Angel:S4

The story continues from the great setup at the end of season 3. But season 4 is a wonderful step up from that often excellent but also inconsistant season which suffered from some truly horrible mid season episodes and unfortunate romantic B plots like everybody loves Fred.

While season 4 continues some of those "romantic" plots, fortunately they either contribute meaningfully to the overall plotline or take a backseat to strong main stories. Thankfully they are also balanced out by the Wesley/Lilah relationship, which is the most complex, intriguing and chemistry laden romantic relationship to occur on AtS...even if it's more than a little twisted.

Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer 7 (which also attempted a season long story arc that year), there are few standalone episodes. Most of them occur early in the season. On Angel though something exciting & interesting happens in each episode. Thus the episodes are individually strong & distinctive while still contributing to the season long story. Multi-episode mini story arcs, like Faith's, also fit well into the overall season while simultaneously breaking it up into distinctive sections.

Another contrast to BtVS is the production values. This season has excellent, high quality production values, as near movie quality as it gets on network tv. I can't wait to see it on dvd!

Excellent storytelling, great acting, complex and intriguing characters (Wesley, Angel, Connor, and Lilah all stand out), plus terrific production values. This is definitely the best season of Angel and one of the best seasons of any tv show.

I can't think of any reason why a fan of great tv wouldn't get this dvd. Unless they were scared off by the ugly dvd cover, hopefully it won't look that bad in person. ;) Ignore the cover! Get the dvd, then watch the episodes over and over and enjoy them before the much weaker season 5 comes out!!

After watching the entire season on DVD in about 3 days, I have revised my opinion. Sort of. The story is actually a great story. You can see where the seeds for it where laid in the previous seasons and true character development. It is actually fascinating to watch to the Gunn/Fred relationship crumble under Gunn's insecurities and Fred's desire to only see Gunn in one light. The use of Faith was great because she was the only one not willing to give up on Angel. After what Buffy experienced with Angelus in Season 2 it would have been impossible to ask her. Plus she was on that other network.

I still find the Angel/Cordy thing icky but that is because I thought it was a betrayal of the friendship they had built up. I have no problems with Angel being in a non-Buffy relationship, though I think after watching Awakening one can argue Cordy isn't the one he's thinking amount in his moment of "perfect happiness." Plus Angel/Cordy as a romantic couple had about as much chemistry and spark as dry toast whereas as friends they had great chemistry and spark. The Cordy/Connor thing at least makes more sense then Angel/Cordy. Though it made for some great drama; if not somewhat icky at times.

The extras provided are very good, with the only glaring missing person being Charisma Carpenter. This was due, rumour mill has it, to the way she left the show after the fourth season. The episode commentaries are great, especially the ones with Joss in Spin the bottle.

Don't listen to the naysayers. This is the best "Angel" season. It is a rollar coaster from start to finish that has the intensity of 24 but unlike 24 has fantastic acting (excepting Charisma Carpenter whose dry performance is the only major flaw in the season), fantastic writing and raises questions of morality and free will that Angel fans are still debating to this day. The season begins with a fantastic season premiere resolving some of the plot left hanging in the season 3 finale. There's a couple decent standalones that follow and then in episode 7 the arc (an apocalypse that rivals any of those on its sister show) for the season starts and is not resolved until the end of the season.

I could go on and on in praise of this season, but simply put, buy this DVD. Even if you don't have any other "Angel" DVDs this is the set to have. The DVD format will allow you to keep up with the story much easier than having weeks or months before the next episode when it originally aired.