| Angel Season 4 (New Edition) | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 13 reviews)
Sales Rank: 7030
Category: DVD
Actors: David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Amy Acker
Publisher: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Format: Pal
Languages: English (Subtitled), Swedish (Subtitled), Norwegian (Subtitled), Finnish (Subtitled), Danish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Media: DVD
Running Time: 922 minutes
Number Of Items: 6
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 1.1
EAN: 5039036018678
ASIN: B000CDYDV2
Release Date: March 6, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 In-depth, complex...and brilliant March 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It took me a few years to appreciate how good season 4 of Angel actually is. When it originally aired I wasn't sure how I felt about it--I didn't like the Jasmine storyline, or what they did to Cordelia's character, and I thought the whole thing was slightly confusing.
I know now it definitely needs a second and even third viewing to be properly appreciated. The complexity of the storyline, the descent into darkness, and the numerous changes and surprises are all brilliantly done. It shows the planning that must have gone into the whole thing-- more planning than was given to Buffy Season 7 anyway...but that's a different story...
The season begins with the show's best opening episode, ever-- Angel trapped under the sea, put there by his mentally unstable son; Cordelia mysteriously serving time as a "higher being"; Fred and Gunn manning the Hotel and searching for Angel and Cordy, with the help of a fake-innocent Connor; and Wesley continuing his affair with Lilah, the poster girl for Evil law firm Wolfram and Hart. Events move along pretty quickly, and end up at the beginning of an Apocolypse with the gang in serious trouble. They stoop so low that they decide to bring back Angelus-- who I adore because, after all, we can only take so much of Angel's goodness. I was always surprised that they didn't properly bring back Angelus before now, although it's interesting that they managed to make Angel "dark" without doing it so clear cut as using Angelus.
That's really the brilliant thing about this season; it's not all black and while/ good and evil. There are layers, and when each is stripped back we get a brilliant surprise. We learn that not just this season, but possibly the last two were not what we thought, but planned by a seemingly rogue Power that Was who wanted to come down and control the world.
The writers manage to keep character development high while unravelling the story, which involves one of the gang taken over by an evil stranger; Connor continuing his descent into possible madness; Angel desperately trying to hold everyone and thing together, and Wesley helping without actually being back in the fold. I do think the way they developed Wes's character is one of the best in any show I've ever seen. It's hard to write three and four dimensional characters on TV I think, but they've done it here very well.
I also love Connor, he's a brilliant character. Which is why I was slightly disappointed with the season's finale-I kind of wanted (maybe foolishly) for Connor to finally make peace with Angel and join the family.
The whole season is like a long film, broken down into sections. The whole thing is brilliant-- there are flaws, but I recommend repeated viewings the catch the full scale of what this season means.
Slightly disappointed with the DVD extras, but the episodes are good enough that I'm not complaining about that too much!
It's so good to sit down and watch a series that gets better and better with each season-- unlike most shows lately, that decline after the initial greatness. Which makes it even more perplexing that they cancelled Angel. Guess we'll just have to make do with the comics-- and the re-runs.
Epic Entertainment February 3, 2008
Cordelia has gone above and Angel has descended deep below. For three months Gunn and Fred have searched fruitlessly for their lost friends, accompanied by an impulsive and violent Connor. Lorne has all but lost contact with the group and Wesley has fallen further into darkness and into the arms of Lilah Morgan - his once sworn enemy. And so begins Angel's darkest and most exciting season so far.
Season four begins with a few episodes which are essentially just to get the group back together and set up for the main plot of the season, this set up period could have been pointless but is in fact extremely necessary since from episode 7 onwards this is just one massive story-arc with little or no separate stories within the episodes themselves, making a good set-up badly needed. This mega-arc is focussed around a demon called 'The Beast', an incredibly tough and dangerous enemy who vastly outstrips all other Angel opponents so far and completely changes the nature of the game since he is apparently immortal and extremely good at mass murder. That our heroes can't simply find The Beast's weakness and bump him off at the end of the first episode, in fact they get their collective ass handed to them every time they even try, makes him much more threatening and intimidating than previous enemies. Every episode of the mega-arc ends on a cliffhanger and it all hangs together like one massive episode, this works especially well on DVD and is very rewarding to those fans who've seen all the previous seasons.
As well as being heavy on the story arc season four ups the anti in terms of both action and in just how dark the series gets. There are plenty of action scenes as always in Angel, but in season four there's regular use of matrix-esque slow-motion to highlight the excellent choreography and just make things look much much cooler. The slo-mo effect is used regularly but always purposefully, it's well placed and never overused, enhancing the levels of excitement in the action massively.
In terms of darkness the season really goes an extra stretch compared to previous installments in the series, with all the characters being pushed further and harder than they can cope with: Wesley is now a violent and tortured character who has no problem torturing innocents or using other methods that are well over the moral line that he once saw and respected so clearly, Alexis Denisof does a fantastic job with the character and really makes you feel for Wesley whilst still being repelled by just how far this once comical and morally upright man has fallen; Angel spends the whole season watching his world fall apart and he grows further and further from those he loves and is forced yet again to confront his darkest impulses; Fred and Gunn are strained in their relationship as they try to come to terms with losing their friends and their disowning of Wesley at the beginning of the season, and by the end Fred finds herself realizing she's no longer the person she used to be, that she has lost something of herself in her involvement with this world of violence and fear, Gunn meanwhile has lost all faith in his own role as simply 'the muscle' and struggles with the rest of the group treating him as such, by the final episode he's a completely changed man, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Even the chirpy Lorne has a tragic splinter strongly wedged in his heart by the time those last credits role, no-one is left uncorrupted or unscarred.
Season four contains some of the most tragic, exciting, scary, dramatic and surprising episodes of the entire series. It easily outstrips the three previous installments and provides a huge reward for continuing fans of the show. It can be sad, funny and thrilling in equal measure, but Angel Season Four never for one moment stops being one of the most stunningly enjoyable things you'll ever watch.
Now you're talking November 20, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For three years, characters in Angel had been muttering darkly about 'the apocalypse', hinting at some appalling, big-scale catastrophe; meanwhile, the employees of Angel Investigations spent most of their time dealing with personal issues and various romantic and familial entanglements - a "supernatural soap opera" as Gunn himself says, an analogy made even more appropriate by the habit of nearly always ending on a cliffhanger (one of the ways in which Angel differs from Buffy).
Well, season four finally delivers some proper apocalypse: a rain of fire, the blotting out of the sun, and finally a plot to enslave the earth. For spectacle, it doesn't get much better than this.
In many ways, it's just what we've been waiting for, and there are some absolutely stunning episodes, among the best in either Angel or Buffy. And yet, and yet, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the previous season. It just goes to show that it's the story and the characters that make a series, not mere spectacle. The story lurches around and shifts focus too often; too many of the characters become unlikeable and illogical. The characters to suffer in particular are Cordelia (and the attempt to do a Ministry of Truth job on her backstory to make it look like they planned this all along is unconvincing) and Connor. Meanwhile Fred and Gunn's relationship falls into predictably depressing pieces (why can't just one character in Buffy/Angel have a romantic happy ending? If a couple manage to stay together for longer than a series, one of them ends up dying).
There are plenty of good points, though: Fred takes a deserved centre-stage for a change on a couple of occasions, Angel himself becomes more sympathetic (except when taken over by his evil alter ego, Angelus, a part David Boreanaz really seems to enjoy), the slow reintegration of Wesley is well-handled and his relationship with Lilah is an intriguing subplot. Lorne never fails to lighten the mood and Andy Hallett's installation as series regular is well-deserved. It's just, altogether, a less satisfying whole than before.
Excellent but flawed. October 5, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
POSSIBLY THE BEST SEASON OF ANGEL September 17, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Season 4 of Angel is possibly the best season of Angel. From episode 7 the story moves at a relentless pace with constant plot twists and fights cranking up the excitement factor.
The beast is one of the big bads this season and serves his purpose of being an evil one-dimensional bad guy who does a lot of damage. In the mini-apocalypse that takes place during the middle of season 4, The Beast is the one causing all the trouble. So it is quite fun to watch him constantly cause chaos. It is also good to see that for once, evil prevails(Angels team just can't stop him). And when the Beasts master decides to make its move, the season takes an unexpected turn for the better.......
Faith also makes a very welcome appearance this season to help angel in his time of need. She has a fight with Angelus. Its awesome.
Thats right! Angelus is back. I read one of the other reviews that said he isn't very evil in season 4 of Angel. Is that why he manages to turn the team against one another, kicks the crap out of Faith twice and even injures Wesley. And when he is talking to all of the members of Angels team, he really does mess with there heads. It is really entertaining to watch......
Cordelia isn't very fun in this season. You'll find out why when you watch it. But there is a good reason for this. As you'll find out.
This is probably my favourite season of Angel. No wait- season 5 is. Oh but- season 3 was......Ok. Season 4 is one of the best seasons of Angel. But there all good. Just buy the whole series!!!
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