Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on September 13, 2002, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
If the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer surprised everyone who wondered why a mediocre theatrical film was being turned into a regular series, the second season found the show fully coming into its own. At its center, the relationship between Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Angel (David Boreanaz) developed in surprising, moving ways that put the dramatic arcs of most genre fare—theatrical or televised—to shame. Meanwhile, the introduction of Spike (James Marsters) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau) gave the proceedings some extra juice, and there were a number of fine stand-alone episodes, highlighted by “Ted,” with John Ritter in a memorable turn as a potential (robotic) stepfather for Buffy. (There was also the clinker “Killed by Death,” but you can’t win ’em all.)
Many of the second season’s segments have a high replay value, which is just one reason Fox’s continuing Buffy boxed sets are welcome. The transfers, sadly, still leave something to be desired at this point; a number of the episodes bear a grainy, contrasty look, with only OK colors and a washed-out appearance in some of the lighter moments. (This can be partially explained by the fact that the show was still shooting on 16mm at this point; the pure video scenes in “Halloween” appear sharper and cleaner than the filmed material around them.) The quality improves overall the deeper into the set you go, raising hopes that as these releases continue (into the period where Buffy began filming on 35mm), the episodes will look as good as they play. The Dolby 2.0 Surround audio is unspectacular, but gets the job done.
The supplemental package is an improvement over that in the Season One set, though at times a bit dated (much of it was produced during the show’s fifth season, and some can be found in the British DVD box). Four of the episodes contain audio commentaries, and the hands-down winner is creator Joss Whedon’s talk on “Innocence.” After claiming that he has no funny anecdotes to share, he begins a running gag about actor Anthony Stewart Head not wearing pants, and goes on to pack his talk with technical detail (he appreciates the opportunity to do long takes, getting in a dig at Brian De Palma along the way), observations about the writing process and a frank admission that he was uncomfortable shooting the Buffy-Angel love scene. Whedon’s enthusiasm and appreciation for his cast consistently shine through—at one point he stops talking to allow Alyson Hannigan’s Willow to deliver an uninterrupted speech.
Writer Marti Noxon comments on “What’s My Line Part 1” and “Part 2,” offering a decent share of insights and entertaining anecdotes. She notes the boundaries the show pushed (from sexy stuff to a scene with a gun they probably couldn’t do today), and she also clearly enjoys her job—conveying the thrill of seeing her words becoming filmed reality, and also of checking out Boreanaz with his shirt off. “Reptile Boy” contains a talk by writer/director David Greenwalt, and it’s pretty humdrum, consisting mostly of description of what’s on screen with the very occasional technical tidbit. He does, however, have one of the best lines in all of the commentaries: “If Joss Whedon had had one decent date in high school,” Greenwalt offers, “none of us would be here today.”
Scripts for these four episodes are also included, and brief on-camera Whedon interviews are scattered about; the best accompanies “Passion,” in which he explains the purpose of Jenny Calendar’s death and wraps things up with a fun punchline. He also notes, in an interview about “I Only Have Eyes for You,” how Boreanaz’s performance in that episode first opened the team’s eyes to the possibility that Angel could carry his own show. A clutch of featurettes go behind the scenes of both the locations (love the graveyard set up in a parking lot) and the creation of the creatures, one from the acting and one from the FX point of view. In the former, we get to see Marsters and Landau talking in their normal, non-British-accented voices; in the latter, artist Todd McIntosh explains how the makeups for the humans and the monsters complement each other—a perhaps unintended yet fine metaphor for what makes the show itself so good.
