Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Season 8 Motion Comic/Being Human
– Seasons Two & Three (2010/11/Fox Blu-ray + DVD Combo/BBC Blu-ray Disc
Sets)
Picture:
C+/B-/B- Sound: C+/B-/B- Extras: C/B/B- Episodes: C/B-/C+
After
first getting canceled on Fox, then being picked up by the then-WB network for
two more seasons, the television run of Buffy
The Vampire Slayer finally gave up the ghost in 2003 after seven seasons on
air. However, much like other shows
created by Joss Whedon, the fandom lived on. As a result of this continued popularity, Dark
Horse published what would be known as Season
8 for a 40 issue run, before the current Season 9 took over in mid-2011. The artwork and dialog of the first half of
the Season 8 issues serve as the
basis for this motion comic, and while there's nothing wrong with the story
itself, some problems have arisen from it being shoehorned onto the small
screen.
Back on
the Buffy TV series, there was a
certain manner of speaking used that lent believability to often absurd
situations. Whether formed organically
by the right combination of actors, or just a product of Whedon's influence is
hard to say, but both sides likely did their part in making this chemistry work
so well. With the motion comic, there's
an entirely new cast providing the voice-overs, and of course this means some
changes to the way things work.
Some of
these new talents struggle with delivering those one-liners and snappy
comebacks (the actress doing the voice work for Buffy is particularly bad), but
there are still some that capture the essence of the characters better than the
rest. Unfortunately, those who aren't as
good give the dialog no natural flow and leave it sounding more forced and
stilted than it ought to be. Poor
performances like this are what will end up pushing away those looking to find
these characters represented as they were before.
To some
extent there's also been a change to the tone of the writing, as without having
to worry about the limitations of the television format any longer, Whedon and
the other writers have been able to make things bigger than they were before. This means bigger monsters, bigger fights,
and way more characters.
The
Blu-ray and double sided DVD each hold the same content, but only cover the
first 19 issues of Season 8, leaving
over half of the material cut out. Perhaps a second volume is a future
possibility, though no mention is made of this being the first volume in a set.
In the
second season of Being Human, we
continue to follow Mitchell, George and Annie... respectively a vampire,
werewolf and ghost that live together in a flat in Bristol. Things start picking up with the plot in this
season, but it can be a bit much to process, as new characters come and go
quite frequently for what is only an 8 episode series. Season
3 sees the show headed to Wales,
with the core group remaining intact, but with even bigger hurdles to overcome.
This will be the last season to feature
the complete cast, however, as Aidan Turner has already left, and it seems Russell
Tovey will be parting ways as well sometime in the fourth season.
Extra
features for Buffy are slim, but for
the uninitiated, the first issue is included here in its entirety as a
mini-sized comic. Each of these seasons
of Being Human has a good chunk of
extra content, featuring cast interviews, deleted scenes and some other behind
the scenes stuff. Season Two also features a couple of hidden Easter Eggs, accessed
by leaving the first disc's title screen open for a few minutes before it gives
you the option of opening a submenu. From
there, there's a guided tour of the CenSSA facility, as well as the half-hour
“CenSSA Story”. Both are fun enough that
fans of the show will want to check them out, but casual viewers won't be
missing much.
Both Buffy and these seasons of Being Human are presented in 1080i on
the Blu-ray discs, with 1.78:1 aspect ratios. Obviously, Blu-ray does offer better picture
quality for these sets, though I didn't really find it all that substantial of
an upgrade, and not worth getting excited over. The audio on both formats of Buffy is in 5.1, with the Blu-ray
presenting it in DTS-HD and the DVD in Dolby. Being
Human has only lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo on both the DVDs as well as
the Blu-rays. The lack of a lossless option
is a careless oversight, as this would have been one more reason upgrade to the
better format.
Overall,
I'd say that while the motion comic idea is intriguing on Buffy, it also stifles the imagination and makes accepting this
expansion of the Buffy-verse more difficult to pick up on. Casual fans might be better served by reading
the actual comics instead, but if you're a Buffy completist, go ahead and pick
it up - though I wouldn't expect to be going back to it very often. Being
Human, however, is a good place for vampire and werewolf fanatics to turn
to, and though opinions are bound to differ, I'd give this BBC original a
recommendation over the unnecessary U.S. adaptation any day.
For more
on the first U.K.
debut season of Human, try this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10105/Being+Human+%E2%80%93+Season
- David Milchick
