Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Slayer Pack

The two-part opener, "Welcome to Hellmouth" and "Harvest," introduces Buffy and audiences to her new high school, her friends, and her enemies. Most importantly, the episodes introduce a demon who'll plague her through the series' first season: the Master. She also meets Angel, the most beleaguered vampire this side of Lestat's Louis. Together, the newfound friends and the watcher battle--and win (for now)--against the Master's minions. "The Witch" is an early example of the demons Buffy faces--it's not just about staking vamps. Here Buffy meets Amy (a recurring character), whose mother is a cheerleader-obsessed--you guessed it--witch. "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" explores a recurring theme: Buffy's thwarted attempts for normalcy in her life. As viewers come to expect, demons get in the way. Here, the Anointed One (a kiddie vamp) is crowned. Buffy learns the true identity of the mysterious and handsome Angel, who's spent the last 80 years without a kill. The couple agree not to pursue a relationship (yeah, right). Another episode that explores the demonic is "The Puppet Show," which borrows from the familiar theme of the possessed ventriloquist's dummy. Some episodes are quite graphic ("The Puppet Show," for example, features a potential brain removal), but there's always the inevitable triumph of good over evil. This justifiably popular phenomenon serves up healthy messages of loyalty and friendship, complete with hip, dead-on funny dialogue and great clothes. It's also a celebration of the quirky and the odd(balls). --N.F. Mendoza

Customer reviews:

buffy slayer pack, 2008-04-02
it is so good i watch this so many times

i bought it at like new

Welcome to the Hellmouth, 2002-05-09
Not the most coherent introduction to the show - which could have been thematically smoother by including all the primary episodes composing the story arc of the Slayer's first nemesis, The Master - but still a good selection. The three most important story and character establishing episodes are present, "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest" comprising the single story with all the pertinent exposition (and fabulously presented, at that), and "Angel" introducing Buffy's most important "significant other" and eventual greatest foe.

The other three episodes are more of a grab-bag, but at least one or two of them are sure to please. "Never Kill A Boy On the First Date" is pretty standard fare, hardly an extraordinary episode but at least a good and satisfying one. Buffy first deals with the sad fact that she will never have "a normal life," given her unique calling, gaining and losing a boyfriend in a single action-packed night and ending with a touching bonding scene with Giles, her Watcher and moral support.

"The Witch" is quite good, the show's first attempt to prove it could survive without overdoing the vampires. It's a cleverly written piece, with a few genuine surprises and chills. One of the Buffy series' virtues is the ability to dramatize darker realities in metaphor - there was a time that the suggestion of a jealous mother murdering her daughter's cheerleading competition would have been considered absurd, but of course those missed days of innocence are now long gone.

"The Puppet Show" is a popular favorite of many of the show's fans, pulling a clever variation on the theme of the schizophrenic ventriloquist/living dummy routine. It has some of the series' most sparkling character interplay and humorous moments, and a few rather gruesome ones as well. Sarah Michelle Gellar has one of her funniest lines ever, in the opening teaser: beholding a classmate performing with his ventriloquist's dummy at a talent show audition, she mutters, "I hate dummies. Ever since I was a kid, I hated them." Everyone looks at her, she realizes they're looking, and she remarks, anticlimactically, "There's no story, here. I just don't like them, that's all."

There are better episodes from the first season, and episodes more cohesive in a single story arc. But these choices are all still quite good, and a suitable "welcome to the hellmouth" - for newbies to the series, as well as old fans.