Firefly DVD Review
2002 Dir: Joss Whedon and others
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Jewel Staite
Cert: 12
Running Time: 540 mins (approx)
RRP: £34.99
Released: April 19th
Reviewer: Ian Berriman at SFX Magazine
The mass outcry over Angel’s cancellation is misplaced. Don’t misunderstand: Angel’s loss is a shame, but it’s had five years. It’s farewell year is really the twelfth season of Buffyverse, so getting angry about Angel is like wailing inconsolably at an old lady aged 102 croaking in her sleep. Sure, it’s sad, but hey – she haD a good innings! Firefly, meanwhile, is a life cut down in its prime, a fresh-faced teen mowed down by a drunk driver; all that potential cruelly obliterated. And what potential! Firefly could have been just as good as Angel or Buffy. No, scratch that – it is as good.
It’s unlike any other SF series. It’s about little people, not superheroes. There are no space battles, no lumpy-foreheaded Trek aliens: just a bunch of ordinary people whose only ambition is everyday survival, trying to scrape together a living. It’s down-to-earth and utterly believable. They even have toilets in their rooms, for chrissake! And the way it’s shot adds to that sense of verisimilitude. Clearly, even FX sequences ape the look of hand-held camerawork.
It’s a mature show, too. You can divide Whedon’s CV in The Three Ages Of Joss. Buffy appeals to everyone from age 12 upwards. Angel has special reasonance for twentysomethings. Firefly is a little older and wiser still. Radically, it’s central love affair between a married couple. More importantly, it takes its time. This of course, was why the network got cold feet after watching the pilot – the morons.
But the best thing about Firefly is its ensemble cast. Every TV actor says their cast is “like a family”. Half the time, this is flagrant bull****, masking a buzzing hornet’s Nest of rilvaries, resentment and rampant egotism. When the Firefly team say they miss working together, you know it’s true: it shines through in every performance. Not only are all nine characters living, breathing three-dimensional people with strengths and flaws, mysteries and inconsistencies; the chemistry between the actors is just perfect.
Still sceptical? “It got cancelled after a dozen episodes,” you’re thinking. “How good can it be?” Really good. Astonishingly good. Trust us – just this once, take a risk with your hard-earned cash. Buy this box set. You won’t regret it. And you’ll be ahead of the crowd when the Firefly movie leads a spin-off TV series.
DVD Extras: Excellent. There are commentaries for eight episodes. Whedon’s one for the final episode,”Objects In Space”, is astonishing; he relates it back to an “existential epiphany” he had as a young man after reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. Also: an interesting (and moving) Making-Of; four deleted scenes, an amusing blooper reel, a recording of Joss singing the theme and more.
Firefly goes top of the class as SFX gives it a ten star rating.
You can purchase Firefly at Amazon
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Seven DVD Review
2002 Dirs: Various
Cert: 15
Running Time: 990 mins
RRP: £77.99
Released: OUT NOW!
Reviewer: Ian Berriman at SFX Magazine
Ladies and gentleman, we’re here to celebrate the life of Buffy Summers. She’s gone… but she will live on in the memories of those who loved her.
At first I was reluctant to get to know Buffy. She looked like just another air-headed Californian blonde. That stupid name didn’t help. It was a friend who insisted I took the time to get to know her properly. Once I did, I found I’d been guilty of making assumptions. After watching a few episodes, I realised Buffy The Vampire Slayer wasn’t a moronic teen show that the title suggested. After five episodes I was hooked on one of the most sophisticated shows on television. And now it’s gone.
We’ll miss you, Buffy.
So – pausing for a moment to dab my eyes with a hanky – what about the final year? Well, it’s not just a decent farewell, but one of the best seasons. The stakes are high: this is the year Buffy went to war. It was hardly her first battle, but it was the toughest. Even on rewatching, there’s a sense anyone could become a casualty. Time and time again, Buffy ends up bruised and beaten. Come the end, you feel the scoobies have got off lightly losing only Spike, Anya and Xander’s left eye.
It’s a season that rewards the loyalty of Buffyphiles. The writers are fans: they know the show inside-out, and can draw on its dense backstory. So we get a return to the Initiative base; an origin story for Anya; historical flashbacks explaining what drives Spike; a re-enaction of Tara’s shooting…..a big basket full of nasty treats.
It’s full of surprises. And not just the big shocks (Spike is a killer again; the Principal is the Son of a Slayer) or the little misdirections (is Giles The First?). Consider Andrew. Who’d have believed this childish geek would win our hearts? But he does. Team Whedon take the comedy relief and make him flesh and blood; make you love him. “Storyteller”, told from Andrew’s skewed point of view, is just magnificent.
There are so many great episodes: the Spike/Principal Wood face-off in “Lies My Parents Told Me”; Buffy in the psychiatrist’s chair in “Conversations With Dead People”; the heart-rending “Selfless”. The finale, “Chosen” is perfect, too. Suddenly everything falls into place: all Buffy’s “poor me” speeches about the loneliness of command make sense.
So there we have it: the silly little vampire show that was anything but. In Buffy we had not just a great genre TV show, but a great show, period. It belongs up there with The Sopranos and The Singing Detective in the pantheon. It’s sad it had to end, but thank God it went out on a high.
DVD Extras: Seven commentaries. Most are fairly dull “oh you were great”, “no, you were great” lovefests: everyone was working too hard to hone amusing anecdotes. The best is “Conversations With Dead People”: Tom Lenk and Danny Strong are an amusing double act. You also get a DVD-ROM content in the shape of “Willow’s Demon Guide”, an outtake reel (Anya and Andrew have a zimmer-frame race!), and some fairly ordinary featurettes: “It’s Always Been About The Fans” (a thank-you to the internet fanbase); “Full Circle” (a season overview); “Buffy 101: Studying The Slayer” (critics and academics big up the show); “Generation S” (all about the potential slayers); “The Last Sundown” (Joss Whedon picks his ten favourite episodes); and five minutes of wrap party footage. No deleted scenes though – infuriating, since a couple are mentioned in commentaries!
SFX gives Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season Seven nine stars, meaning it’s just beaten to the post by Firefly.
To purchase Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season Seven on DVD, go to Amazon
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