Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12148 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-04-14
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 48 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Once More With Feeling", a much needed shaft of lightness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's dark sixth series, demonstrates that a "special" episode can be genuinely special. It preserves the show's continuity for its regular watchers and also delights people who have never experienced it before. This is creator Joss Whedon's tribute to all the masters of the stage musical whom he admires--most obviously Stephen Sondheim--and a chance for his talented cast to display their usual tight ensemble and sing and dance while doing it.

The premise is typical Buffy both in its whimsy and its emotional truth--a demon forces the inhabitants of Sunnydale to express their emotions truthfully and uncovers a variety of embarrassing secrets. The actual musical ability of the Buffy cast is variable--Amber Benson as Tara and Anthony Stewart Head as Giles are perhaps the only ones with enough musical talent to carry purely lyrical tunes, but Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy is a game little trooper who delivers her various patter songs with her usual efficiency and charm. Emma Caulfield as the ex-demon Anya is the big surprise, her short paranoid riff on the subject of that ultimate evil, bunny rabbits is quite extraordinary; Broadway hoofer Hinton Battle is fabulous as Sweet: "I can bring whole cities to ruin and find time to get some soft shoe in." --Roz Kaveney

Special Features
Buffy Inside the Music
Dark Angel Interview with Jessica Alba
Angel Season 1 Overview
Buffy Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Trailers
Angel Season 1, 2 and 3 Trailers
Dark Angel Season 1 Trailer
Aspect Ration 16X9FF
Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired

Synopsis
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and the Slayerettes find themselves singing and dancing their way through this special episode, as an evil spell turns Sunnydale into a giant musical stage. This vampire-and-demon-filled production features Buffy, Spike (James Marsters), Xander (Nicholas Brendon), Anya (Emma Caulfield), Willow (Alyson Hannigan), Tara (Amber Benson), and others belting out tunes, ranging from Broadway-esque numbers to alt-rock rave-ups. Written and directed by BUFFY creator Joss Whedon, the episode is a truly entertaining combination of comedy, horror, and showtunes. Songs include "Going Through the Motions," "Under Your Spell," "Walk Through the Fire," "Something to Sing About," and "Where Do We Go From Here

Customer Reviews

Confused DVD
This episode may well be the greatest 48 minutes of TV history. Joss Whedon manages to mix his already genre blending comedy/drama/horror/action show with the fine art of the musical. When a demon casts a spell on Sunnydale, Buffy and her friends reveal all their hidden feelings through brilliantly written, and choreographed, songs. These songs aren't just there for the sake of it, each lyric is carefully written to move the plot of the episode and indeed the entire series along. This is an episode to treasure and watch again and again.

HOWEVER!!! DO NOT BUY THIS DVD!!!

While I may be hailing this episode as a must see, this DVD is NOT a must-buy. Buy the season six DVD instead. On the season six DVD you get a commentary for the episode and a half hour documentary on OMWF, plus 21 other excellent episodes. This one episode DVD seems to have taken special features from the season five DVD boxset, not even the season the episode is from! So great episode, just don't buy it as the special features are not even slightly related! Save up for the whole boxset, you'll thank me.

Episode excellent - features disappointing
I am a great fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but nothing could prepare me for the thrill of seeing my favourite show turned into a musical for the 6th season episode "Once More With Feeling". This episode, arguably the best ever and in my mind the TV highlight of 2002, turned out to be better than I could have possibly imagined. The writing was incredible, the musicextraordinary and the performances brilliant. Amber Benson and Tony Head have excellent voices and many of the other cast emmbers surpassed themselves, particularly Sarah Michelle Gellar!

As a result of its amazing success as a CD and book of lyrics, the DVD of the episode has now been released on its own on DVD. For this you get the episode complete and unedited - this is your chance to see the episode in full.

The one reason this has not been given 5 stars is the very disappointing features. I am not a fan of Dark Angel so could not understand why there were so many Dark Angel features. There is a quite interesting feature on the first season of Angel - which completely avoided the question of why Doyle was killed off. There was a feature on the music in Buffy - but I expected this to be about the making of the musical episode - so I was very disappointed in this. The trailers for the other DVDs are fine - but just trailers. - So a very disappointing package of features.

So I would still implore people to buy this DVD if you do not want to buy the whole of season 6. But if you do wish to buy the whole of seson 6 - I would wait for the release of that!

Great episode but disappointing extras
This DVD was a bit of a disappointment to me. Don't get me wrong - the episode, the famous Buffy musical, was great. Several of our favourite Buffy actors show their talents in singing and dancing, and the episode inclundes all the good stuff of Buffy: great characters, interesting relationships and funny dialogue.

But this DVD publication itself was a big disappointment. What I would have wanted would have been some extra material about the musical - at least making of and/or commentary track, but neither of them were included. There were only some trailers, and a short featurette of music in Buffy, which concentrated on bands playing in the Bronze during earlier seasons, and did not have any reference to the musical, probably because the featurette was made already before the musical.

Five stars to OMWF and one star to this package :)