[.ca] Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Third Season [6 ...

From Amazon.com:
The third season of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was marked by the arrival in Sunnydale of renegade slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku), a moody loner who seemed to like her demon-staking calling just a little too much. While Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was always wary of Faith, the two developed a deep friendship and appreciative rapport--that is, until the evil mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener) tapped into Faith's dark side and lured her into his plot to take over the world, first as a double agent spying on Buffy, then as out-and-out nemesis. And as the mayor's ascension approached--which happened to fall on Sunnydale High's graduation day--Buffy and Faith's battles got nastier and nastier, as Buffy attempted to wrestle with her dark side (literally and figuratively), save the world and her friends, and keep her lover Angel (David Boreanaz) out of Faith's evil clutches. Chock-full of exceptional episodes, this third season started out with a bang (the superb season opener "Anne," in which a runaway Buffy finally returns to her Slayer calling) and never let up. Among other highlights, the season introduced former vengeance demon and soon-to-be regular Anya (Emma Caulfield), fleshed out Angel's tortured character (and readied him for his own series), and featured a hilarious doppelganger Willow (Alyson Hannigan), a vampire from a parallel universe, who in Willow's own words was "evil and... skanky... and kinda gay!" (Total foreshadowing there, folks.) The season's pièce de résistance, though, was the two-parter "Graduation Day," wherein Faith tries to kill Angel, and the students of Sunnydale High prepare to do battle with a mutated mayor and his army of demons. Aside from the series' exceptional writing and acting, this compelling year of Buffy was anchored by the consistently excellent Gellar, as well as Dushku's complicated Faith, a girl you truly love to hate. By the time you finish these episodes, Faith will have cast a spell on you that you'll find very hard to shake. --Mark Englehart

Chronique Amazon.fr:
Buffy, contrainte de tuer l'homme qu'elle aimait pour sauver le monde des griffes de l'enfer, s'est enfuit. Le Scoubyband relève le flambeau, mais n'est pas tueuse qui veut. D'autant que le maire de Sunnydale oeuvre dans l'ombre pour arriver à l'ascension suprême. Buffy, rattrapée par son devoir, revient, retrouve son amour, et reçoit la reconnaissance discrète et sincère des lycéens survivants de ce nouvel Armageddon. Les scénaristes ont fait preuve d'imagination en créant un ennemi puissant et une nouvelle tueuse ambivalente, pour traiter de thèmes tels que la trahison, l'échec amoureux, les rapports au père. Les relations entre les personnages se compliquent, se tissent, se nouent et se dénouent pour faire de cette troisième saison de Buffy contre les vampires un pur bijou d'action et d'humour, emballé tout en finesse. --Aurélie Rochman

stellar buffy!:
Faith, the Mayor, and the Angel storyline are great. The Mayor, the character himself, was my favourite. He was just creepy but so nice at the same time. Way to go Joss!

The show's best season...:
The growing trend up until this point was that Buffy the Vampire Slayer seemed to get better after each season. The first season was a great start to the show, the second season was amazing, and the third season somehow managed to become even better. Over the course of the rest of the show, there would be some fantastic seasons. But, season three has managed to remain the best season of the entire show. The relationship between Buffy and Angel is brought to a whole new level in this season, because of the events that took place in season two. Season three also introduced a beautiful and renegade slayer named Faith(Eliza Dushku) whose love for killing would eventually cause her to become an excellent villan, as well as the evil mayor of Sunnydale ( Harry Groener)that would definately practice the age old metaphor of "killing people with kindness". The suspense for season three is intense, because there is a countdown throughout the season that comes to a head on Graduation Day in which the mayor wishes to ascend to a higher level of being to destroy the world. There were so many great episodes in season three, that it is hard to choose a favorite. There were so many in fact, that 20 out of the 22 episodes were fantastic. The overall direction of season three was fantastic, and each episode seemed to build off the last one. Among season three's best episodes are - "The Wish" ( my all time favorite episode), "Dopplegangland","The Zeppo","Lover's Walk", "Band Candy", "Homecoming", "Lover's Walk", "Revelations", "Amends", "Earshot", "Prom", and "Graduation Day" PTS.1&2. Overall, this is a must for any fan of the show. This would be worth owning just for the season itself. However, the DVD set is fantastic as well. You get commentary on several episodes, as well as five featurettes, and more. A solid 5 stars...

Some good, some bad:
Season 3 is a mixture of things that worked very well and things that didn't work at all for the series. Some of the episodes that worked well included "Homecoming," when Buffy goes up against Cordelia to win the Homecoming Queen election. This episode worked so well because it went back to Buffy's roots and remembered that Buffy started out as a blonde-bimbo-valleygirl who would have been concerned with becoming Homecoming Queen. I always thought that there would be much more tension between Buffy and Cordelia than was ever played up, so I was glad to see this episode recognize who Buffy used to be and have that hit head-on who she is now. The introduction of Anya in "The Wish" is a breath of fresh air. The episode is also interesting in and of itself because of the way it sets up a world without Buffy. Xander and Willow as vampires are brilliant and really drive home the importance of the slayer. Willow's first hint at her coming sexual exploration in "Doppelgangland" was just one of the highlights of that episode. The idea of an evil verion of Willow - the sweetest of the sweet - it intriguing and interesting to watch. Finally, "Earshot", the airdate of which was delayed due to the Columbine tragedy, is a great episode where Buffy has to deal with (what she thinks) is a new but real threat to highschoolers everywhere. The idea that Buffy should also deal with non-supernatural threats is a great moment away from the vampires and demons. These few great episodes, though, are surrounded by many sub-par efforts by the Buffy writers and directors. Among the worst episodes are "Gingerbread" and "The Zeppo". In "Gingerbread" Joyce tries to rally Sunnydale residents against the supernatural forces trying to take over the town. The concept just doesn't work and the episode turns out flat and boring. "The Zeppo" which tries to give Xander a chance to play the hero is so poorly written and just boring in general that I haven't even been able to watch it all the way through. The Graduation episodes which highlight the Mayor's ascention are okay, but don't really affect the audience at all. I'd rather see Buffy fight a single vampire in a well choreographed fight scene than hundreds of teens running around pretend-fighting a giant snake. I think that Faith was also a thorn in the side of the show this season. She just never really fit into the stories at all and didn't even really provide that great of a doppelganger for Buffy. She was just more irritating than effective. Overall, a mediocre season.

Amazing show, amazing season. Of course it has flaws, but...:
Amazing show, amazing season. Of course it has flaws, but... In third season, it's clear for everyone that the actors are totally comfortable playing their characters, everyone knows what to do, when to do it and how to do it. The level of confidence is rising and rising. Of course it has flaws. You just can't produce 22 perfect episodes that will please everybody. The producers, writers and cast do the best they can in the short time and relatively small budget they have at their disposal. One question, however, does not leave my mind: how can an actress (I'm talking about Sarah Mihcelle Gellar here) give such stupendous, gorgeous, solid, breathtaking, emotional performances episode after episode, season after season, no matter if the material that they give her is good or bad? She bears more than half of the credit for Buffy being the hit it was. She TOTALLY controls the show when she's on camera. I sincerely hope she has a marvellous and well suceeded movie career (away from Scooby-Doo movies, I mean...) As for third season properly speaking, it has ups and lows. I particularly enjoy almost everything the show ever produced, but sometimes I did not. Faith, for example. She just not fit. Shés annoying. Of course it was a character created for us to hate, but not to ANNOY the viewer. Everytime she's on screen with her wooden dialogue, I simply wanted to go fast forward (but I didn't, of course!). I also agree with with a reviewer tha said that it would have been better if the Scooby-gang treated her like a basket case beyond help, instead of trying to save her. Anyway, Joss Whedon always suprise the audience doing the exact OPPOSITE of what we would expect (Example 1: Xander and Willow - their potential beautiful romance didn't last nothing, and it was never "officalized" - Example 2: Wesley and Cordelia flirting - the flirting lasts a lot of episodes and, when they finally kiss, there is no chemistry between them and the romance is over even before it starts.) Also, we have someplot holes and weakness we must forget in order to remember that it's, after all, just a television show for entertainment. Even if the Ascension worked for the Mayor, what were his intentions? Sure, he would eat the entire school populace, but after that? The Army, police, Air Force, all of them would transform that giant worm in small pieces very briefly. No big threat indeed!

A medicore story arc and jarring visual style:
I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one fo the greatest dramas ever. From all the seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I've seen however (I haven't seen seven) this has to be my least favorite. Primarly for reasons not even related to the show's story quality. My major gripe with this season was that it was visually bland and dark with colors so annoyling drab I could barely watch some episodes (luckily ever other season has fantastic colors and visual style). The seasons colors seem to be just made out of over-dark greens and grays. I am perfectly fine with visual darkness (when used effectively and in the right spots and isn't overused on a grand scale) but I also need visual variety and to some degree brigtness. The literal darkness of the season turned me off visually for many episodes. I have this same gripe with the show Angel which in my opinion is stuck in overdarkness for seasons 2-4. This isn't just because of the DVDs either (considering the visual flaws, the technical apects of this dvd are relatively good) because seaosn 3 looks even worse on tv. Even relatively bright episodes like Earshot have an annoying greenish and grayishness to them. I don't know if this is just me but season 3, visually, is a disaster. Now to my storywise gripes with this season. The Buffy/Angel relationship felt doomed and dragging, the overall arc wasn't interesting and lost momentum, and the bad girl Faith lost appeal because of the "let's save her" attitude taken on by her friends and the visual style which seemed to somehow upstage Eliza Dusku's fantastic acting. It would have been best to not make any effort to humanize Faith and have the other characters treat her like a straight sociopath. Also the high-school setting was getting old. Also some very interesting villians (a la Mr. Trick) were underutilized. And some not so great villians (a la the mayor) were overutilized. Also the finale episode's big battle didn't make sense and had horrible effects (but was fun). Now to what was good with the season. There are a number of standout episodes espicially the parallel universe ones and Earshot. Also the season opener is fantastic and Lover's Walk (Spike's brilliant season 3 cameo) ranks among one of the greatest episodes of Buffy. The character of Wesley was a great addition to the show (but lost all his charm on Angel when he went from a "caricature" to a dark, brood, and "complex" "character" an unwise decion). Principal Snyder remains in my opinion one of the greatest and funniest Buffy characters ever (and since he's not shown too much in the dark the visual flaws don't affect as much. Also his resembelence to a ferrangi (well he plays Quark on Star Trek Ds9, who I believe shares a loveable ruthlessness with Snyder) just made him more funny. Ever time I saw him I started expecting him to spurt out quotes from the rules of aquisition or give a lecture on profit. The main character's development is okay. I lost all my real caring for the Buffy/Angel realtionship, Faith was a lost cause from the begininning, and Xander and Willow were meant for eachother, but I loved what they did with Giles's character. The extras are great, but some of the commentaries are hard to watch due to the fact that some apply to some of the visually blander episodes. Do I recomend it, yes. Do I guarantee you'll enjoy it visually, no. But it's still Buffy, it's still quality and you still have to see it. Maybe these visual flaws are only noticed by me or don't apply to anyone else, who knows.