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75 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best Big Bad, but a horde of great individual episodes, April 30, 2006
Let me start by issuing a spoiler alert. It is not customary by Internet etiquette to issue such an alert for shows that have been out for several years, but let me err on the side of caution.
Immediately after offering THE X-FILES in new and cheaper slim-pack editions, they now offer the entirety of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER in similar packaging. The difference is that unlike THE X-FILES, where they cut out enough special features to reduce the original seven discs to six, the BUFFY releases are uncut.
Of the seven seasons that comprise BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Season Four is the most perplexing. On the one hand, it is almost universally regarded as one of the weakest of the seven seasons, usually ranked with Season Six as the weakest. I personally think that Season One is the weakest followed closely by this one. On the other hand, a lot of BUFFY fans, when they rank their all time favorite episodes, end up putting a disproportionate number of Season Four episodes on the list. Two of the episodes, "Hush" and "Restless," might be consensus picks for the five best episodes ever. How to resolve this paradox? It isn't hard. Although Season Four had a large number of truly great episodes, the overall Season Four arc was probably the weakest of all seven seasons. The introduction of the Initiative and the Frankenstein-like Adam, the season's "big bad," seemed in conflict with the show as a whole. In the earlier seasons and especially Season Five, much of the brilliance of the show and a great deal of the emotional tension derived from the season-long narrative. Season Four almost completely lacked the kind of narrative drama that made Seasons Two and Three so exhilarating. So even though the season featured a large number of truly great episodes, they tended to stand on their own, unlike previous seasons where the best episodes were integrated in a central narrative.
Season Four finds Buffy and Willow going off to University of California at Santa Cruz . . . uh, I mean Sunnydale (UC Santa Cruz doubled for UC Sunnydale), Xander making his way through a string of entry level jobs while becoming romantically involved with former vengeance demon Anya, Giles without much to do since being fired as Buffy's Watcher and without a librarian job since Sunnydale High School had been blown up at the end of Season Three, and Angel and Cordelia off to Los Angeles (and their own series). And the evil vampire Spike finds himself defanged by the Initiative, unable to engage in violence towards anyone but demons, inadvertently beginning his transformation into an ally of the Scooby gang. The season also sees the departure of Oz from the show (Seth Green was getting too many movie offers to make his staying on the show in a supporting character to make much sense) and the introduction of Tara as Willow's girlfriend, thus introducing arguably the first normalized lesbian relationship on television. Oh, and Buffy gets a new boyfriend, Riley Finn, along with Connor from ANGEL one of the two least popular characters in the Slayerverse.
As mentioned above, the main narrative is disappointing compared to prior seasons. The Initiative never became especially interesting or compelling and Adam just too wooden to match the appeal of the Master, Angelus, or the Mayor from the first three seasons. Much of the reason was the fact that the heavy make up made much in the way of either facial or physical expression difficult to impossible. The romance between Riley and Buffy in neither this nor the next season interested fans of the show, so there was an emotional void in the season as well. Interestingly, Buffy's best romantic episodes took place not on BUFFY but on ANGEL, especially in the amazing "I Will Remember You." Nonetheless, despite the weak central narrative arc and the lack of an emotional center, the season contains a host of amazing episodes. Some are funny, some are moving, some scary, some deep, and some a mixture of all of these. The most famous episode of Season Four, and one of the two or three most famous episodes ever, is the haunting "Hush." Some critics had complained that the writing of BUFFY was being overpraised, that it seemed better than it really was because of Joss Whedon's amazing skills at writing dialogue (even when he didn't actually write an episode, he would help punch up scripts by adding some lines). His response, therefore, was to write a script in which all the characters lost their voices for the bulk of the episode. The result was sheer genius with a host of marvelous sight gags and a wonderful meditation on the difficulty of communication. The Gentlemen in the episode are among the most haunting creatures in the history of TV, comparable to anything one will find in THE TWILIGHT ZONE or THE X-FILES. They look very much like well-dressed Victorian cadavers, impeccably polite, who move by floating eerily along a few feet above the ground, cutting hearts out of their victims. So that their victims will be unable to scream, they have captured the voices of all the residents of Sunnydale. No one who ever sees the episode will be able to forget it. Whedon says that one of his goals in writing the episode was to produce in the Gentlemen monsters that would stand out as the great television monsters of their time. There is little doubt that he succeeded. This was also the episode where Riley, who Buffy thought was just a Psychology teaching assistant but who really worked for the monster-hunting Initiative, and Buffy discover that neither was who they thought they were. The episode ends with Buffy and Riley standing in her room staring at each other in silence after one of them says, "We need to talk."
The season was filled with a host of other great episodes. Nearly as highly praised is "Restless," the interestingly anti-climatic season finale. The Scoobies had defeated Adam the season's Big Bad, the previous week. "Restless" is a wonderful reflection on the previous four seasons and the journeys that all four principle characters have traveled, presented as a series of dreams of their being killed by the First Slayer (except Buffy, who resists her and thereby saves the others) while watching APOCALPYSE NOW (interesting given Riley's comment to Buffy earlier in the season that since meeting her he had had to learn the plural of apocalypse). The episode also contains another and final hint about Season Five when in Buffy's dream Tara appears and tells her, after she has left a room, "Be back before dawn." In Season Three in a dream that Buffy and Faith shared Faith mentioned "Little Sis" and referred to something that would happen exactly two years later (it would be Buffy's death to save Dawn).
Speaking of Faith, another great pair of episodes were the two featuring her: "This Year's Girl" and "Who Am I?" One of the most amazing things about BUFFY is the way it would take on traditional subjects and handle it better than any other show on TV ever had. There has never been a more powerful episode about losing one's virginity than that from Season Two of Buffy, never a better episode on TV about death than "The Body" from Season Five, and although a number of TV shows have attempted musical episodes, all pale compared to "Once More, With Feeling" from Season Six. A plot staple on television has been having two characters switch bodies. Joss Whedon was never content with just doing their take on such an oft-repeated plot device. Instead, the episode becomes an amazing discourse on self-hatred, with Faith in Buffy's body doing Faith kind of things in Buffy's social nexus. There are many very funny moments, such as the great scene in which Faith encounters Spike, realizing that he is a vampire but also realizing something that Buffy never had (his basic sexual attraction to Buffy), and then offering a hyper-sexualized description of what she could do for him if she wanted. There is a memorable moment, reminiscent of Travis Bickle's mirror scenes in TAXI DRIVER, where Faith, trying out Buffy's body for the first time, stands in front of the mirror, towel wrapped about her following a bath, rehearsing variations on her caricature of how she views Buffy. Over and over she states variations of "It's wrong!" obviously viewing Buffy as a goody two shoes. Interestingly, just before she escapes from Sunnydale she hears on TV about three vampires who have taken over a church during worship service. She goes there to take on the vampires and when one of them asks her why she doesn't just go away and not risk her life in saving the others she replies, "Because it's wrong," with no hint of irony in her voice. The episode starts off as a cruel trick on Faith's part, one that will allow her to escape Sunnydale and the Watchers Council that wants to capture and neutralize her as a rogue Slayer, but ends with Faith realizing how much she hates herself by understanding how Buffy has a much better life because of her relationships and principles. Buffy and Faith encounter each other in the church just before switching bodies and fight, with Faith in Buffy's body getting Buffy in hers on the floor, beating on her face, screaming how she hates her, obviously meaning that she actually hates herself. The two episodes lead to two additional great episodes on ANGEL, where she goes to kill Angel, eventually trying to get Angel to kill her as an odd form of suicide/penance. The four episodes comprise the beginning of Faith's salvation and transformation to a decent human being.
There are many other great episodes as well, including the hysterical "Something Blue," where a spell by Willow that goes wrong leads to Buffy and Spike getting engaged and planning their wedding; "The I in Team," in which Buffy briefly becomes an ally of the Initiative; "A New Man," in which Giles is turned into a...
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's not the weakest, it's just not as outstanding, September 2, 2006
Yet I still give it 5 stars? That's because, and this is such a cliche, but even at its worst, is better than most series best. Coming after the emotionally charged season 2 and the action packed near-perfect season 3, season 4 was not going to be as sharp. So while episodes don't reach the heights the last 2 seasons had, they were still worth watching anyway since there's very little filler here.
Buffy graduated from high school, and cut off everybody's future chance to since she blew it up fighting a huge snake. Well now it's university time and things are just as worse. She's dealing with hard professors, an incredibly weird roommate, an old enemy(2 in fact) and a secret military group called the Initiative that doesn't like Buffy poking around since she has ties to one of its officers.
The season starts with "The Freshman" and like all the other season openers, it's merely okay. From then on we get episodes that range from entertaining to just merely serviceable. One blemish is "Beer Bad" where drinking beer leads to men literally acting like cavemen. While it contains a hilarious performance by Sarah, it just feels rather meh the entire time. That gets saved later with "Hush", probably the coolest idea for an episode. The Gentlemen, floating bald guys with wicked smiles stealing the voices of everyone in town and then cut out their hearts with no one the wiser since they can't scream. Most of the episode plays out with no dialogue and there's even some funny jokes(the hand motion sans Mr. Pointy is quite funny).
A welcome addition(although I'm getting tired of the overusage of the story) is when Faith returns and manages to switch bodies with Buffy. While I get tired of the body swap episodes, this one's quite funny and allows both actresses to do something a bit different. Eliza totally nails the Buffy character in Who Are You, especially when she's convincing people of her identity. Then we have the only season finale to not be a big huge blowout: the characters have very weird dreams featuring the first Slayer in Restless.
Is there some trouble spots? Well, the episodes aren't as consistent as season 3 was. They're usually meh episodes that are very funny are just really great ones, exception being Beer Bad which is just awful. The Initiative storyline doesn't seem as big a threat as Angelus or the Mayor was or even the Master and the Riley/Buffy relationship doesn't have the attraction it should, despite the sometimes often physical scenes(such as the sex minded Where the Wild Things Are).
One nice thing about shows like Buffy or Smallville is you can put whatever episode you felt like on without losing your place. 24 or Lost makes you feel like if you missed one episode then you're completely screwed. While season 4 may not be the best, it's just misunderstood and ultimately a fairly solid season.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not my favorite year-but still better than anything else on tv, August 19, 2007
I should start by saying that 'Buffy' is my favorite entity in the world of fiction. You name it-books, plays, movies, television-there is nothing that,taken as a whole, I have loved like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' My title says it all for me-season four would rank no higher than fifth on my personal list. But I'd still take it over anything else I've seen on tv(then, now, or in the past.)
I think that the way in which you perceive a particular season depends upon what it was that attracted you to the series in the first place. For me, there were several factors. I loved the characters. Not just individually, but also in regard to the incredible chemistry that they shared as a group. And this leads me to my primary criticism of season four: the separation of the essential group. Having Giles off to himself, suffering some sort of mid-life crisis. Buffy spending too much time with Riley(and especially with the Initiative.) Willow suffering all sorts of romantic turmoil. Of course, Angel and Cordelia had, by this time, left for L.A. And, let's face it, season four is the beginning of the end for Xander as anything more than comic relief.
I am aware that Whedon claims to have had valid reasons for making these changes. That is not my concern. When a show is built around a group dynamic, there is no excuse for splintering that group. I might have had a little more patience for this phenomenon if he had not dabbled in the same thing the previous year. Lest anyone forget, season 3 nearly saw the friends torn apart on several occasions. During the third season, we saw Xander and Willow have their little....well, whatever you prefer to call it. It never really amounted to very much, but it was enough to cause lots of friction within the group. Then, Faith arrived, and her presense caused animosity from the first episode. She drove a wedge between Buffy and her friends in more than one instance.Giles, of course, drugged Buffy as part of her birthday 'test.' It was one thing after the other. However, in a way, it was worth it. Once they had worked through these problems, they emerged with a strength and cohesion that had not been there before. This set the stage for the final segment of the season, which was so great that it more than made up for anything else which had preceded it.
This is my point about season four.There was no need to separate the group. They had suffered enough emotional turbulence the year prior. I wanted to see the pressures of a new time and place drive these people closer together, rather than the reverse. By far, my favorite things from this season are those that find the bunch reunited(the Thanksgiving episode, for example, or the part later in the year where they all wind up staying with Giles at his place.)
On the other hand, I did give this five stars for a reason. While I don't like it as well as seasons 1,2,3, or 5, I still like it better than any other television. Many of its best qualities are still intact-great characters, brilliant writing, and the best dialogue in recorded history.Plus, it saw the introduction of one of my favorite people-Tara. For me, Tara would be a bright spot in seasons four and five(and the ONLY bright spot in season six.)
I miss this show more every day. I think it ruined me for other tv shows. Everything else pales by comparison.It has become woven into the tapestry of my life like no other work of fiction ever has. For instance, not a Christmas Eve goes by that I do not watch 'Amends.' Episodes that I first saw ten years ago seem to improve with age. There is nothing that compares to it.At the end of the day, by any rational standard, season four is worth your time and money. However, if Joss Whedon really claims, as another reviewer here has said, that this is his favorite season, then my unquestioning acceptance of his status as a 'genius' is officially over.
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