uffy gains a sister—and loses a mother and a boyfriend. Giles gains a sports car—and a magic shop. The Scooby Gang comes together—and is ripped apart by the new villain in town, the over-the-top hell god known as Glory.
That's a lot of turmoil to toss at viewers in one season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer—even if, after four years on the air, it was time to shake things up. But first, a curve ball: The fifth season opens with a matchup between Buffy and that timeless Transylvanian vampire, Dracula.
The second episode of the season represents its true start: "Real Me" introduces Buffy's 14-year-old sister, Dawn (Trachtenberg), in a wholly unexpected and refreshingly clever way. Before you flip far into this six-disc box set, "Out of My Mind" hits, and establishes the tone for the season: equal parts melancholy (due to the illness of Buffy's mom, Joyce), maturity (the episode plants the seeds for the departure of boyfriend Riley by episode 10, and the seeds of Buffy's own growing autonomy) and obsession (we learn Spike's true feelings for Buffy).
With "No Place Like Home," we get our first understanding of who, or what, Dawn really is, both as the Key and as the whiny kid sister. Joyce's illness is the subject of several episodes across the season, with standounts like "Shadow" and, of course, the emotionally stunning pieces "The Body" and "Forever." The final four episodes are more of an arc than usual for Buffy, and they grow in intensity as the gang goes on the run to try to protect Dawn from Glory.
What resonates about season five is its relevance to elements of everyday life, far removed from Slayerdom. Even in episodes like "Blood Ties," where Dawn learns the truth about who she is, and "Crush," in which Spike tells Buffy he loves her, and "Intervention," a lighter piece with both a lookalike BuffyBot and the First Slayer, all manage to incorporate multiple layers of meaning and relevance.
In spite of its weak start, and caricature of a villain, this season of Buffy is filled with contrasts and evolutions. The pigtails and braids she wears earlier in the season, as a college student dealing with usual 20-year-old college student concerns and a kid sister, contrast sharply with the strength Buffy shows in the face of her mother's life-threatening illness, or when she stands up to the stuffy Watchers Council in "Checkpoint." The common theme throughout the year is growing up and accepting things that you don't ask for—be it illness or the responsibility of being the Slayer, a question Buffy wrestles with time and again.
This foldout-style box set has a four commentaries, three scripts and a handful of featurettes that don't seem as if they were particularly intended for inclusion in the DVD.
Cohesive and not-so-cohesive reflections
Fourteen minutes into David Fury and David Grossman's commentary on "Real Me," the two admit to what's obvious to anyone who's listening to them go on: That their comments reflect their inner stream of consciousness, their first recollections that come to mind while rewatching the episode. That admission helps explain the tepid, unentertaining contents of this commentary. (The only interesting tidbit: The revelation that the writers originally expected Dawn to be a younger character, which helps explain why she's so exasperatingly kid-sister annoying in the beginning of the series.)
Far more engaging are the commentaries from Doug Petrie, writer of "Fool For Love" (an episode that was designed to precede an Angel episode) and "I Was Made to Love You", by writer Jane Espenson. Not surprisingly, writer/director Joss Whedon gives a very cogent narrative to accompany "The Body," in which he talks about his motivations and the emotional extremes he wanted to achieve in the aftermath of Joyce's death.
This set includes original scripts for four episodes: "The Replacement," "Fool For Love," "Into the Woods" and "Checkpoint." (But, if you want to read scripts, your better bet is to buy one of the Buffy scriptbooks, if you can still find them—reading on screen remains tedious and an eyestrain, at best.)
Of the remaining special features, it's nearly impossible to tell which among them is recycled, and which was created with the DVDs in mind. All but one bear a 2002 copyright (and that one, the short "Buffy Abroad," is dated 2001), which means they might have appeared in anything prior to this set, which came out two years later.
Four of the special features are on disc three. The 11-minute "Demonology—A Slayer's Guide" is entertainingly edited, at least; as is the segment "Heroes! The Stunts of Buffy." Both segments are at least packed with season five references, so they don't feel as out of place as, say, the "Casting Buffy" segment, or the two minutes' worth of outtakes from earlier seasons.
Disc six aggregates three more featurettes. Best among them: "The Story of Season 5"—one of the few extras that, in spite of its 2002 copyright, at least feels like it was tailored for the DVD release. The comprehensive 28-minute overview features sound bites with a number of producers and cast members, including Marti Noxon and David Fury, Jane Espenson, Joss Whedon, James Marsters, Marc Blucas, Kristine Sutherland and Clare Kramer.
The other two short featurettes focus on the seminal themes of the season: "Natural Causes" discusses Joyce's death and Buffy's coping mechanisms in "The Body," while "Spotlight on Dawn" delves deeper into Dawn's introduction in season five.
The remaining features are not worth the time it takes to click around to them. The still gallery is predictably lame, and the DVD-ROM demon guide on disc six is unextraordinary.
