Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 30-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #878 in DVD
• Brand: GELLAR,SARAH MICHEL
• Released on: 2006-05-30
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Dimensions: .70 pounds
• Running time: 990 minutes

Customer Reviews

Buffy is Brilliant
I love all the seasons of Buffy and the fourth is no exception. There are so many great episodes in this season. Everyone raves about "Hush" and it really deserves all the praise it gets. It is just as fun to watch the episodes again with the writer's and director's comments. Once I started BTVS, I was hooked. I have watched all seven seasons and I wish there were more. Thank goodness for Angel. I am just starting those now.

Better than people give it credit for!
Buffy season four introduced several changes to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series. First, the show moved from High School to College. Second, two major characters, Angel & Cordelia, moved to the spin-off series Angel. Many would wonder if the show could move on from different changes.

I think it did, though I know some Buffy fans didn't. A lot of folks say that this was the worst season, but I thought it was great. The overall story arc is not as strong as seasons 2 & 3 (nothing in Buffy will ever touch those seasons), but this season probably has some of the best single episodes out of any season of Buffy. Particularly the unique finale.

This season deserves much more credit than it gets. Sure its not seasons 2 & 3, but its still great Buffy.

Buffy's weakest season (I think), but it's still Buffy
Ok, so I've been a fan of Buffy for a while now, but I've only recently begun buying and watching the show in boxed sets. So far, I own seasons 1-5 and I saw seasons 6 and 7 on TV a while back (I'll buy them soon). I've watched each season that I own at least twice, and I've watched the first three seasons at least four times each.

Season 2 is my favorite. Seasons 1, 3, and 5 are also very strong (5 seems to be unpopular, though). Season 6 is fairly good, and I like seasons 7 and 4 least. Keep in mind this is my own personal rating, and that I like the whole series. These rankings are just for comparing Buffy seasons to each other.

Good things about season 4:
*Buffy is maturing and learning to be an adult in a convincing way.
*Willow's character goes through a lot, and she changes and develops a great deal over the course of the season.
*The final episode is a bizarre impressionistic train-of-thought rollercoaster that is very confusing. However, it goes a long way in demonstrating the true nature of every Buffy character and features references to many great novels and movies (especially Apocolypse Now/ Heart of Darkness).
*The Big Bad is intimidating, smart, and has a reasonably strong motivation for his actions. Adam is less obviously "evil" than Angelus, the Master, or The First, but he's still not as deep or interesting as the Mayor or Faith.
*"Hush" was a genuinely scary episode. It was a very good micro-horror movie, and horror movies are rarely "very good!"
*Riley's character wound up being more interesting than I expected.
*Xander's character becomes deeper. He finds a role in the group that goes way farther than comic relief.
*Anya and Spike turn into real characters and remain as interesting and likeable fixtures in the show for the following seasons.
*Oz leaves (I didn't find him very interesting), and a more interesting character, Tara, moves in.

Bad things about season 4:
*Some episodes feel like random fluff. The main plot of the season doesn't go anywhere, the main dilemma of the episode comes across as stilted and silly, and the actors feel like they're just repeating lines.
*There is almost no primary plot line for the season as a whole. The Big Bad shows up late in the season, and the lesser villains up until then are barely enough to keep things interesting.
*Riley's character (I think) starts out very weak. Marc Blucas didn't seem to be doing a very good acting job at first. Late in the season and in season 5 he does much better. I took a while to get to like Angel's character in seasons 1 and 2, but I eventually accepted him. I had no issue with the acting. With Riley, it took me a while to even consider him much of a character at all.
*The Initiative was interesting when it was menacing and mysterious. Things just got sillier and "cheap Sci-Fi original movie" feeling. The soldiers went from using real-looking guns and actual Tasers to some very silly costume-store looking lightening guns. I think that the makeup jobs on Adam and his minion Forrest were a little too colorful-looking and not all that scary.
*I know Giles was bothered by being unemployed and that he struggled with feeling useless, but his character just didn't go anywhere beyond that. He was much more interesting in other seasons.

And I just can't make up my mind about some things:
*Spike's little behavior-modification brain implant bothers me a bit. It's kinda silly, but James Marsters actually does a good job making it convincing, and it allows everyone to get to know Spike a bit better.
*The final battle was both really awesome and a bit cheesy. Part of it was because Adam looks a little silly and pulls some guns out of nowhere in a way that would make the Transformers laugh. But, the battle-royal between soldiers and demons is pretty cool, and the way in which Adam is defeated was more interesting than just blowing him up with a big bomb like the the Scoobies did to the Mayor.


In summary:
Though a whole lot happened in this season in terms of character development and personal drama for the characters, the supernatural problems faced by Buffy and the gang were not as frightening or interesting as in other seasons. Some episodes are still excellent, but many are far weaker than even the worst episodes of previous seasons. Season 5 wound up being a major relief for me because it felt like a return to the stronger plot-driven episodes of seasons 1-3. Season 4 didn't measure up to other Buffy seasons in my book, but the weakest season in a really great series is still well worth my money.