Customer Reviews

Angel:S4

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Consistantly great. This season rewards fans of continuing storylines and epic length story arcs. The tension builds slowly but consistantly at first than becomes a true rollercoaster of cliffhangers and story twists. Watching this season live was thrilling, the hiatuses between episodes were almost intolerable!

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!!

Watching Angel Season 4 on TV was not a fun experience. I found the Cordy/Angel, Cordy/Connor thing icky, I was never sure exactly where Fred and Gunn broke up and I thought the story was insane. The only thing I did enjoy was the return of Angelus and Faith.

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.

This is the season that made me an "Angel" fan who liked "Buffy" as well, instead of the other way around. This is the season that capitalized fully on the potential that Season 3 showed but never accomplished for various reasons.

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.

Angel was always a show that should have had more recognition. I agree with a previous reviewer, every season of Angel seemed to get better and better. Season 2 stood out....But Season 4 blew all the others away. I was riveted by every episode. The way the story was executed from the first episode to the 22nd was extremely well done. I don't own the DVD set yet, as it's not available in the states but I know I will be purchasing it as soon as it is. I recommend this set because of the quality of the episodes in this season. Can't wait to exchange my home-made VCR tapes to disc!!

Angel, the stellar spin-off of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reached the pinnacle of its achievement in Season 4. This season has been described by the show's creators as "a 22-part episode". There are far fewer stand-alone episodes in this season than ever before. The familiar monster-of-the-week episodes of seasons past are mostly gone. Instead, there is the dense, more structured story arc of the season.

The season picks up three months after the events of last season's finale: Cordelia is still on a higher plane of existence, Angel is still at the bottom of the ocean, Wesley is still sleeping with Lilah as she tries to recruit him to Wolfram and Hart, Connor is still seething with vengeance and hatred, and Fred and Gunn are still wondering where everybody went. Wesley is reintroduced into the fold after aiding in Angel's rescue, and the story arc of the season kicks off as Cordelia is finally "rescued" from the higher plane...with no memory. Her amnesia is eventually cleared up, but not until after she has slept with Connor. And then, the Beast rises.

Clawing his way to the surface of Los Angeles at the very spot where Connor was born, the Beast begins hunting the totems of the Ra-tet, five mystical beings linked to the sun god. He combines their essences to block out the sun, and the only discernible way to fight him is to unleash Angel's monstrous alter ego Angelus, who has a connection to the Beast. However, he escapes, prompting the release of Faith from prison and the mystical services of Willow. Eventually, however, one figures out that the Beast is simply a pawn in a much larger scheme, a scheme being perpetrated from within the Angel Investigations team. This scheme brings forth the season's true villain: Jasmine, a higher power whose goal is an end to war and suffering...at the expense of freedom of choice.

This season's story arc truly demonstrates that this is television that makes you think. The villains challenge your conceptions of good and evil, and you look at characters in entirely different ways because of some of the choices they make. Eventually, the season culminates in a choice, a choice that sets the stage for the excellent final season.

Angel Season 4 was not pretty. It was difficult to watch and difficult to handle, and was much, much darker than anything the show had ever done before. But it was good. My god, was it good. And now you can see it through the miracle of DVD.

Picking up where its amazing 3rd Season left off, Season 4 of TV's Angel was without a doubt the most shocking, dramatic and intriguing. Despite a few creative low points, the cast and crew rose to the challenge of Angel's new full fledged story-arch format, with all 22 episodes weaving together to create one feature-length episode.
The season deals with issues such as fascism, religious persecution and world peace brilliantly, staying subtle, yet getting the message across perfectly. However, the season's real highlight is the shocking relationship between Wesley (Alexis Denisof) and Lilah (Stephanie Romanov), creating one of the series' most eerie, dysfunctional and altogether fascinating relationships.

Very pleased. I have searched for this product elsewhere until I remembered Amazon which offered the price I wanted to pay and the quality I required. I was more than pleased to finally found what I wanted at Amazon. This product is perfect and is as annonced. Very very happy.

angels my favourite show this is probably the best season angel really got better with each season i thoght no way this can top 3 wrong it did five is also amazing but some eps.. are slow this season is the darkest angels a dark show thats what i love about and great storylines and amazing acting davis is tall dark gloomy but his acting is amazing creepy at times tearjerking at others very good started with an amazing and drark season a clifhanging second the writting in two was perfect who touces joss greenwalt and the other writters darlas storyline is one of best in tv history then three came dark violint masterpiece darla being pregant killing herself for someone else very sad and an amazing sacrifice and him being stolen and turned bad and into a teen must bhuy season angellives on forever

I think most objective Angel fans would say this is by far the weakest of the 5 seasons of Angel. A conveluted plot which is impossiblely difficult to follow or fully understand without a second viewing doesn't help.

In Angel/Buffy you know you have run out of plot ideas when you have essentially repeated a plot being Angelus, they ran out of ideas and had to bring back the bad Angel. Buffy Season 2 we see Angel become Angelus, we see it later in flashbacks and single episodes where either Angel fakes being Angelus or has some temporary affliction, or whatever. By Season 4 this was tired, and its dragged out this season and its tired, it gets really tired.

Conner is one of the worst concieved characters in either series and his place this season is prominent making this season even worse.

I would like to mention 2 strong points of this season and it deals with relationships with some of the characters namely Wesley's relationship with Liliah and Angel's relationship with Faith. Faith and Liliah are not main characters in Angel but they offer the most interesting aspects of this season, both are missed in Season 5 (though Season 5 is so good they aren't missed that much). Whith Wesley and Liliah we see a relationship that shouldn't happen but does, and the two have great chemistry, with Angel and Faith we see two people who have dark sides trying in their own way of saving one another, I only had wished their had been more Faith on Angel as opposed to Buffy Season 7 where she was totally misused and had no hope in saving the awful mess that was Buffy Season 7.

Season 4 was my least favorite of Angel's 5-season run. That being said, this season was not bad TV by any means. Any episode of Angel is better than almost anything else that can be seen on TV nowadays. Though not as good as seasons 2 or 3, the fourth season is still brilliant. It's shocking, it's twisted and it had me on the edge of my seat at several points during the season, wondering what was going to happen next. As usual, the season is comprised of excellent 'funny' episodes (though not as many as in other seasons) as well as dramatic ones and displays just how talented the actors are. I definitely recommend the DVD set and am looking forward to the release of the fifth season set as season 5 was possibly the most brilliant of the entire series.