regular pedicures and waxings), somewhat ditzy fashion plate. Physically Buffy is no match for her and is only saved in their first encounter when Glory causes a building to collapse on her when she has a temper tantrum after breaking a heel. That sums up about all one needs to know about Glory. From the 5th episode until the finale, the narrative for the season was structured around the attempt to protect Dawn/The Key from Glory.
The existence of Dawn raises a host of questions, none more important to Buffy that who Dawn really is. She has memories of Dawn as her sister, remembers growing up with her, but she knows that Dawn isn't "really" her sister. So who is she? The first episode following Buffy's discovery of the truth about Dawn is "Family," in which Tara's family comes to Sunnydale to take her home. The Maclay family has come to get her because, they claim, the Maclay women assume their demon form when they turn a certain age. When Tara shows some reluctance to go with them, her father declares that she should be with her family. Although none of the Scoobies have ever been particularly close or even accepting of Tara, upon learning that Tara doesn't want to go with her father Buffy declares that they can take her, but that they have to go through her to do so. Mr. Maclay then points out, "We're her blood kin. Who are you?" To which Buffy responds, "We're family." This is crucial for understanding not just Buffy's subsequent decision to accept Dawn fully as her sister, but for understanding the workings of the Scoobies as a whole. Not just Buffy and Joyce, but Dawn, Willow, Tara, Xander, Giles, and Anya form a family. Even Spike eventually assumes the position of the family's black sheep. So gradually, in answer to the doubts raised by Dracula as to who Buffy truly is, she is first and foremost a part of a community. And to the First Slayer, who insisted there was only the kill, Buffy could assert that there was the family. And to the idea that a Slayer was essentially a killer, she eventually learns that above all else she is a lover.
The rest of the season more or less is a gloss on this idea of family and unity in the face of outside danger. There are a host of subplots, including the building relationship between Xander and Anya, Anya's growth from former vengeance demon to avid capitalist, Giles purchase of the Magic Box, and Riley's departure from the show. The most entertaining subplot was unquestionably Spike's horrified realization that he was in love with the Slayer, which resulted in a Slayer fixation. Eventually, his desire to be respected by Buffy leads to something of a moral transformation, so that even before he acquired a soul at the end of Season Six he had more or less acquired one by his actions.
This season depended less on outstanding individual episodes than previous (or subsequent) ones, mainly because the season as a whole holds together so well. But there were nonetheless some great individual ones. I loved "No Place Like Home" in which we meet Glory for the first time, Anya becomes an avid money maker, and Buffy discovers the truth about Dawn. "Family" I've mentioned. "Fool for Love" is a Spike-centered episode in which he explains to Buffy not only how he killed two previous Slayers but what it was that made it possible. "Blood Ties" is a very intense episode in which Dawn discovers who she is and has more than a little trouble coming to terms with it. "I Was Made to Love You" is a wonderful episode about relationships and blaming oneself for the failures of another to be in a relationship, structured about a beautiful young woman who comes to Sunnydale looking for who she takes as her boyfriend, but who is in reality her maker. She is a robot. The builder, Warren, becomes an important character in Season Six. The last several episodes are so good that it is difficult to consider them apart from one another, but I will merely say that the final episode, "The Gift," rivals Season Two's "Becoming" and Season Seven's "Chosen" as the best BUFFY finale.
One episode, however, stands out even among these. "The Body" is arguably the best episode in the history of the show and one of the most brilliant individual episodes in the history of television. Buffy comes home to discover her mother Joyce dead on a couch. What follows is the most realistic, palpable, and believable representation of what it feels to lose a loved one not merely in the history of TV, but in the history of visual media. Certainly no movie feels as convincing as this episode. That "The Body" did not win the Emmy for best writing that year is an indictment of the silliness of the Emmys. It is an almost impossibly well done episode.
The season ends with Buffy with the help of her friends defeating Glory, but not before Dawn's blood has been used to open the door between dimensions. The door can only be closed by the blood that runs through Dawn, but since she was created from Buffy's blood,...
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