Individual episodes that were a little more ambitious than all the rest

[Endicott]

I'm not talking about Whedon bungling it, I'm talking about a cock-up by the DVD distributors. Every episode was framed for 4:3 except Once More With Feeling, which on the original broadcast and video had a wider than usual aspect, but this is not how it looks on any subsquent release where it's just standard 16:9.

Just to prove myself I'm not insane I found a clip of how it looked on the original broadcast/VHS, and it looks like it's slightly zoomed out to create a wider aspect(I'm guessing the black bars around the edges wouldn't have been noticeable on 4:3), so it wasn't technically cinema aspect after all. But the point stands! Er, maybe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK1aQlP62-M

I think you are more or less correct Phil apart from the bit about OMWF. Although who knows? As far as I can recall and wiki backs this up Whedon wanted to present the show as 4:3, apart from OMWF which was widescreen. Wiki doesn't help with the precise aspect ratio used for OMWF unfortunately.

Then the region 1 DVDs were produced in 4:3 so I assume OMWF was letterboxed. The region 2 DVDs were widescreen anamorphic 16:9 from Season 4. Whedon had shot with a widescreen safe area from S4 so it works OK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_home_video_releases#Widescreen

The bluray remasters are another story, and are a fucking joke. Some scenes meant to be night time remastered to be daylight FFS. Quite important on a vampire show.

[imitationleather]

The Eastenders two-handers were insteresting.
The first one was mind-blowing.
I can only imagine what the effect would have been online if that was a thing back then. I recall plenty of letters to Points Of View.
Dot and Ethel, rained in, talking about stuff. At one point Ethel falls asleep and Dot thinks she's properly gone.
Such a bold move. Obviously paid off, because it seemed to become an annual event.
Do they still do two-handers?

Best one was called "What's your name, where you from, what are you on?" It's where Nick Cotton and Martin Fowler both drop an e and spend half an hour hugging and talking about how it's weird how many stars there are in the sky and that they don't know why they never usually take time to appreciate that because it's amazing.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Utopia I found to be quite the mini-epic.  The variety and quality of incidental music in that, alone, made it like a mini-movie, as did the emotional swings, from comedy at the start, with Captain Jack riding the Tardis, to the solemnity of the escape plan from the end of the universe, to pathos, with Professor Yana weeping, to edge-of-the-seat drama.  Rarely have I ever seen any TV or film scene done as atmospherically as the lead-up to the revelation about Professor Yana, then its aftermath.

I remember being in absolute bits by the end of that. Absolutely exhausting, exhilarating TV.

God, what a disappointment the next two episodes were.

[Phil_A]

I think you are more or less correct Phil apart from the bit about OMWF. Although who knows? As far as I can recall and wiki backs this up Whedon wanted to present the show as 4:3, apart from OMWF which was widescreen. Wiki doesn't help with the precise aspect ratio used for OMWF unfortunately.

Then the region 1 DVDs were produced in 4:3 so I assume OMWF was letterboxed. The region 2 DVDs were widescreen anamorphic 16:9 from Season 4. Whedon had shot with a widescreen safe area from S4 so it works OK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_home_video_releases#Widescreen

The bluray remasters are another story, and are a fucking joke. Some scenes meant to be night time remastered to be daylight FFS. Quite important on a vampire show.

Oh god, yes. I've sampled the HD versions as they're free with Amazon Prime, no way would I ever spend money on those. An utter disaster. Constant, over-aggressive noise filtering, key effects shots missing, incorrect colour grading of every other scene, pointless cropping and zooming, it just goes on.

[Gulftastic]

The Eastenders two-handers were insteresting.
The first one was mind-blowing.
I can only imagine what the effect would have been online if that was a thing back then. I recall plenty of letters to Points Of View.
Dot and Ethel, rained in, talking about stuff. At one point Ethel falls asleep and Dot thinks she's properly gone.
Such a bold move. Obviously paid off, because it seemed to become an annual event.
Do they still do two-handers?

The first, IIRC, was a Den & Angie one years before Dot & Ethel. A window cleaner appears at one point, but says sod all and is soon gone, but to all intents and purposes it was a two hander.

[mothman]

Malcolm In The Middle did a nice episode where it showed a trip by the 3 main kids at a bowling alley. They did it as two parallel stories, showing how they'd differ depending on which parent had taken them.

Without A Trace did something similar, telling two stories in parallel about the disappearance of a white teenage girl and a black teenage boy. No prizes for guessing which case gets all the media attention and police resources, despite the WaT team's own desire to treat them equally. Most daringly, one teen is found and the other isn't - but the episode never reveals which.