Rating: 
Summary: Be back before Dawn.
Review: As most customer reviews have dutifully pointed out, season 4 has always been the sore spot on a good number of Buffy fans' favorite lists. As most, if not all, reviews go on to say, in what could be perceived as an elitist attempt at irony, these fans are wrong. These pleas from naysayers against season 4 naysayers are of course neither elitist nor ironic because season 4 of Buffy is genius in almost every aspect of it and comes intact with several of the show's greatest moments.The first several episodes of the season strive to regain the ground that the show had lost with the departure of Angel, Cordelia and high school. With teasers throughout each episode impending 'The Initiative', we are treated to glimpses of military garbed commandos taking out bad guys just like our Buffy. While admittedly weak, the Initiative storyline served as a stepping stone for, among other things, Buffy to get past Angel and Spike to become an integral member of the Scooby-gang. In that respect, the Initiative storyline served its purpose and, love him or hate him, gave us Riley. With the departure of Oz, the reintroduction of Spike and Anya and the introduction of Tara and Riley, Buffy seemed to be reinventing itself. While most characters were greatly received (Anya, Spike and Tara), Riley has always been seen as a faulty character. Blame it on the writing, Marc Blucas or any other factor, the character was one-note and eventually wore thin. Personally, Riley never bothered me until season 5, so his presence throughout these 22 episodes doesn't really bother me all too much. If for no other reason than that of a self-serving nature, the best episodes of the season are, in my opinion: 'The Harsh Light of Day': The return of Spike... and Anya... and Harmony!! Once again Jane Espenson proves she's Buffy's comic guru eliciting many a laugh from almost every character. The ending of this episode is also particularly affecting. 'Pangs': Aside from a clumsy Angel crossover, this episode provides many laughs. Not much plot development presiding in the episode, but, with the exception of season 3's 'Amends' (which was decidedly weaker), it is the only non-Halloween holiday episode we've ever gotten. 'Something Blue': Who can't resist angsty inner-turmoil turned into irreverent hilarity? The whole Buffy-Spike thing is genius. Bewildered, helpless Giles is always good for a laugh too. 'Hush': Only a caustic Buffy fan attempting mockery would omit Hush as a tour de force episode of Buffy's entire run. The acting is top notch, the cinematography and score are also exceptional here. In hindsight, this really isn't much of a surprise: whenever an episode is penned by Whedon you can expect great things. 'The "I" in Team': Plenty of great Anya lines. Perfectly balances the plot development and hilarity. Witness the Willow-Anya-Xander poker game, Xander selling Boost bars and a certain static inducing protection spell. 'Who Are You': The second (and better) part of the season 4 Faith arc. The episode examines the Willow / Tara relationship, pre-empts the redemption of Faith and overall has fantastic performances from the whole cast in particular Sarah and Eliza. 'Restless': A precursor to Buffy's future (be back before dawn, etc.), 'Restless' is, in my opinion, the best episode of the season and, aside from OMWF, the best episode of the series. Everything is perfect here: the music, the lighting, the sets, the art direction, the cinematography, the dialogue: leave it to Joss to perfectly capture the eerie nature of dreams that leave us both unsettled and somewhat abandoned. Probably the most artistic episode of the series, 'Restless' is a flat out masterpiece and an essential part of the show's mythology. Some other favorites include 'Superstar,' 'A New Man' and 'The Yoko Factor.' As immediate predecessor to the best season of Buffy and immediate successor to the most hyped season of Buffy, season 4 is often times over shadowed by the accomplishments of its bookends. This is a harsh injustice as the fourth season is a flat out masterpiece with practically nary a road bump; 'Beer Bad', 'The Initiative', 'Doomed' and a few other episodes are the exceptions here (which is not to say they are without highlights).
With Buffy ending in a month, it seems wrong to calculate all the mishaps the show has taken over the years. It seems even more obscure that many fans attribute this season of Buffy with the "worst season ever" title. Some say Xander and Giles were underused, some say Adam is the worst big-bad ever, some say Riley was little more effective than a set prop. It matters not, because once you finish watching 'Restless', you know you have just witnessed greatness.
Rating:
Summary: Buffy Season 4
Review: Okay, so I will admit that season 4 is not my favorite overall season episode wise, but character development wise it is definitely my favorite, especially the whole Willow storyline. They have only been foreshadowing that she was gay since the first seaon (watch "Prophecy Girl" from season one where xander asks buffy to the dance) but more so in the 3rd season in dopplegangland. season 4 also has some of my favorite episodes including hush, restless, and new moon rising. Tara is so hot...
so anyway, get season 4 when it comes out on DVD. yeah some episodes do ... but overall i think it is a great season.
Rating: 
Summary: Remember When We Thought This Was As Bad As It Could Get?
Review: The introduction of the Initiative, Adam, and the bland Riley (blandly played by the bland Marc Blucas) marks the beginning of the end, quality wise, for Buffy. Gone, and never to return, are the tight and inventive story arcs from the previous seasons. Instead, the writers live out their James Bond fantasies (that's how they described it) with some very boring characters, while ignoring series regulars, Giles and Xander (a situation that only gets worse in the next three seasons).The strength of this season lies in the individual episodes. Hush, Pangs, Something Blue, Who Are You, and This Year's Girl, are among the best the series has had to offer. Hush, in particular, is one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen on my televsion set. Still, for all it's flaws, the fourth season towers head and shoulders above the unwatchable mess of the sixth season, and the unending snorefest of the seventh.
Rating: 
Summary: The weakest Buffy season, but still a good buy!
Review: I didn't really love season 4 like I loved 2 and 3. It had some new ideas and concepts and some of them didn't really work in the right ways for me. But it did have some brilliant episodes, and got us more interested about the military involvement in vampire slaying. WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS! Here's my episode-by-episode guide to Season 4 #1 THE FRESHMAN - 4/5. A very good opener. Lots of comedic scenes and also shows the estrangement of your first few days of college nicely. #2 LIVING CONDITIONS - 3.5/5. Funny funny episode! I wasn't really all that happy with how it turned out, but it keeps the laughs coming on in, and the editing techniques were great. #3 THE HARSH LIGHT OF DAY - 4/5. This episode gets better with repeated viewings. Lots of good insights on relationships and such. Good music too, and seeing Spike in the sunlight was a treat. #4 FEAR, ITSELF - 4/5. Genuinely creepy episode with great production design. Also some good foreshadowing for the rest of the show. #5 BEER BAD - 2/5. Stupid, pointless episode. But I did kind of enjoy it's silly qualities. Quite funny in parts but overall - just lame and unneeded. #6 WILD AT HEART - 4.5/5. The girl who plays Veruca was atrocious and brought this episode down from a 5. Everything else was excellent! #7 THE INITIATIVE- 4/5. We finally learn about those damn commando guys! A good episode with many funny scenes that got the story-arc going. #8 PANGS - 2.5/5. Gets worse everytime I watch it. The story isn't really needed to the arc of the season, and seems just pointless... #9 SOMETHING BLUE - 4/5. Awesome comedic episode, with great performances by Sarah Michelle Gellar and James Marsters. #10 HUSH - 5/5. Brilliant episode of BTVS - one of the best ever if you ask me! Joss did a brilliant directing and writing job. A unique, very frigtening, funny and just excellent and enjoyable hour of TV! #11 DOOMED - 4/5. Keeps getting better with every viewing. Written by Marti Noxon, Jane Espenson and David Fury - this mixes all of their talents together - drama, comedy and action. Good episode, if not perfect. #12 A NEW MAN - 4/5. Very almost a 4.5, maybe after more viewings. This episode was hilarious and finally Giles got his own little story arc. It didn't really move the story-arc along or anything, but fun all the same. #13 THE I IN TEAM - 4/5. In which we are introduced to the big bad for season 4, and a questionable big bad he is...but the rest of this episode was 4.5 material! #14 GOODBYE IOWA - 3.5/5. Didn't hold my interest as much as the previous episode, but this one definitely gets the big bad's story-arc on the road as we learn more about him. Marc Blucas' acting is also brilliant here. #15 THIS YEAR'S GIRL - 4.5/5. Praise FAITH! She is just an amazing character and I can't explain how great it was to have her back. Everything about this episode was enjoyable - one of the best of the season! #16 WHO ARE YOU - 5/5. Just when I thought it couldn't get better than This Year's Girl, they give us a true Jossian episode with Who Are You. It's a weird idea that could've gone awry, but instead it turns out to be a brilliant one that furthers our knowledge of the characteristics of both Faith and Buffy. Funny, dramatic - brilliant! #17 SUPERSTAR - 4/5. Groovy little episode that gets better every time I watch it. Danny Strong did a great job and the alteration to the credits is just classic in the best sense of the word. Great job! #18 WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE - 0.5/5. Even worse than Superstar. This episode gives a good reason for people to say why they don't like BTVS. This is probably the worst episode of the show ever. #19 NEW MOON RISING - 4.5/5. Thank God for Oz! After those two HORRIBLE episodes beforehand, on comes Oz for his final episode of BTVS (I think, you never know with Joss). The acting here is great, and there is a lot of brilliantly written drama by Marti Noxon. #20 THE YOKO FACTOR - 4.5/5. Good good good! A funny episode that prepares us for the showdown with Adam and the Initiative. Very well done and with great acting by Marc Blucas and David Boreanaz. #21 PRIMEVAL - 4/5. Lots and lots of great action sequences here, and it was awesome to see the gang working as a team once more. The fight with Adam is just classic! #22 RESTLESS - 5/5. One of the most amazing episodes of the show. Though it doesn't quite beat out Hush for best episode of the season. It is very close though. There is a lot of character development here, and the directing job is probably the best the show will ever have. A great way to finish S4! --- DVD REVIEW --- This DVD is great and gives you deeper insight into the ideas for the season. The writers and directors give you a lot of good insights into the episodes they wrote. I love this DVD package. You can buy it in NZ on Region 4 and it is excellent, so when it comes out in the USA, all you American BTVS fans better order a copy from Amazon!
Rating:
Summary: And the Buffy Line Continues....
Review: The Fourth Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is definetly one of my favorite seasons, as it also is in the hearts of other Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans. This has a number of critically acclaimed episodes from "Hush" to "Restless" ("Hush" was nominated for an emmy).
Here's the Low Down on What Happened In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4:
We see the return of everyone's favorite vampire Spike(sorry Angel), along with an old friend; a newly vampified Harmony. Buffy has a one night stand with Parker. She was looking for more than just one night but, he didn't want to hear it. Anya and Xander start dating, and so do Buffy and Riley. We find out that Giles can sing and that Riley is part of the secretive and shifty Initiative. We go deeper into the life of Willow's magic, and meet her new "friend" Tara. We also see the departure of Oz. In the end we once again see good triumph over evil when Buffy ultimately defeats Adam. The actors in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are amazing. You can tell they love what they do. I only have one problem with season 4. Miss Amber Benson (Tara) was not in the opening credits! My favorite charcter of all time, and my favorite actress, I think we should have seen a lot more of her name in the credits. (She was only in the credits once, in season 6, the episode where see died. I don't even want to get started with how much that upset me. We are after all hear to talk about season 4.) Actor List:
Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers)
Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles)
Amber Benson (Tara Maclay)
Nicholas Brendon (Alexander Harris)
Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg)
Emma Caulfield (Anya Emerson)
James Marsters (Spike a.k.a Willian the Bloody)
Marc Blucas (Riley Finn)
Kristine Sutherland (Joyce Summers)
Supporting Actors:
Leonard Roberts (Forrest Gates)
Baliey Chase (Grhamm Miller)
Lindsey Crouse (Maggie Walsh)
With Appearences By:
Adam Kauffman (Parker Abrams)
Mercedes Macnab (Harmony Kendall)
Robin Sacs (Ethan Rain) A great season over all, you should all go out and buy it. Rock on Amber Benson!
Rating:
Summary: its Buffy of course its Awesome
Review: Some consider this to be one of the weaker seasons but I dont think there is a single "clunker" buffy episode in its entire 7 season history. That said reason for the 3 stars Fox Studios or Joss Whedon himself for whatever reason will not be releasing this in its original 16x9 format that it was filmed in (for region 1). I recomend buying this from Amazons sister sites http://www.amazon.co.uk or http://www.amazon.de to get the 16x9 version.
Rating:
Summary: Season Four of "BtVS" provides the initiatve for changes
Review: In Season Three of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Joss Whedon and the show's writers proved that the series could survive Buffy killing Angel. For Season Four the task was to prove that "BtVS" could survive losing Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley, who were spun off into their own film noir vampire detective series. The surprising success of their effort is displayed in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Fourth Season," a season that is more impressive with each viewing. When last we left our heroes most of them had just survived graduating from high school. Now Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and Oz (Seth Green) are off to UC-Sunnydale while Xander (Nicholas Brendon) tries to survive in the real world and Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) twiddles his thumbs in his apartment. Instead of the "high school is hell" idea, the underlying symbolism of the season is now the brave new world of college. Buffy has moved out of the house to live in the college dorm (surprising), but with somebody other than Willow (more surprising), and is trying to move beyond Angel (sad, but not surprising). After a dalliance with Parker Abrams (Adam Kaufman), the personification of that horrible "transition" person your friends always warned you about after your first big breakup, Buffy hooks up with clean-cut Iowa farm boy Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), charming psychology graduate assistant by day, Initiative super-soldier by night. By now we are familiar with the double-story arc structure of a "BtVS" season. For Season Four the first half story arc has to do with the mystery of the Initiative, while the second half is the confrontation with Adam. More importantly, there are several monumental character changes inspired by the desire to keep a couple of actors and the decision of another cast member to leave. Wanting to keep James Marsters around, the idea of putting that bloody chip in Spike's head, neutering the vampire when it comes to putting the bite on human beings, was a masterstroke (and, dare I say, surprising). Suddenly, Spike is a de facto Scooby. Meanwhile, with Emma Caulfield sticking around as Anya, she becomes the show's comic relief in place of her boyfriend Xander. Then, when Seth Green left the show to concentrate on films, what we thought was an offhanded comment in "Doppelgangland" suddenly comes to fruition for Willow when she meets Wicca wannabee Tara (Amber Benson). All of these changes end up having much more significant impacts on the show than the addition of Riley Finn as Buffy's new love interest. Season Four begins with a lot of interpersonal issues, from trouble with dorm mates ("Living Conditions") to getting dumped ("The Harsh Light of Day," "Wild at Heart"), before getting caught up in the mystery of all those soldier types running around the campus in the dark ("The Initiative"). Buffy and Riley finally discover the truth about each other in the landmark episode "Hush," the only episode ever to earn Joss Whedon a well deserved Emmy nomination for Best Writing of a Drama (insert outrage over snubs of "The Body" and "Once More With Feeling" here, please). The second half of the season finds Riley learning to work with Buffy ("Doomed") and Buffy enjoying working with the Initiative ("A New Man") before Professor Maggie Walsh (Lindsay Crouse) tries to kill her ("The I in Team") and her stitched together uber-demon Adam (George Hetzberg) breaks free and sets up the final confrontation ("Primeval"). Ultimately, the strength of a season is judged by the episodes that are essentially off the main story arcs. For Season Four this means a Halloween episode with one of the best punch lines ever ("Fear, Itself"), the great Buffy and Faith mind-switch ("This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You?"), the discovery that the coolest and most important in the world is Jonathan Levenson ("Superstar"), and the hilarious insanity of Willow's wish list ("Something Blue"). Of course on that last episode once again the joke is on us as the alternative reality give us a preview of what is to come down the road. One of the most unique aspects of this season was that the climatic battle with the year's big bad happens in the penultimate episode and the season finale, "Restless," serves as an actual epilogue as Buffy and friends encounter the First Slayer (Sharon Ferguson), and sets the stage for significant develops to come. The fact that Season Two ended with the greatest episode ever of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in "Becoming, Part II," when Buffy has to kill Angel to save the world, obscures the fact that on balance Season Three and Season Four were both stronger seasons overall. The operatic finales might not reach the same heights, but the lows are higher and the on average score is higher. The worst episode of Season Four is probably the season premier, "The Freshman," which suffers because like all first episodes in a season of "BtVS" the goal is to have Buffy rededicate herself to being the Slayer so that new viewers can feel like they understand the gig. If anything, Season Four reaffirms that the strength of this show is character development and not just vampire slaying. Final Comment: It is nice to see that the extras for Season Four contain twice as many commentary tracks as we have been privy to for each of the previous three collections. In a perfect world it would be great if all of the episodes had commentary, provided by shifting tag-team combinations of writers and actors, in the tradition of the very early episodes of "Farscape" on DVD, but I have long had the feeling that the cast of "BtVS" is rather intimidated by the encyclopedic knowledge of the show enjoyed by its fan base.
Rating:
Summary: Some really amazing work
Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 4th season was the first season when I actually said to myself, "Joss Whedon is a genius..." It's not that I didn't think he was a genius beforehand, but this was the season with the episodes that really pointed that out to me. The episodes of which I speak are "Hush," Joss' creepy response to critics who thought that he'd [smell] without his snappy dialogue, "Who Are You," where Faith inadvertently starts down her long road to redemption by literally walking in Buffy's shoes (my personal favorite episode), and "Restless", Joss' meandering walk through Buffy, Giles, Xander and Willow's dreams, to insightful and more frequently humorous effect. These three episodes stand to show what an amazing and imaginitive mind Joss Whedon has and why his writers consider him a "benevolent dictator" over them. And since this DVD comes with Joss' commentary on both "Hush" and "Restless", I must say it's the Buffy DVD set I've anticipated the most so far. The rest of the season also has some gems. "Fear, Itself" is simply the best use of anti-climax that I have ever seen on TV or film. "Beer Bad" treats us to the more primitive side of Buffy. I'm particularly looking forward to "Wild at Heart", which will feature a special commentary track by Joss, Marti Noxon (writer/producer), and Seth Green. There are a lot of changes in the cast in season 4. Angel (David Boreanaz) and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) have moved to LA (their further adventures are chronicled on Angel), and Oz (Seth Green), fearful of the wolf within, leaves to find himself. Their void is filled quite well by Spike (James Marsters), the former bad boy who unwillingly takes his first steps towards being a better man, Riley (Marc Blucas), Buffy's Army stud, Anya (Emma Caulfield), the ex-vengeance demon with a unique view of the world and incomprehensible obsession with Xander, and Tara (Amber Benson), a sweet Wicca with a little mystery. The season is a little shaky as a whole. The whole Initiative and Adam story arc is kinda [weak], but those amazing episodes are so great that it's easy for me to take a "forest for the trees" approach to season 4. Still, check out the DVDs. Those three Joss episodes alone will be worth it (but I'm pretty sure you'll have a good time with the whole thing).
Rating:
Summary: Not Buffy's best season, but better than most shows!
Review: THE FOURTH SEASON: College, Riley, The Initiative, Willow goes gay, Spike gets a chip, Faith and Buffy switch bodies, more.
This season started off pretty badly, but (hey) they had to practically restart the series with a new setting, new characters arriving, old ones leaving --So give Joss a break! Once this season got going with episodes "Hush" and "Something Blue", it really worked out well, and finished really strong.
Can't match the drama and excitement of Season Three, but nothing could.
Rating:
Summary: This DVD rocks
Review: I own all the Buffy DVD's and this one is my all time fav.!!!
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