Customer Reviews

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" scripts: Season 3, Episodes 7-12 - By: Lawrance M. Bernabo, 20 Oct 2003
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Three, Volume 2" gives us episodes 7-12 from the senior year at Sunnydale High School for Buffy & the Scoobies. This is the eighth volume of scripts available to date, the rest dealing with the previous two seasons & the "Once More With Feeling" musical episode of "BtVS." The attraction here for those who are trying to carrying on now Joss Whedon's legions of fans are down to watching "Angel" & waiting for Buffy to make a guest appearance is that these are the shooting scripts for these six episodes. You can look for typos & other mistooks that they failed to corrupt, but the attraction is getting dialogue & even full scenes that were cut before the final version was broadcast on the WB (the idea of deleted scenes out there is as maddening as the smell of fresh blood would be to newly risen vamp). I used to suggest that you could read along with these scripts while you watched the episodes on DVD, but I think most of us know the episodes so well by now that we can easily pick up on what was added, omitted or alterredin the final aired version (e.g., the tree sellersin "Amends," p. 216). Still, you have to admit it is a lot easier to read the script this way than going frame by frame when one of them is available on the DVDs. But even when there are not changes you get Joss Whedon's wacky stage directions, a type of humor that has obviously rubbed off on some of the other writers as well (e.g., "Anya looks deeply perplexed," page 165).

Includedin this second volume of Season Three scripts are: "Revelations" by Douglas Petrie, "Lovers Walk" by Dan Vebber, "The Wish" by Marti Noxon, "Amends" by Joss Whedon, "Gingerbread" by Jane Espenson (story by Espenson & Thania St. John), & "Helpless" (previously "18") by David Fury. These half-dozen episodes bring us up to the point where Giles is fired by the Watcher's Council, which meansin Volume 3 we will see means the next volume (which should have the next five episodes) will begin Faith's slide toward becoming a rouge slayer. Interesting to note that "Amends" which was the episode submitted by Whedon for Emmy consideration from Season Three, & "Helpless," are both entirely "WHITE" shooting drafts: no revisions asin no "BLUE" pages, no "PINK" pages (I know, you cannot tell by the color of the pagesin this book, but they are labeled at the top so you can see what was revised & hazard your guesses as to why). This latest volume reaffirms that "BtVS" was rich series where every script has a few choice morsels on which we can subsist while we wallowin despair that the show is now part of cult television history.