Rating: 
Summary: Season Five, a Season of Ups and Downs
Review: Lots of high points and low points in this season. Probably where many people really think the show started to lose its touch. While I thought Glory was a great departure for the traditional villain, I guess Buffy had just broken the mold too many times for even a character like Glory to really strike people. Some solid episodes in it though. The one about the Buffy Bot, and when Spike confronts Buffy about his past are in season five. They are all must see episodes for any fan.All and all, I give the season a B+. I never thought Dawn found her way into the group, and I never felt any true emotion between Buffy and her. But, who knows, this was also the season where Buffy seemed to lose her girly tendencies and become just a stone cold warrior like the rest of the slayers before her (its kinda sad, considering that she consciously tried to never become them). A safe buy for any fan. You'll enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: She Saved the Wold... Alot
Review: Well this is it, the Spectacular fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This was the end of the Buffy we all knew and loved, as well as the end of Buffy on the WB. During the Season Buffy was forced to grow up fast, and boy do I mean fast. Everything she ever knew was lost, and she had to learn how to go on in life, taking everything in stride. The Fifth season is agruably the season were most of the characters grew up and learned about themselves... It was also hands-down the most dramatic season the show ever saw. The main plot of the season revolves around a mysterious key that is being hotly persued by Glory (a God that was exilled from her own demionsion). Through the season Buffy learns that the key is something that is so precious to her, so can't let Glory get it, which leads to one of Buffy most spectacular battles (only short of the battle in season 7's "chosen.") And as all Buffy fans must know, this is the season were Buffy died... again. Through the season many old faces appeared including Harmony, Angel, Drusilla, and many more. Also this the season that has the heartbreaking music-free episode "The Body" where Buffy loses her mother, and not to some demon but to the one thing that Buffy (or humans) can't fight... Mother Nature. Included in this season are the wonderful episodes...
Buffy Vs. Dracula - Buffy is visited by Dracula who informs her that she has much to learn about being a slayer.
Real Me - Buffy finds herself with a little sister
The Replacement - Xander is split into two
Out of my Mind
No Place like Home
Family - The gang fins out a dark secret about Tara
Fool for Love - The Past of Angel, Spike, Drusilla, and Darla is told in this two part episode concluding in the second season of aAngel
Shadow
Listening to Fear
Into the Woods - Something from another planet comes to Sunnydale
Triangle
Checkpoint
Blood Ties
Crush
I was made to love you - after fighting a love-sick robot, buffy finds one of the most disturbing finds in the history of the show.
The Body - Buffy and Company grieve for the loose of a loved one.
Forever - Angel comes to Sunnydale to comfort Buffy
Intervention
Tough Love
Spiral
The Weight of the World
The Gift - Buffy learns what her gift (death) is meant for. As you can see, this was a drama-pact season that was a great end to an era of Buffy, and the perfect prelude to what was to come. The Special Featuer in the US, are yet-to-be-determined, but they will closes resemble the UK's ones which are... Commentantary on "Real Me" by David Fury & David Grossman, Script for "The Replacement," Script and Commentary for "Fool for Love" By Doug Petrie, Script for "Into the Woods," Featurettes (Buffy Abroad, Demonology - A Slayer's Guide, Casting Buffy, Stunts of Buffy) 6 trailers, Scrip for checkpoint, Commentary for "I was made to Love you" by Jane Espenson, Commentary for "The body" by Joss Whedon, Featurettes (The Story of Season5, Natural Causes, Spotlight on Dawn), and a Still Gallery. This is shaping up to be a great Box Set!!!
Rating:
Summary: Finally The Best Season Has Come To DVD!
Review: Season 5 is my all time favorite season of Buffy. The season features some of the most humorous lines I've ever heard(mostly from Anya, the now human ex-demon), and introduces Buffy's sister, Dawn. This is also the season where Buffy's mother dies from post-surgery complications in one of the sadest hours on televison. You can't help but shed a few tears when you see everyone's reaction to the tragic death. This season Buffy also comes up against her weirdest enemy yet - an earthbound hell god with a fetish for shoes. As un-threatning as she sounds, she can more than stand her own against Buffy. As you've seen in previous seasons, Buffy will give everything she's got to stop the bi-monthly apocalypses of Sunnydale and in this case she gives the ultimate sacrifice - her life. ORDER IT NOW!
Rating:
Summary: The Slayer. The Goddess. The Key.
Review: Within every great television series, the characters have had to mature and deal with adult situations as they grew up. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Season Five" is a great example of how the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series started out as a show about a group of friends in High School and College, and by the end of the fifth season they were now grown into their own people. This is a great season in the show due to its great assembly of characters, real life problems, and awesome story. For sure, the fifth season of "Buffy" will be one you will love if you are a true Buffy fan.
To start, I have never really seen a show with a better assembled cast of characters. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is still dealing with the problem of being a vampire slayer and also trying to fit into the world. Her friends are all finding places in their lives during this season, and for once growing up and supporting themselves. Xander (Nicholas Brendan) continues his construction job and even begins to get promoted and starts thinking about marriage to his ex-vengeance demon girlfriend Anya (Emma Caufield). Willow (Alyson Hannigan) is still in a growing relationship with Tara (Amber Benson), going to UC Sunnydale, and becoming a very gifted wicca. Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) has found a job as the owner of a store called 'The Majic Box' which Anya also works at. Riley (Mark Blucas) is still Buffy's boyfriend but their dieing relationship ends up causing more problems for both of them than expected. The only people not completely satisfied with life are Buffy and the vampire punk Spike (James Marsters) who is realizing that he has feelings for the slayer, his once great enemy. Besides Spike's obsession with her, Buffy must deal with two other problems- her mother's (Kristine Sutherland) growing illness and her sister Dawn (Michelle Tratchenberg), whom she soon discovers is not her real sister but a ball of energy called The Key sent to the slayer by Monks to protect it from a hell goddess known as Glory (Claire Kramer) who is not only evil but also hilarious and ditzy at the same time.
Next, although Buffy is a show that is not real, and really never could be, Joss Wheadon and his crew do a great job placing real life problems and situations into the story- such as Buffy's mom's tumor, an annoying little sister who is more than she appears, Willow and Tara's unusual relationship, Xander's debating about marriage, and even Buffy having to drop out of college to take care of her family. Yes, it is true that even though Buffy is make believe, you can still connect with it just as well as any other show.
Finally, the all out season was just great. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendan, and Anthony Stewart Head do usual spectacualr jobs playing characters that go through all the normal emotions, such as loss, joy, confusion- and even the end of the world. Emma Caufield and Claire Kramer make their characters come to life with some funny moments and having their characters, who are from other dimensions, have to deal and adjust to the human world. Kristine Sutherland and Amber Benson are great for their overlooked roles, and Michelle Tratchenberg joins the cast with a bang as an annoying and mysterious teenage girl who we all know is more than she seems. James Marsters nearly steals many episodes again with his classic character Spike, who now becomes a great and exciting character in the show that you love and hate at the same time. The only character I have a problem with is Riley, played by Mark Blucas, who seems rather unfit to be in Buffy's world. His character is too 'nice' and just has no chemistry with Buffy. But that problem is not large at all considering the amount of greatness put into the show. Mercedes McNabb, Juliet Landau, Charlie Webber, and others guest star and are all just simply awesome.
To conclude, this is a great season to a great show. It's a step up from the somewhat dull fourth season, and can hold its own. It has several stand out episodes, and just has an amazing four part ending, and many other episodes in it that are all around good. The villain, Glory, is both threatening and has a connection to Buffy, not to mention her family, and a good villain creates a fun season. The relationships once again are all tested, and Joss Wheadon has proven that even after five years, he's not done with this classic show. For any Buffy fan.
Rating:
Summary: deceptions
Review: The fifth season of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER feels casual, exuding, particularly in its first few episodes, an almost thrown-together quality. Coming off of season four, which contains some of the show's best episodes but probably has its weakest "arc" up to that point, Season Five seems to be following a similar line. It is funny, well-staged, and full of fascinating new characters and developments, but it is difficult, at first, to get a bead on where the season is going. A friend of mine says most dramatic shows have five or six good years in them, before decline sets in or they are cancelled, and I think she's right. NYPD BLUE worked for six years before it collapsed under the weight of too many teen-idol replacements for Smits and Caruso; THE WEST WING's fifth season was a travesty without Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme around to guide things; and even a sitcom like FRIENDS, whose character arcs resemble those of dramatic programs, had a hard time keeping things interesting after year five. There's no set formula, of course, but it's fair to say that a program's cast and crew might get a little bored after awhile, might have trouble finding new shadings for their characters or new spins on their environments, and might begin to take it easy and coast. Seen in this light, the initial slacker quality of BUFFY year five becomes both more comprehensible and also a little ominous-- when a program's first episode is given the distinctly Marvel Comics-esque title "Buffy v. Dracula," its not hard to imagine the blood in the water and the sharks circling. Such fears were, for many fans, confirmed by the appearance of Dawn, Buffy's heretofore unseen, uncommented-upon little sister. Some fans and critics immediately dubbed her "Oliver," a reference to the mysterious "cousin" that appeared in later seasons of THE BRADY BUNCH, and whose name has become shorthand for a show's desperate attempts to add characters and keep things alive near the end. Who was this strange, annoying little girl? Why had we never seen her? And why was every character on the show already acting as if we had? As if the "new relative" gambit wasn't enough, BUFFY' s writers also tossed in the Mysterious Illness ploy for Buffy's mom, and the Hot New Relationship plot for Buffy and Spike, in what initially seems like a wan attempt to recreate the old magic of Buffy and Angel. By the time, in episode six, Tara's family arrives to inform the Scooby Gang (and viewers) that this quiet girl has a Dark Secret, fans can be forgiven for thinking that the WB had secretly switched our usual BUFFY blend with episodes of GUIDING LIGHT. Silly us-- with ep seven, "Fool For Love," everything clicks into place, plot points are clarified, and suddenly it all begins to make sense, and to take on a tremendous emotional power. The remaining fifteen episodes are some of the show's best, and looking at the season as a whole four years after its initial airing, it's remarkable how cohesive it really is. One of the major themes of the year is deception, and by offering their audience a seemingly loose and occasionally incomprehensible start to the year, creator/auteur Joss Whedon and his staff were able to place viewers in roughly the same emotional position as their characters. By the time Season Five rolled around, Mutant Enemy knew it had a hit on its hands, and an intensely loyal fan base. They could now take their show (and its viewers) to different places, and really get under the skins of their characters. They had been doing this all along, of course, but Seasons Five and Six of BUFFY are full of a desire and yearning that is dark, fascinating, and sometimes unsettling. Far from coasting to syndication, the show would take more chances than ever. It's notable that both Seasons Two and Five come, on DVD, in red/reddish boxes-- a color of passion, heartache, blood, and love. Season Five finds the show's characters undergoing a level of trauma not seen since the second half of Season Two, and the final resolution of that trauma is, like the end of season two, both gut-wrenching and utterly logical. I won't give more detail than that, except to note, again, how well-paced this year is, interspersing more dramatic eps with funny ones, allowing moments for the whole ensemble to shine, and keeping the flow so loose and unpredictable that, when twists and suprises come, they really are twists and surprises. This was also a year of behind-the-scenes goodbyes: it was the last season shot by Buffy's great secret weapon, cinematographer Michael Gershman, whose beautiful balance of dark and light (in all senses) had held the show together since its first episode; it was the last year to prominently feature the lush scores of composer Christophe Beck, whose strings had always sonically captured the beautiful adolescent passions of the characters; it was the last full season for Anthony Stewart Head (Giles), whose character would continue to appear, but only in recurring "guest star" status; and it was the last year the show would appear on the WB, since contract negotiatons and public spatting led to the show's vamoosing to the UPN network the following year (this also meant it was the last time-- for awhile-- that there would be character crossovers between BUFFY and ANGEL, since the latter continued to air on the WB, which imposed a "ban" on such occurences after BUFFY left home). In so many ways, then, Season Five marks a turning point for BUFFY, a year in which, even for a show which had always taken chances, questions of change and growth seemed central, both within the narrative and on a stylistic level. I wouldn't start watching BUFFY with Season Five, but it's a crucial year for a crucial show, and well worth one's time.
Rating: 
Summary: This season never quite gels.
Review: Seasons 2, 3 and 4 were all nearly perfect, so the streak was bound to run out at some point. Though this season is very uneven, there is still much enjoyment to be had. Removing the college setting that was so prominent in Season 4 seems to have been a mistake.
With fewer external conflicts to explore, the plotlines focus on inner conflicts of the Scoobies, and we see the introduction of some standard soap opera devices: the long lost sister, the evil twin, and several episodes based around a character's illness.
The overall story arc also feels a bit drawn out, and doesn't feature as many twists and turns as previous seasons did. But the second half does pick up, so it's worth hanging in there.
Best episodes:
* Fool for Love - The Origin of Spike.
* Spiral - Features the best action scene of the series so far.
* Tough Love - A key episode for Willow and Spike.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!!!!
Review: Wow, I think all of the seasons of Buffy are good but season 5 is my favorite season of all and I'm so very pleased with this DVD set and this season has episodes that are simply amazing and I think al of the actors were in top form especially, Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) and James Marsters (Spike), but Alyson Hannigan (Willow), Amber Benson (Tara), Nicholas Brendon (Xander), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Tractenberg (Dawn) and Anthony Stewart Head (Giles) were topnotch too and Claire Kramer the actress who played Glory was also good and Glory is one of my favorite big bads and I think Glory was both scary and funny and I really recommend the fifth season DVD set!
Rating: 
Summary: Watch for "The Body" if nothing else...
Review: This episode is one of the best-written pieces of television ever created.
So often, the media shows a character death and the family grieves for a few minutes, has a funeral and life moves on. Not so with this one.
"The Body" is hard to watch. You will probably have a lump in your throat, if not be in tears before it is over. Joss stripped this episode down to the barest elements - there is no music to distract you. It is harsh. It is disjointed. Even at moments, it is disorienting as you try to establish what is real and what is in the character's minds.
So it is when you experience death in real life. Death is not pretty or easy. It often comes at the most unwelcome and unexpected times. You say and do odd things. You act and feel disconnected. You make up "what if" scenarios. You try to escape. You resent the outside world for continuing on as if everything were normal.
"The Body" stands out as "The Episode" of the season. This isn't to say that the rest of the season doesn't stand on its own merits, but when I think of this season, I think of this episode as the pivotal moment.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Show of All Time, pt. 5
Review: Buffy's Fifth Season is narrowly clipped by the Second Season as the best of the series. But only narrowly.
The Fifth Season is tremendous. There is not one bad episode in it, and several stand-outs (Buffy vs. Dracula, Into the Woods, Fool For Love, The Gift) and one that deserves mention as being a work of art that television almost doesn't deserve, The Body.
I do not wish to give too much away, but allow me to say that The Body concerns a character's death. You would think, given that Buffy revolves around Vampires (and other undead/demon nasties), given that there are deaths in every episode, that it would be difficult to create an episode that, all of a sudden, treats death as a mature, deep and profound topic. You would think that it would be hard for the show to make a death compelling, even difficult to watch. You would think that right until you actually saw the episode in question, after which you would be writing a review next to mind to convince other people to take a chance on this series. I have heard people describe The Body as the most realistic portrayal of death they'd ever seen. I have heard people say it is the best episode of television, ever. I can only say that it is one of the pinnacles of a show that is, itself, a pinnacle of its chosen medium.
The fifth season also contains the best work from beloved regular Xander, a fun and daunting villainess and the wonderful addition of Michelle Trachtenberg. You will be tempted, when her character is introduced, to be angry at the show. Don't. Have some faith in the show (its earned it by now) and it will make itself good, I promise. The fifth season also has one of the greatest climaxes of all time (only upped by Becoming and possibly The Return of the King) in The Gift. The Gift, itself, is a rollercoaster ride of an episode which amazingly makes conscious use of something from almost every episode preceding it in the season. Buffy is a testament to consistency, continuity and fan-appreciation.
The Fifth Season is either the best or the second-best season in a show that does not have equal.
Rating:
Summary: Season 5...the real gift!
Review: Alot of people think season three is the better season,but I disagree.While all seven seasons of BTVS are electrifying (yeah,seven had it's moments) season five is utterly magnificent!
Family is the overall theme in season 5,with the addition of Dawn Summers (some BTVS fans see her as shark jumping but everyone's entitled to his or her opinion).This season Mr. Whedon and company wisely jettison Riley Finn's character (his season is season 4) and bring in Glory.To me ,Glory is hilarious.She's one of the more memorable villans on the BTVS series.If vain could have a picture in the dictionary,it would be a picture of Glory.
Xander is split into two Xanders,Willow perfects her witchcraft and furthers her relationship with Tara,Buffy deals with her "new" 14 year old little sister Dawn,Joyce (Buffy's mom) deals with a brain tumor.Thanks to Glory,Tara is turned mental challenged and Spike realizes he's got Buffy on the brain resulting in him getting a "Buffybot" made.Giles spends the entire season deciding on whether his usefulness is over these days or not and Anya is 100% comic relief.
This is the way TV SHOULD be made!
If you get this set for one reason,let that reason be the last episode "The Gift".Words cannot explain the last 10 minutes.
Naturally the video and sound are great.
There are a few "extras" scattered over the discs,but the real gems on this set are the episodes themselves.
FAVORITE EPISODE: "The Gift"
RUNNER UP(s): "The Body" & "Intervention"
HONORABLE MENTION: The other nineteen episodes.
My parting thought: Get It! BTVS has some great seasons.And this is one of them.
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