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Angel Season 4 on DVD
Fox Home Video
Approx. $40-$50
6 Discs, 22 Episodes, Anamorphic Video

CONTENT:
Angel's third season ended on the Buffyverse's biggest cliffhanger: Cordelia has been "called" up to another plane of existence, and Connor has locked Angel in a box and dumped him to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, Wesley has been expelled from the group when he kidnapped the baby Connor weeks earlier.

As the show's fourth season opens, that's exactly how we find our characters: lost and separated. As Cordelia watches events from above, Angel hallucinates about how he wishes his life could be. Meanwhile, Fred, Gunn and Wesley search tirelessly for both. Connor pretends to help with the search, all the while hindering it wherever he can.

Angel's 4th season is, for all intents and purposes, about truth and lies. Throughout the season, the characters are presented with truths and lies, and they learn that both can have positive and negative consequences. Lies break up Fred and Gunn's relationship. Lies conceal the truth about Cordelia's true fate. Even lies that could lead to world harmony are still just that: lies. The return of Angelus throws in a new twist - he lies with the truth. Locked within his iron cage, Angelus does more damage to the Fang Gang than the Beast did by beating the snot out of them. His twisted truths, his full-on, uninhibited manner brings out the worst in each character, and Angelus manages to tear the entire group apart just by talking to them. And, of course, Connor's character arc comes pretty much to a close with his realization that his entire life has been nothing but lies, and its leaving him dead inside.

This is the biggest, darkest, most epic season the Buffyverse has ever seen. There are a couple of misteps along the way, when aren't there? But on the whole, it's far more entertaining and far more cohesive than Buffy's seventh season, which ran concurrently with this one.

VIDEO:
Angel's fourth season, like it's second and third, is presented in anamorphic widescreen video, and it looks great. As the show's budget went up, so did the video quality, and it shows here. Angel is an incredibly well-lit and shot show, looking at times much more like a series of 40-minute films than a television show. The special effects this year were the best the show ever saw, and they don't suffer (much) on DVD. Shots with excessive use of CG tend to have problems, such as the alien dimension Angel travels to in "Peace Out". But all in all, this is a great-looking set.

AUDIO:
Angel S4 is presented, like previous seasons, in Dolby Digital 2.0. Though not full-blown surround sound, the set has pretty good range, and has excellent room-shaking bass, even if the sounds aren't enveloping you from all around. Be careful with your equalizer, though, because male voices will get lost in the bass if you don't have it set right. At times, it was a chore figuring out what Angel and Wesley were saying (though, surprisingly, not Gunn).

EXTRAS:
At this time, I have yet to listen to any of the audio commentaries, though there are 7 of them out of 22 episodes in the season. This time, they feature some of the cast, including Andy Hallett (Lorn) and Alexis Denisof (Wesley).

"Season 4 Overview" is just that - they talk about the season from beginning to end, with lots of interview footage with the cast and crew. It's interesting, but, frankly, if you've just watched the season, why would you really want to watch what is essentially a 20 minute recap? There is some broaching of the subject of Charisma Carpenter's (Cordelia) pregnancy throwing the producers for a loop and them having to scramble for a new idea, but not much. At times, the interviews drag as cast and crew simply give blow-by-blow descriptions of the interspersed clips, like the Fang Gang's first fight with the Beast in "Apocalypse, Nowish" (redubbed "Rain of Fire" when it aired on the WB because of legal issues concerning the movie "Apocalypse, Now").

"Season 4 outtakes" is pretty funny, with the cast often flubbing lines or dancing on camera when they should be fighting or some such. But when the show is so funny in its finished form, these flubs aren't really THAT interesting.

"Last Looks: The Hyperion Hotel" is a tour of, guess what, the Hyperion hotel that was the primary set for Angel for three seasons. We're walked around the hotel by the show's production designer, who describes the various things we're seeing. It's not much new from the very similar feature presented on a previous set (I believe, S2) but we do get to see in greater detail the basement and the upstairs apartments.

"Fatal Beauty and the Beast" looks at Jasmine and the Best, played by Gina Torres and Vladimir Kulich, respectively. Torres is her usual funny self, and talks about what a good time she had on the show after working for Joss Whedon on Firefly. Kulich talks about the heavy make-up for the Beast, and how much fun it was to beat up all our heroes.

"Malice in Wonderland: Wolfram and Hart" looks at the various skanky characters that came in and out of the evil law firm over the first four years, including favorites Lindsey and Holland. Lilah gets the most coverage, though, and Stephanie Romanov is the only one of the performers to actually appear in interview footage. Still, it's a nice look at some of TV's more memorable villains and their moments.

OVERALL:
I ripped through this set in just a few days. I bought it on Tuesday, and was finished (except for the commentaries and one featurette) on Saturday. It was that good. On TV, it almost seemed to drag a bit as we had to wait weeks between new episodes when the show was the most heavily serialized it has ever been. But here, everything flows much quicker and more naturally, allowing for a better and more exciting viewing experience. The video transfer is fantastic, there's great sound, and the extras are just about what we've expected from previous sets. Hopefully, the commentaries won't disappoint. But with so many of them (7!) I'm sure at least a couple will be good, especially "Spin the Bottle" with Joss Whedon and Alexis Denisof.

Highly recommended.

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