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Angel - Season Four
- Color
- Closed-captioned
- Widescreen
The Editors Desk:
As the fourth season of Angel starts, everything is still as we left it: Angel has been sunk to the bottom of the sea in an iron box by his inexplicable and vindictive son Connor and Cordelia has been summoned to higher realms to await orders. Gunn and Fred are left in the Hyperion Hotel, unsure about what has happened to their friends, and Lilah is working hard to seduce Wesley to the dark side. In the first few episodes, some of this is resolved but it's almost immediately replaced by far worse crises: prophesies of doom accumulate more rapidly even than usual in this wonderfully gloomy show and a horned rock-like beast rains fire on Los Angeles. This last year is Angel's most tightly dramatic season yet--with a story arc of surprising intensity punctuated by the show's usual wit and sexiness. Season 4 is presented on DVD in Dolby 2.0 Surround Sound and anamorphic widescreen. It comes with insightful, and often hilarious, commentaries on seven of the 22 episodes as well as featurettes--a series overview, profiles of the characters of Jasmine and the Beast, a farewell to the Hyperion Hotel (the characters' base for three seasons), and a discussion of the apocalypse that Angel has to deal with from episode 7 onwards). --Roz Kaveney
Avg. Customer Review: 
 Denisof, Romanov steal the show
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.
 Flawed, but still Angel
If this season were rated in the context of the show as a whole, it would receive 2 and a half stars. But independently, it deserves at least 4. It's still Angel, and chuck full of the dark comedy/action/horror/drama Whedon fans have come to depend on.This season probably the worst of the series. Why? -The Connor/Jasmine/Cordelia arc did not mesh well, and did not adhere to the core statement of the show. The story arc was so accomodating to Charisma Carpenter's pregnancy and suffered as a result. Forget about emotional resonance and provocative messages (when's the last time outside of Jerry Springer that a woman was having an affair with both a father and a son?). What it comes down to is that this was a very experimental year. The writers tested what worked and when that didn't, they altered the story line accordingly. Connor and Cordelia too gross? Make Cordelia evil. Charisma Carpenter pregnant? Make her baby evil. The Jasmine story arc was fine, but very disjointed from the rest of the supposedly "tight-knit" story arc because it was originally not intended to take place. Even the Angelus mini-arc was sadly lacking. The character never hurt anyone, merely taunted them like a high school bully. In addition, the writers really dropped the ball when they made Angel and Angelus two different characters. The reason why Angelus is so frightening is because he IS the character we know and love. Flaws from the central arc and Angelus arc aside, it was still great television. The season premiere and finale were well thought out "Live life as it should be to show the world what it could be." Gwen Raiden was an awesome, and sadly underused, new character, Lilah, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn had some of their greatest moments on the show, and the Whedon directed "Spin the Bottle" was a fantastic romp (although very similar to a season six buffy episode). I'd recommend you pick up this DvD only if you are a die-hard fan of the show, because you would have to own the prior seasons to make much sense of what's happening. If you are a casual fan, borrow it from a friend and wait to purchase the fantastic season 5.
Angel
I love Angel and give it a 5 cos' it is excellent but one major annoyance for me is that it kills me that we can't buy the DVD on the States but here in the UK they have all the seasons for sale so much earler on than in the States. Unfortunately even though i live here temporarily (military) i only own a US DVD player. Whats up with this!!! The shows made in the states but you have to go to the UK to pick a copy of it up.
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