The Slayer Collection is a set of single discs featuring favourite episodes featuring particular Buffy characters. The collection was launched in March with solo discs from popular favourites Willow, Angel, Faith and Spike; this second wave passes the honours to Cordelia, Giles, Dawn and Xander (surprisingly excluded from Collection 1). The format is the same for all of the discs: Four complete episodes of Buffy, a fifteen-minute character profile featuring interviews with cast and creators, and a trailer for the full-season box sets.

The good news is that these discs contain some choice episodes, and only two from the abysmal seventh series. Some highlights include Xander and Cordelia getting romantic while running from the worm-creature in 'What's My Line, Part 2' (on the 'Cordelia' disc), the masterful 'Passion', featuring Giles and Jenny's clash with the evil Angel (on the 'Giles' disc), and 'Zeppo', which sees Xander trying to deal with his position as a Scooby devoid of special skills (on the 'Xander' disc).

While these discs provide a workable 'greatest hits', much of the episodes' impact is lost by taking them out of context. Although each disc presents the episodes in chronological order, it will take a seasoned Buffyite to find their way around the shifting loyalties of Angel, Spike, Faith, and even Cordelia. But a seasoned Buffyite will of course want the compete series sets. The Slayer Collection, then, is whole-heartedly recommended to those whose pocket-money won't stretch to the pricey box-sets (each, with the exception of Season 1, likely to put a €100-shaped hole in your wallet).

Coming soon is the mammoth complete Buffy DVD, so I doubt there will be any more Slayer Collections; but if there are, how about Joyce, Oz, Jonathan and Tara? The Slayer Collection – Cordelia, Dawn, Giles & Xander is available to buy from 1st November.

Clovis