Thankfully, last season of Buffy is not as bad as previous one. The apocalyptic ending of season 6 ended the storyline that was made a mess by adding geek villains, and the only good thing out of that was creating of Dark Willow. And the first bad thing in season 7, is that there is no more Dark Willow. Regular Willow was good character, but we all grew tired of her, and Dark counterpart was nice change, that didn’t lasted long.

Story

Again, decision to kill Buffy at the end of season 5, proved to be bad, because during season 6, writers didn’t manage to bring her truly back into the story, and not even the new story will not succeed at that. First part of the season has no clear direction and we have bunch of unrelated stories. Previously, series managed to make these type of storytelling interesting and best part of series, but this time, that fails for the most part. We are back in re opened high school with Dawn attending.

Second half of the season, brought back Gilles (not full time, but still), and the story (again) about opening of Hell Mouth. This will get us a lot more Slayers in training gathered by the Gilles and Buffy. We will also explore Spikes past and Anya’s back story.

(Surviving) Buffy Season 7 main cast

Characters

Spike is again used as comic relief, but also he had much wider story to play into and for the most part this character evolved a lot beyond initial setup. Good thing is that he will be back for one season in Angel spin-off. Anya is once again wasted this season. Instead of using her and expanding here role, writers decided to bring in bunch of Slayers to help Buffy fight the opening of Hell Mouth.

Overall, acting is bland and I can’t really single out anyone.  Bringing back Faith was also another bad move and totally unnecessary, but the writing has gone of the rail a long time ago and story didn’t make much sense at the times, so this is not big surprise.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked first 5 seasons of Buffy, but last two are just bad. Changing the production team and company after season 5 was not a good move, and series suffered because of that. This is another proof that most  TV series developers don’t know when to stop. Making seasons after seasons just to have something to air is proving very bad times and again.

So long to Buffy, and I recommend watching Angel, it’s better and more mature in all aspects.

For the most part, this season is pure mess, and overall very week, unfocused and very gloomy, spiritless if you like. Idea to resurrect Buffy was all handled vary badly. She is buried, but her robot version is around acting like her, and nobody suspects. Hello, she is dead, in a grave, does anyone reads the scripts? Also, some of the cast members leaving was not good sign either, and new beginning for Buffy was not as good as hoped.

The WB television decided to end the series after seaosn 5, because popularity has peaked and rating started to decline. Also, most contracts were ended, and new ones would require much more money to be invested, and The WB decided that falling ratings will not be enough. But, another network (UPN) decided to continue Buffy, and as it turns out, it wasn’t the best idea around. Rating continue to fall during sixth season and during seventh they were as low as when the series first started.

Story

Everything starts with Sunnydale turning into hunting ground for all sorts of demons, because the Slayer is dead. Giles left for England, and the remainder of Scooby gang got bored, and decided to resurrect Buffy. Two part premiere episode is total mess, way too long and boring and the rest of the season turned to be just like that and worse at times. Adding bad guys in form of 3 pathetic geeks was the worse idea yet and so many episodes got wasted on that. The only element of the story that managed to improve the overall rating of the season was the ending and creation of so called Dark Willow.

Characters

All main characters, staring with Buffy are just plain boring. All are gloomy, dark atmosphere all around, and very little fun. Anya is the only interesting character left, and despite bad writing, Emma Caulfield managed to give great performance. Alyson Hannigan also was above average this season mainly due to creation of Dark Willow character. Problem is that Dark Willow was too powerful, and she won’t be around for long.

Adding new adversaries in form of 3 geeks was just a big mistake. It killed the series and at times it reminded me of those awful Power Rangers series. Also, not even Spike character was any better, and his quest for soul that will be major plot element of last season didn’t helped. But, the biggest loss is the fact that Anthony Stewart Head left the series and appeared only in 2–3 episodes during sixth season.

To make things worse, Buffy character is so gloomy and whiny and boring all the time, that her depression almost crawls out of TV to consume the viewers. She is the weakest part of the series right now.

Conclusion

Well, all is said, and this is most likely the worst season of Buffy (at least for me it is). Next one will get a bit better, and since it’s the last, at least the producers managed to see that it’s better to end it before it get’s even worse.

Each season of Buffy had tougher and tougher enemies, greater evil beings and more challenge to Buffy and her scooby gang. But, this season seams to be toping all that, and even evil from last seasons is not as evil and hard to defeat. After countless classes of demons, we have finally getting a new bread in the form of gods. But more important than that is very interesting twist on the story and adding a new character…

Story

In form of the Buffy’s sister. Yes, this is a good one, since we all know that Buffy has no sister. But, writers managed to create a really interesting twist that allowed them to create a new story mechanism and new sect of priests that manipulated reality to create sister for Buffy. And, no one of them knows that things have changed, and they all think that Dawn (sister name) is real and has been among them her whole life.

Buffy, Season 5

This is very dark season, and that builds to the (shocking) finale that was initially planned as a series finale, until the series is picked up for another two seasons on another network.

But, no matter how dark it gets, there are plenty of fun episodes we grow accustomed to so far, starting with very season premiere and special appearance of famous vampire Dracula. Great episodes are also The Replacement, Triangle, I Was Made to Love You and Intervention.

Characters

Main addition to the cast is Michelle Trachtenberg in the role of Dawn, and for the most part she did a great job. I am glad that Amber Benson (plays Tara) and Emma Caulfield (Anya) finally got bigger roles to play. Spike is back and he is ambiguous as ever.

And in the role of evil god Glorificus we have Clare Kramer. Rest of the cast remained the same.

This may very well be the strongest season of Buffy, and in many ways it should be the last one. Continuing the story after this season was done badly and the series never was what was intended to be. For me, this is the last true season of Buffy. For all involved, it was better that some of the characters moved to L.A. to join Angel and his detective agency, because that series will grew stronger over time and better then Buffy was (again, maybe it’s only me).

Conclusion

If you liked the series so far, this is a season not to be missed. Season ended with episode number 100, and everything after that was not really needed, but reviews of last two seasons are coming soon.

High school is over (not to mention destroyed in the season 3 finale), and it’s time for Buffy to go to college. Much is changed over the summer after high school and not only that setting is changed, but once again mythology expanded to include secret military organization that hunts demons for experiments (OK, not a best direction, different at least). All in all, this is not my favorite Buffy season, but it’s close.

Buffy goes to college

Same formula as before, but this time a bit more serious, because we are in the college now. Story moves forward as Buffy tries to leave her house, tries to have a normal life, but finds out that it’s not that easy, even though Willow is having a great time. Major story line this season is existence of the secret military organization that hunts and captures demons and experiments on them. And I know, that’s more the story for a bad first person shooter video game than a TV series, on some level that works OK here (for the most part), because it will show what can happen when you add a crazy scientist to the mix, and explore the whole Dr. Frankenstein mythos.

Again, there are some amazing standalone episodes like  Something Blue, Hush, A New Man and Bear Bad that show the best side of this series: dark humor and pure fun.

Characters

Spike is back. And while he starts the season as bad as usual, plotting to kill the Slayer, thing will change for him, and we will get to see a different side of him. Willow is now a true witch, and Xander is working different job each episode, living in the basement. He is more comic relief now, than he was in any other season. Recurring character Anya (excellent performance by Emma Caulfield), a 1000 years old demon turned human who is afraid of bunnies is now regular cast member and a great addition to the story. A new cast member is Amber Benson, playing a witch Tara.

Buffy, Season 4

On the other hand, this is very important year for Buffy, because it’s a year of change, of growing up, finding new love after Angel, and I like the path Buffy traveled during this season.

Good thing is that Angel moved on (into own series, great and better in my opinion than Buffy), because both he and Buffy are too strong leads for one show. With two strong series running together, Joss Whedon managed to create something really special that will influence the whole generation of new TV series, comic books, novels and practically the new culture. Even if you don’t like Buffy or the whole vampires sub genre, you must admit the impact Buffy and Angel had.

Conclusion

All in all, this is very good season for Buffy, even with the military experiments story line. Get the full box set and start watching if you didn’t already.

Season 2 ended on the high note, with Buffy saving the world (again), and than she left Sunnydale. Angel is dead (or is he?) and the rest of the gang is fighting demons each night. There were some changes in the cast and introduction of new second Slayer. Most important thing about this season is expanding of the mythology and adding number of demons and even more evil forces all converging to town of Sunnydale.

Story

This is darker season than previous one, with several story lines that will lead to the ending and double episode and another Apocalypse. Return of Angel and his hidden relationship with Buffy, new and unpredictable Slayer turning to the dark side, city mayor trying to became a demon, all this will run for the whole season.

But, it’s important that writers decided to keep the formula from previous season and to create several great episodes that have nothing much to do with main storyline. Episodes like The Wish and Doppelgangland  deal with alternate time-line, Homecoming duel of Buffy and Cordy for the title are really great.

Characters

Willow role will finally get expanded and she is not going to be a geeky friend of Buffy. She will start to explore the witchcraft, and also will find love in form of a werewolf (previous season introduced Oz, played by Seth Green). Xanders relationship with Cordelia will evolve and eventually end with great episode The Wish.

Buffy, Season 3 Cast

Through the character Faith we will see that being the Slayer can be take a person to the dark path, and for the most part Faith will be the total opposite to Buffy. But, once again, I just can’t stand Eliza Dushku, and I don’t know why Joss Whedon casts her in most of his series. She is not bad actress, but she plays all her roles the same way and that gets really annoying. I wish they had someone else play Faith, because Eliza’s performance was plain bad in my book.

Angel transformation over this season was interesting and will open the door to spin off series after the end of this season.

Production

Visually, series has grown over first two seasons, and that was really needed since the new demons and creatures must look realistic. Still, CGI effects don’t look that good, and I expected them to be better.

Conclusion

Overall, this is good season, similar in many aspects to previous one, with more character development, more mythology and more substance.

And while season 1 was not so good, it managed to lay a solid foundation for the rest of the series (if you get past the martial arts stupid vampires and the great ease of killing them). Also, first season was too serious, and that’s something season 2 and later seasons will correct adding more fun into the mix. Main and recurring cast is expanded and several very interesting characters are added (and by that I mean Spike).

Story

While the first season was mostly single story line leading to killing the Master, primarily Buffy has episodic nature, but still having a main arc for each season, each one ending with some form of Apocalypse. Main focus of the arc of season 2 is the opening of one of the Hell dimensions and Angel loosing his soul in the middle of the season, and going back to being evil.

But, strongest side of the series are episodes that divert from main story line and deal with unusual and funny events or creatures. This started with episode Halloween, and costumes that transform the people that wear them. Similar type of episodes are Ted, Bad Eggs and my favorite Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.

During this season, we learn a bit more about Giles and his (dark) past, but that only scratches the surface, and it’s a real shame that only handful of episodes during the series deal with this character. At one point, there were plans to create a spin off series about him, but that never made it into production.

Characters

Many new characters were added in this season. David Boreanaz is now series regular, and his character Angel will be replaced by evil and soulless Angelus. To replace the Master, we get two new characters: Spike and Drusila. They both have a long history with Angelus and they will together plan the opening of Hell. Spike character will get huge fan base during this season, and it’s decided not to kill him off, but to expand his role in the later seasons. James Marsters is excellent in this role. Another great decision is to expand the role of Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) beyond the cliché character she was during the first season, and Cordy is definitively one of my favorite characters in these early seasons.

Buffy, Season 2 Cast

And while series is still plagued by inconsistent writing, too many clichés that will get annoying very quickly, improvement over first season is significant. Also, it’s very important to know that series intended audience is younger than I am, so maybe teenagers will find it much better than I did.

Conclusion

Much better season than first one, with at least 5–6 great episodes and very few really bad episodes. Adding Angel/Angelus twist and character of Spike will prove as excellent move and will ensure the success of the series. So, grab your Chosen Collection box set and start watching. Rest of seasons reviews are coming.

The Vampire Slayer is longest running vampire and supernatural series ever made, even though I think is far from the best. It’s a first major creation for Joss Whedon, and while I like some of his later work (Firefly), I never really watched Buffy and Angel series. So, I recently got my hands on the Chosen Collection box set, and decided to give Buffy a chance. And, overall, my opinion about the series is mixed at best.

First season is the shortest of one with only 12 episodes. And it started a whole new following that spanned not only to TV and long successful line of Buffy and Angel series, but expanded to other media. Joss created very complex mythology and there were not many similar franchises like Buffy was. In the years after Buffy, many vampire series were created, and only the latest one True Blood managed to remain on air for more than a season. Seven season of Buffy don’t mean that Buffy is the best, because I liked both Moonlight and Blade more, but Buffy was much different than any other similar series.

Story

Vampire Slayer is warrior born in every generation, always a girl, with super human strength, rapid healing and only one goal: to kill vampires and other demon folk. Series is set in small California town of Sunnydale. And this small town is a center of demon activities, with opening of Hellmouth in the middle of the local highschool. Vampire Slayer has a Watcher, someone who has a task on training the Slayer and watch over her.

First season will introduce main characters, Slayer’s small group that will later be known as Scooby Gang. They know all about Buffy and are helping her fight evil. And not all people that are helping her are human. During first season they are fighting the Master who is trying to open Hellmouth and start Apocalypse.

Characters

Sarah Michelle Gellar is in the role of Buffy, and for the most part I like her performance. She manages to play two sides of Buffy, a vampire slayer by night and a “normal” teenage girl by day. Her watcher, Rupert Giles, is working as a school librarian, and library will be a major gathering point and center of the series in the first couple of seasons. Watcher is played by the Anthony Stewart Head. Buffy’s best friends are Willow (played by Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon). In the beginning they are mostly annoying, sort of comic relief sidekicks. Over the time, that will change and they will get much more developed and better roles.

Buffy, Season 1 Cast

Buffy has a helper on the other side in form of vampire with a soul Angel. He is featured in half of episodes in the first season, but his role will also grow.

And while I like the complex and deep mythology of the series, there are many things that I feel are bad. For the most part, vampires are presented as a joke, easy to kill, stupid, and all with knowledge of martial arts. Fights all look the same, and you will grow tired of them. And this first season is responsible for setting the bar too low when the vampires are concerned. Many elements of vampire mythology are under developed and (sorry) plain stupid (biting and blood drinking are very stupid). I feel that idea Joss had was very good but somehow it was watered down to unrealistic and mostly week villains. And while the story will get better as time goes on, this basic elements will remain week through out the series. I know that they wanted to make mix of teenage comedy and horror, but this has gone too far.

Conclusion

Fair start of the series, and maybe the weakest season of all. Anyway, if you get past the initial obvious mistakes and plot wholes, series is actually enjoyable and fun to watch. It will get better after first season.

After FOX canceled Firefy, a lot of things were still unexplained, and the fans wanted more. So, when Universal acquired movie rights from FOX, Joss started working on the script. Major problem was the history of the show, and the need to find the way to introduce the story to new viewers, without long introduction that will bore series viewers. And with several delays with filming, movie is released to theaters in 2005.

And it had some success on the box office, but it didn’t returned on the initial investment until the DVD/BluRay release. And the box office failure means that the sequel is highly unlikely. On the other hand, movie got many awards and was very well received by fans.

Story and Cast

Serenity story is set short after the ending of the series, and starts with River hearing the subliminal message in the advertisement, that triggered a hidden memory. The memory was about the planet on the outer rim of the system called Miranda, that was kept as a secret by the Alliance. With help from Mr. Universe (tech geek) they are set on the road to discover what the Miranda is all about.

Cast has remained the same, but some of the characters were not as prominent as in the series, like the Sheppard who will be seen only in couple of scenes and is no longer the part of the Serenity crew.

Production

Due to change of the format, from TV to big screen, many changes were required. Visual effects are much better, and even include an epic space battle towards the end of the movie. Music is different from the series also, and is composed by David Newman.

Conclusion

Serenity is a great movie, in many ways better than the series. The story will tie many of the loose ends of the series, and still leave much more to be desired. There are rumors about new TV series, but all that is unconfirmed.

To the wide public, Joss Whedon is known as a creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, two shows I didn’t liked very much. But after that, he created Firefly, an excellent science fiction show followed by the movie Serenity, that made me curious what he will do with this latest effort called Dollhouse. This show is once again created for FOX, the same television that canceled Firefly in the first place. So, what is Dollhouse?

Show premise involves a secret organization that programs agents to any skill set needed for particular task using some sort of computer interface that erases personality and replaces it with something else. And while idea looks very promising, the end effect was not exactly great. Even during the filming of the early episodes, script has gone through many changes, and some episodes had to be rewritten and re-shot because they failed to deliver.

Characters

Main character is Echo, played by Eliza Dushku, agent working in the Dollhouse. Here performance is mostly good, but in many instances she fails to deliver the true chameleon-like transformation of her character. My favorite character is definitly Boyd, Echo’s handler played by Harry Lennix. But, in the same time geek character Topher is just silly and I hated every time he appears on the screen. Personality transformations are not done very well, and in my opinion, this is one of the biggest problems of the show.

Writing

While the concept is interesting, writing on the other hand is not that good. Show borrows from other Whedons shows in terms of characters stereotypes, plot ideas and most episodes fail to be interesting enough. I think that FOX had too much influence on the show development, and that had driven the writing in direction that left this show far behind the expectations.

Dollhouse cast

There are some bright elements like the FBI subplot, Alpha subplot. These actually were the only reasons for me to watch the show to the end of season. The ending is better then the most of the show, and that’s maybe a good sign of changes to season 2.

Production

Show definitely looks good, and expensive. I didn’t liked the music much, felt too generic for my taste. Most of the visual effects were good, and technical side of the show is also done very well. But, a lot of money invested, doesn’t mean that the final result will be great.

Conclusion

Another average show, that’s promised to improve in the next season. You should give it a chance, and hope that the it will get better. If the FOX leaves Whedon to work alone, without pressure, we might get even great season 2.

Without the doubt, Firefly is one of the best science fiction shows ever created. Even that was not enough to prevent shows premature cancellation by the FOX television. Creator of Buffy and Angel, Joss Whedon is behind the Firefly, and for me, this is his finest work yet. Firefly is much different from usual genre shows we have seen because it doesn’t have aliens, nor some fancy hyper mega warp drives, a human only sci fi.

Series is set in 26-th century, humanty now lives in new solar system with many inhabitable planets and moons, and it follows adventures of a crew of the ship called Serenity, Firefly class. Part of the series concept is revival of the old west in space, replacing stage coach with space ships.

Characters

It’s quite unusual, but I really like all of the characters on the Serenity crew. Casting is spot on. Adam Baldwin has proven once again that he is an excellent actor, and he is my favorite Baldwin. I would also like to point out excellent performance of Summer Glau, playing secretive and somewhat disturbed River Tam. FOX TV had a great deal of influence on shaping the characters, but that maybe proven to be a good thing (usually it’s really not).

Firefly Cast

Writing

Main plot and some of the episodes were also under the influence of FOX, and the pilot episode has gone through many, many changes. But, the writing, main plot and all episodes are well written, and I can’t really point out any problems or week spots.

In the center of the series is a story of River Tam and her brother, chased by the Alliance authorities. This storyline will continue until the end of the series and into the Serenity movie.

Music & Sound

One of the best qualities of the show is excellent music, starting with the main theme to overall great blend of old western sound, and asian influences. Music is composed by Greg Edmonson, and title song ‘Ballad of Serenity’ performs Sonny Rhodes. Also, this is the only science fiction show (that I know of) that has no sound for the space scenes, because vacuum of space can’t conduct sound.

Production and visuals

Special effects are really great, from the design of the Serenity,  and other space ships to over populated planets. Firefly concept is excellently done, and resembles firefly insect. FOX has originally aired only 11 episodes, skipping even the pilot episode. DVD and BluRay sets contain all 14 episodes.

Conclusion

Show has received a number of important awards and has a huge fans following. This is really a must see for any science fiction fan. Movie Serenity is the continuation of the series used to complete the main plot ark.