Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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154 of 160 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WHEDON & NOXON ROCK! A SPECTACULAR OSCAR WORTHY ENDING!!!, May 25, 2005
This six Disk DVD Set is extraordinary. The Picture and Sound quality are so very good that you feel as though you are watching it in a theater. The closed captioning and Audio come in other languages besides English. It's jam packed with all sorts of extra bonus special features, plus a special series end wrap party that is a whole lot of fun. Everything you ever wanted to know about Buffy, cast, The Brilliant creator, Joss Whedon and other staff members. I not only highly recommend this Season disk set, but the other six seasons as well. Quite a bit of quality work went into the making of all seven seasons. They are a necessary buy for any Buffy fan! It's completely impossible to be anything but extremely pleased with this purchase as well as the rest of the series. The writing, acting, directing, etc... are extraordinary. This is feature film quality at it's finest, instead of the plain old TV quality that most people expect. Each episode is like watching a movie. The last five episodes build to a finale that is as amazing as any feature film that I have never before seen on television. The final episode was extraordinary, the writing, the premise was ingenious. The acting was the usual above average talent. I believe that the music that Rob Duncan provided was the icing on the cake and made the episode EPIC. It was brilliant music. Of all seven seasons this is truly my favorite. If you don't own any then by all means at least purchase season seven.
Here's Season Seven's Line Up:
1. Lessons
2. Beneath You
3. Same Time, Same Place
4. Help
5. Selfless
6. Him
7. Conversations with Dead People
8. Sleeper
9. Never Leave Me
10. Bring on The Night
11. Showtime
12. Potential
13. The Killer In Me
14. First Date
15. Get It Done
16. Storyteller
17. Lies My Parents Told Me
18. Dirty Girls
19. Empty Places
20. Touched
21. End of Days
22. Chosen
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324 of 355 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Let me explain my rating, August 27, 2004
Unlike other seasons of BUFFY, one needs to defend either a low or high rating for this season. One can take either of two tacks with Season Seven. One could give it a low rating based on comparison with other seasons of BUFFY, because there is virtually no debate that this is the weakest season in the show's seven. On this criterion, I would probably give the set a three-star rating. On the other hand, one could base the rating not in comparison to BUFFY's other seasons, but to other shows, and on this basis I don't see how you can give the season anything less than a five. Yes, it is BUFFY's weakest season; yes, there are some serious errors made during the season; yes, the writing isn't as sharp or as consistent. Nonetheless, it was during the 2002-2003 television season, along with ANGEL (which had its own problems in its Season Four), FARSCAPE (which while superb was not as nearly sharp as Season Three), and ALIAS, among the finest shows on TV. It is my least favorite season of BUFFY, but given the option of watching either it or any season of LAW AND ORDER or FRIENDS or CSI, I would choose Season Seven of BUFFY in a nanosecond.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
So why do BUFFY fans find Season Seven to be so disappointing. I think there are a variety of reasons. Here are a few: 1) Although there is some very sharp humor during the season (e.g., a conversation about fast food delicacies between Spike and Andrew on a motorcycle, after which Spike warns that he will kill Andrew if he ever tells anyone about it; Anya's asking Andrew why he doesn't use the bathroom for the same purpose everyone else does [not the purpose one might first imagine]; and a phenomenal first encounter between Faith and Spike, when she doesn't know that he now fights on the side of the good guys, and tries to slay him, with the two of them debating on who has reformed and who did so first), the humor isn't as consistent. But the tone of the series changed. Even in Season Six, the show maintained a humorous tone most of the time. In Season Seven, there is a constant attempt to inject a sense of impending doom, which unfortunately alters the show's mood in unpleasant fashion. Buffy almost completely ceased her quipping. 2) Although Sarah Michelle has gained a number of detractors since the end of the series (I think mainly for her lack of interaction with fans), I always think she did a marvelous job in the only crucial role on the show. Unfortunately, in Season Seven she was asked to do something that her character wasn't well equipped to do: more or less be a great leader. Buffy in the first six seasons was always more of her own person, not quite a loner, but although the central figure in the Scoobies as the Slayer, not a leader either. But in Season Seven after the Potentials arrive, she is asked to be a leader. What is worse, she is asked to lead not merely by example but by giving morale-boosting speeches in every other episode. Unfortunately, the speeches were horribly written and awkwardly inserted into the episodes. I was more put off by her General Patton speeches more than I was by the notorious "cookie dough" speech she gives Angel in the final episode. 3) Worse of all, the Potentials completely altered the structure of the show. I know many people simply didn't like the individual actresses portraying the Potentials, but to me that wasn't what was so bad about them. Because there were so many of them, they gradually started eroding the screen time left to deal with the stories of the main Scoobies. Actually, Season Seven is very good up to the episode when the Potential start arriving. The episode where Anya slaughters as vengeance demon all the members of a fraternity, only to repent after failing to convince both others and herself that this was what she really wanted to be doing, and then walks off by herself at the end of the story is quite as good as what we had seen in the previous two or three seasons. But once the Potentials arrived, there simply wasn't room or time to deals with individual characters any longer. Xander, Anya, Dawn, and Giles more or less get squeezed out of the story. Only Buffy, Willow, and Spike, and later in the year Faith, get to have their stories told at all. In Seasons One through Six, four or five or six or seven was company, but twenty proved to be a crowd. 4) The lameness of The First as the Big Bad. Cementing this was the terrible use of the great use of Nathan Fillion (who was spectacular as Mal Reynolds in FIREFLY) as Caleb.
One other thing to lament about Season Seven was recently revealed by Joss Whedon, when he explained that they hoped to bring Tara back in Season Seven before contract negotiations broke down. In an early episode, Buffy would somehow manage to gain the ability to make a single reality-altering wish. Several alternatives are instantly imaginable: wishing her mother back, lifting Angel's curse, perhaps not even being the Slayer. Whedon imagined Buffy going to Willow and showing her new shoes, as if they were what she had used her wish for, Willow's incredulous reaction, and then Buffy telling her to look behind her, where Tara would have been standing. Now that is an episode I would have liked to see.
But sometimes the negatives seem to mask the large number of extremely good things in Season Seven. For instance: 1) Except for "Him" (where Buffy and Dawn fight over the attentions of the same high school student) there were no out and out from beginning to end bad episodes. The bad stuff largely took place within a show that features some good things. 2) A few absolutely stunning individual episodes, especially "Conversations with Dead People," the hysterical "The Storyteller" (centering on Andrew, who provided many of the funniest moments of Season Seven, and who is one of the odds on favorites to be in any BUFFY/ANGEL spin off), and the great episode where Spike deals with unresolved conflicts concerning his mother. 3) The struggles of both Willow and Spike in dealing with their respective inner demons, Willow with having killed in Season Six and Spike with his having a soul. 4) The return of Faith, which while BUFFY did not provide her with as many great moments as ANGEL did for three episodes preceding her return to Sunnydale, were great. The tremendous chemistry (more as kindred spirits than sexual) between Spike and Faith, especially in a long conversation they have in Buffy's basement, one of the highpoints of the season, has many people hoping for the demise of TRU CALLING (Eliza Dushku's current and lightly regarded show) so that Faith and Spike can head a spin off.
Then there is the ending. Many hate it. Many love it. Personally, I think it was a perfect end to the series. BUFFY was always a fictional representation about the empowerment of women. In the climax of the season-and indeed, the climax of the entire series-Buffy with Willow's help discovers a way to empower not merely the Chosen One, the lone Slayer, but all potential slayers, all over the world. Best of all, the show managed to resolve Buffy's central dilemma that was established in Season One and continued through to the end: How could she, whom fate had selected to be The Chosen One, ever manage to live the kind of life she dreamed of having? By empowering all potentials, and in effect creating dozens and perhaps hundreds of Slayers, Buffy ceased to be The Chose One. In the final seconds of the show, Faith says to Buffy "Yeah, you're not the one and only chosen anymore. Just gotta live like a person. How's that feel?" It seems to take a second before the question hits her, but when it does, you can almost feel Buffy's relief, and her face lights up with an extraordinarily happy smile. You can feel her relief at having triumphed over her fate.
I can't imagine a more perfect ending to what I honestly feel is the finest television series in the history of television.
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100 of 116 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect Circle, September 7, 2004
Love or hate the final season of Buffy - one important fact cannot be overlooked, the complete circle the series and characters took while at the same time growing into a more evolved and mature show. I highly recommend you view this season, but only after viewing the previous 6. The show did take a different direction and focused in on the First and the Slayer, but this is not a negative, just a completion.
I agree with many that the series finale should have been a bit longer. There were so many details and points made in this episode that to a casual viewer, it would be overlooked. To those true fans of BTVS you will see how far the show has come. If unsure yourself, it is best to view season 1 again, especially the final episode of season 1. You see Buffy mature from being told she is the "chosen one", the only one, into a cunning fighter with her new-found scooby friends, then dependant upon them, and finally into an individual who learns to at once take on responsibility, and share responsibility. You see the other characters mature into heroes of their own and for all their weaknesses, the strenth the gang has is in its unity. That was the one thing that made Buffy more powerful than previous slayers and this is touched upon as well.
The sacrifices made by the scoobies is also noted, although little attention is given to the brave death of Anya, and the final episode gives a tribute to a great scene from the final episode of season one in which the Fab Three are walking away from Giles and his utterance of "the earth is doomed" is as sharp and funny now as it was then. The final episode of season 7 ends in the only way that the series can - answering all the questions the show asked with hope and bravery.
If you are a fan of BTVS then you must check out this fitting ending to a most brilliant show.
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