Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10640 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-03-06
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 922 minutes

Synopsis
Features every episode from season four of the series about Angel, a vampire attempting to atone for his past sins. With a few close and good-looking friends he opens up Angel Investigations and becomes a vigilante determined to fight the forces of evil, which run rampant in the city streets. Season 4 opens with Angel being held captive at the bottom of the ocean by a secretly mutinous Connor, while Cordelia has been called to a higher plane by the Powers That Be. After everyone has been reunited within a few episodes, a new villain is unleashed: The Beast, with whom Angel's alter ego, the evil vampire Angelus, used to be in cahoots, has returned from exile to terrorise L.A. Angel is severed from his 'good' side by his friends in order to pump his 'bad' side for information about this new nemesis. While Angelus escapes to wreak havoc alongside his old demon friend, uber-villain Jasmine arrives to throw the themes of the show into a cosmic light.

Customer Reviews

So nearly brilliant... !
This season came so close (IMO!) to being consistently the best of the entire show, but just fell short at the end. After a slow start, the first two thirds of the season is generally great, with the introduction of the Beast as a big bad carried off very well (Reign of Fire in my top 3 Angel episodes ever !), and the succeeding episodes as the team try to bring him down being terrific viewing (we even get the return of Angelus for a few episodes). Unfortunately, it is the treatment of the Cordelia character that badly lets down the last third of the season. Even taking account of the fact that Charisma Carpenter was pregnant at the time, her performances sit uneasily with the tone of the season up to that time. She is way over-the-top, and frankly slighly cringeworthy as her plotting is slowly revealed. It looks totally out of place and unbalances the rest of the show. I was waiting for her to put on a fake moustache, give it a little stroke now and then, and give off a long "mmmuuuuuhhhhaaahhhhaa" cry. Even the (long overdue)return of Faith can't rescue the episodes.

So all-in-all, so close but not quite...

Excellent but flawed.
Following on from the distilled brilliance of series 3 (to my mind the finest series of Buffy or Angel ever to hit our screens) I guess the writers of Angel thought they needed to do something grand and impressive to top it; so far as the grand and impressive part is concerned they succeeded, but not without losing some of the magic. This series, more than any other of Angel, is dominated by one story arc which occupies almost every episode from episode 7 (Apocalypse, Nowish) onwards, and although this storyline is both engaging and exciting, it would definitely have benefited from a few more stand-alone episodes, both to break up the dense plotting and to perhaps provide some light relief from the all-encompassing darkness of the main arc.

It's obvious that the writers still have what it takes to write a good stand-alone episode, as Spin The Bottle (it's telling that this is Joss Whedon's contribution to the series) is one of my all-time favourites, but others are practically non-existent (apart from maybe Players) once the main arc kicks in. Don't get me wrong, however; the arc provides some of the most impressive and exciting "plot" episodes of Angel's run, my favourites being Soulless, Orpheus and The Magic Bullet (where Fred gets a welcome chance to take centre stage).

The character drama is another slightly weak point for me in this series, as the whole Cordy-Connor thing, while essential to the story arc, is also rather irritating (though believable, at least from Connor's point of view), and the downturn in Fred and Gunn's relationship (starting from the episode Supersymmetry) is well-written but difficult to watch, and typifies the underlying feeling of frustration which pervades this series.

I ought, however, to draw special attention to the brilliance of Alexis Denisof in this series, as for my money there is no greater achievement in the Joss Whedon canon than Wesley's tragically convincing descent into darkness; to look at the excessively uptight and rather clownish figure who arrives in Sunnydale in Buffy series 3 (a version of Wesley brilliantly resurrected in Spin The Bottle) and then at the tortured husk of a man who's made his mistakes but been unfairly punished for them one would hardly believe they were the same person, and yet never once did I question the writing or the performance which got us from one to the other.

Looking back on what I've written thus far I realise that it sounds as though I don't really like this series, which is not the case at all, as it's still an excellent addition to the Buffy/Angel cannon with some classic episodes and a gripping central storyline.

Heavy on the arc!
One word of warning (ok a few words!) do not watch this season if you have never seen Angel before, it will only confuse and frustrate you. Things will make more sense if you watch the whole series in linear order. This season is only enjoyable if one understands the circumstances surrounding the events that take place within the season; therefore prior knowledge of past seasons is very important. But anyway, on with the review!

Season 4 of Angel was probably the most ambitious and complicated piece of story telling they attempted on the series. Essentially season 4 is a movie stretched over 22 episodes (there are very few stand alone episodes); obviously there are both good points and difficulties in doing this.
The good being the level of detail and character development that comes with executing such an ambitious season, but equally it does suffer in that if you miss an episode it does get rather confusing and the story arc can grow rather tiresome after a certain point; namely Cordelia and Connors contribution, but maybe that's just me.
Despite the negative aspects, if you have the time and patience to watch it you will be greatly rewarded; for the level of continuity running throughout the season and past seasons is lovely, especially if you are an avid viewer, it's like being rewarded for the observance when watching past episodes.

Season 4 does unfold at a steady pace and almost every episode ends with a mini cliff-hanger to help hold ones interest; and believe me it does what it says on the tin. One way to explain the complicated story arc is to break it up into sections: the first section is about resolving the events of the end of season 3, namely finding Cordelia and Angel... which thus leads to the Beast arc, which leads to the Beasts Master, then to Angelus and Faith, then onto Jasmine the `happy shiny' Goddess, and finally the resolve of Connor in the last episode `Home'.
That's the basic season plot (though obviously I didn't give much away), this stretches across the entire 22 episode run and despite having so much continuity and detail to tie in it was handled well by the writers, on the whole this season is very good. Although season 4 is the darkest season which can grate slightly, as one does get tired of having so much angst constantly hanging over the group, but what keeps us going is the knowledge that season 5 is amazing and that season 4 is an entertaining story, even if it is long. Just remember the first viewing of this season is always the best so enjoy it!

Highlights of the season include: `Orpheus' which allows us into Angels mind and sees Willow making a return to L.A to restore Angels soul, while episodes like `Players', `Apocalypse, Nowish', `Spin the Bottle' and `The Magic Bullet' all provide good solid story telling.

8/10 Not the best season, but not the worst: the continuity and creativity of the story is both epic and imaginative, well worth watching.