Rating: 
Summary: Season 4 aka the "Captain Cardboard Fiasco" . . .
Review: Ok, based on that first comment my 5 stars seems out of sorts. But fear not, it will all make sense in a minute.
I have to say that Season 4 was one of my least favorite due to Riley, otherwise known by his not-so-loving-fans, and as dubbed by Spike, "Captain Cardboard", one of the most contrived characters on the show EVER. I sincerely feel sorry for Marc Blucas, who portrays him, for having one of his first major roles be that of: a)Angel's first real replacement, which drew intense hatred from die hard Buffy/Angel shippers; and b)this squeaky clean, I'm-destined-to-be-Buffy's-new-perfect-boyfriend AND Captain America character.
Anyway, my point -and I do have one rest assured- is that despite this nerve-grating character, the season has some real gems. My personal favorite is "Something Blue", which fully displayed the amazing chemistry between Buffy and the ever adorable, sexy and hilarious Spike for the first time. Other greats include "Hush", one of the creepiest episodes ever, as well as "Harsh Light of Day", "The Yoko Factor" -what can I say, James Marsters is an incredible actor!-, and the 2 part Faith stint.
All in all, this season, like all the others in my opinion, is well worth your time -and if you're anything like me the FF button on your DVD will be very useful in cutting through all those Riley scenes to get to Spike ^_^
Rating:
Summary: Finally Season 4....
Review: This Season of Buffy may not have been the "best" But it was still a good season. It had many great episodes, including the two-part Faith episodes. "Hush" was one of my favorites. It's amazing how good the episode is, since they don't talk through most of the episode. I love the scene with the overhead projector. So funny.
"Something Blue" was also one of the funniest. I mean, Giles goes blind! Buffy and Spike getting married! (well it seemed so far fetched at that point)Another one that I loved was "Fear Itself" the halloween episode. Where all the scoobies fears seem to come true. But the very best part was at the end "I should have read the caption". All in all it was a good season. And any Buffy fan would want to add this to their collection. Especially if you got the first three seasons.
Rating: 
Summary: Buffy Vs. Frankenstein
Review: Season Four was where Buffy began its slow decline, starting to sow story and character contradictions that would later come back and bite it. Story quality became spottier, though it remained consistently pretty high. The departure of Angel (David Boreanaz) and Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) from the regular cast, and the placement of the other principals in college, put a dent in the show's formula - but the show was still strong overall, and well worth watching. Facing the greater perils of burgeoning adulthood, Buffy and Willow (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan) take to college at Sunnydale U. Slacker Xander (Nicholas Brendon) pinwheels his way through life at small-change jobs, with new girlfriend Anya Emerson (Emma Caulfield), the brutally tactless (though endearingly comical) former vengeance demon. Buffy's ex-Watcher, Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), adjusts with some difficulty to middle-aged "empty nest syndrome," no longer having a clear-cut role in the Scooby Gang's lives. Buffy acquires a new love - and probably her first healthy one - in clean-cut athlete and paramilitary trooper Riley Finn (Marc Blucas). But Sunnydale is still Sunnydale, with more belowground evils erupting to the surface than ever were buried by a spade. In addition to the usual vampires and otherworldly nasties associated with the Hellmouth, a shadowy quasi-governmental military outfit exists beneath the college campus - "the Initiative" - which studies, and attempts to control, supernatural monsters in terrestrial man's world. Buffy's old adversary, Spike (James Marsters), is one of their prisoners and experimental subjects, turned into a Clockwork Orange freak by their zealous machinations - in time, to become an unlikely escapee informer for Buffy and the Scooby Gang, when the Initiative turns out to be perhaps more deadly than the monsters it is theoretically fighting. It seems the idealistically insane head of the Initiative, Buffy's psychology professor, Dr. Maggie Walsh (Lindsay Crouse), does more than merely fight monsters in her spare time - she also tinkers them together. Her pet project, "Adam" (George Hertzberg), a super-intelligent and oddly charismatic Frankensteinian quasi-human/demon patchwork-quilt of parts, has ambitions of his own that go far beyond the wildest imaginings of his ersatz mother, Dr. Walsh - and threaten far more than Sunnydale, and its immediate environs. Some of the series' weakest episodes are in this season, but also a high number of its strongest. "Hush," a mini-classic (and something of a television event) in which UFO Gray-ish demon nightstalkers steal the voices of all Sunnydale and go on a carving spree, is great entertainment, no matter how you choose to look at it. Buffy's arch-nemesis - the fallen Slayer, Faith (Eliza Dushku) - returns from the coma into which Buffy placed her at the end of the previous season and wreaks havoc on Buffy's life by trying to steal it for herself, in the episodes "Who Are You" and "This Year's Girl." Oz (Seth Green) and Willow have a surprise, near-tragic parting, as the result of a lycanthropically challenged romantic rival for Willow's affections named Veruca (Paige Moss), in "Wild at Heart." Some nice comic touches are added to the season in "A New Man," with Giles finding himself transformed into a Fyarl demon by his old nemesis Ethan Rayne (Robin Sachs) and requiring rescue from his condition by (of all people) Spike; school loser Jonathan (Danny Strong) becomes a temporary god of all that is cool, in "Superstar"; the Scooby Gang confronts its own worst fears in ultimately humorous fashion in "Fear, Itself," and more dramatically in the season finale, "Restless"; and former Cordette at Sunnydale High, Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab), becomes first a comical Spike sidekick and later an even more humorous attempted arch-nemesis of Buffy throughout the season. You could do better than this season of Buffy - but not by much, and only with the second or third seasons of Buffy.
Rating: 
Summary: The charm of the first three is there but
Review: Maggie Walsch, Adam and the Initiative aren't satisfying villains. Riley is a tedious character and I personally feel that this is the season where things start to fall apart. Tara, though I didn't like the idea at the beginning, is a lovely addition to the cast, while I didn't find Oz's exit particularly believable. Spike, Anya and Xander are good comic relief as well as being wonderfully drawn out characters like usual. While individually many of the episodes of Season 4 are good, as a whole it's lacking. It just can't work without an interesting big-bad. The other major problem is Marc Blucas's lack of talent, but to his credit, Riley's not much of a role. A great deal of the season is quite enjoyable, don't get me wrong. I just wouldn't reccomend this to the idealist Buffy fan.
Rating:
Summary: Buffy Rocks!
Review: I don't know why people are bashing season 4 of Buffy, I think season 4 is just as good as seasons 1, 2, and 3 and so are seasons 5 and 6, I'm not as happy with season 7 which is the newest season because I'm kind of tired of all the extra characters, the potential slayers are kind of irritating which is the only reason why season 7 is my least favorite season but it's still better then the seasons of most other shows. As for Season 4 it's good, I don't like Riley as much as Angel but he's not bad and is kind of cute though not as cute as Angel. I can't wait for seasons 5 and 6 to come out on DVD and even though season 7 is my least favorite season I still think it's okay and I would want to have that season in my DVD collection to complete it! I read that season 7 is going to be the last season of Buffy and I'm kind of sad about that but at least I will be able to watch episodes on my DVDs and reruns on TV.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Best Buffy
Review: While season four was probably my least favorite season overall, it had some of my favorite Buffy episodes ever. "Restless" was a very funny and very complex episode. A viewer can learn more about the series each time they watch this episode, and Joss's commentary should provide a lot of insight. "Hush" was a wonderful, groundbreaking episode that got deserved recognition from the Emmys.
The overall arc was not as strong as in previous seasons. Riley was a one-dimensional, boring character, and the Initiative was just not interesting. Adam had superhuman strength, but he was just boring. Oz's leaving was heartbreaking, and my opinion is that Willow was thrown into a relationship with another girl. However, I think that Tara proved to be a great addition to the show, and their relationship developed into something really special. Angel and Cordelia leaving hurt the show, because they were two very different characters that brought a different dynamic, and the chemistry between Buffy and Angel was unmatched.
All in all, Buffy had to go through a lot of changes in the fourth season, and I think it handled them pretty well.
Rating:
Summary: The Year of the Willow
Review: Season 4 is not the best season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ever made, or even the second best. It is, however, a strong year worthy of at least a few repeat viewings, and the longer-than-usual list of bonus features on the forthcoming DVD set should make for an exciting week once your box set is unwrapped. Up through the end of Year 3, "Buffy" was synonymous with funny, engaging villains. Season 4 doesn't really deliver on that count. The year opens promisingly with Lindsey Crouse as the potentially evil professor Maggie Walsh, Buffy's psychology overseer at the amusingly fictitious UC-Sunnydale. By the end of the year, however, the villain is a chatty cyborg named Adam who gets dispatched before the final episode. The last two discs in the box set will be full of a lot of Adam-chasing, but no real payoff a la "Graduation Day" or "Becoming", no real thrill akin to Buffy's climactic rooftop battle with Faith, or her alliance with Spike against Angel. What Season 4 is so memorable for is two things: a group of very funny standalone episodes, and Willow. This is the year Willow blossomed and became arguably the show's breakout star -- she's pictured on the DVD cover, and beginning with Episode 10, "Hush", her much-ballyhooed relationship with Tara emerges even better than you remembered it. The first episodes of Season 4 are a lot like high-school era "Buffy". "The Freshman" and "Graduation Day" both feature thematic villains tied to Buffy's fear of college (i.e., the roommate from hell turns out to be, indeed, a roommate from Hell). "The Harsh Light of Day" introduces Season 4 in earnest -- Cordelia and Angel have moved to the spinoff series which concludes this episode, but they're replaced, starting here, by Anya, Xander's demon girlfriend, and the return of Spike. "Fear Itself" and "Beer Bad" are both comedies, the first another successful Halloween episode ("Is it bad to taunt the fear demon?" "No, but it is tacky"), and the second a less well-received story about demonic... beer. Meanwhile, Buffy's had an ill-fated one-night stand with a college lothario, and Oz is about to uncover his true calling in the heartbreaking "Wild at Heart". Oz's departure is followed by "The Initiative", which reveals Professor Walsh and studly assistant Riley Finn to be secret government agents hot on the trail of Sunnydale's demon army. "Pangs" detours into a weak Thanksgiving adventure, while "Something Blue" opens the book on Dark Willow (and features some hilarious Buffy-Spike love scenes). "Hush" is probably the best episode of "Buffy", ever. Absolutely not to be missed. The plot dips a little over the next several episodes, as Buffy joins the Initiative and is quickly betrayed by Professor Walsh, who is in turn deposed by Adam, her demon/cyborg creation. Things return to high form when Faith returns for an eventful two-parter in which she switches bodies with Buffy. A funny return by Harry "The Mayor" Groening, as well (watch out for the tiny worm). "Superstar" is another can't-miss, unrelated (mostly) to the ongoing Initiative plot. It's the grand return of Jonathan, the designated vampire-bait from the high school years who's suddenly become Sunnydale's most coveted citizen (check out the altered opening titles, and the poster in Riley's room). That's followed by "New Moon Rising", the heartbreaking conclusion to the relationship between Willow and Oz... and the enthusiastic beginning of Willow and Tara's. Unusually, the season's arc concludes with a two-parter prior to the final episode. "The Yoko Factor" and "Primeval" dip a little more deeply into Slayer mythology as Adam is dispatched. This clears the deck for "Restless", a dream-episodes, the ramifications of which are still unfolding even as "Buffy" is now deep into Season 7. Again, an episode to be watched several times.
Rating:
Summary: Only for the True Fans
Review: This series was okay, but if you're a true fan of Buffy, then you should buy it. I felt that this series was lacking and not as great as seasons two and three.
Rating:
Summary: Ultimate reason to buy!
Review: Everybody who loves to watch a little Buffy should simply buy this one it has variation and has a lot of stan-alone episodes including two of the greatest ever: Hush and Restless.
And if your the kind of person that just wants to watch an episode once in a while without sitting down for the full 1000 minutes and get into the entire storyline this is the ultimate season. Not that the storyline isn't good I thought it was actually good just not really given the treatment it should have gotten. Yes there are better seasons but face it the best seasons have huge storylines following through them which who should really watch from the beginning. This is a season of change and for a show which was pretty much based on: HIGH-SCHOOL kids fight demons once in a while.
So the fact that they actually had to change the statement of the show and handle it smoothly was a little too much to ask.
It has the ups and downs of this show and a must-have for any lover of good tv. Even though I am a little mad that this version has an extra commentary which the collector's edition (considerably more expensive) did not have and then to top it off a Joss Whedon AND Seth Green commentary! But hey I already have it for about a year so I don't have too much to complain.
Rating:
Summary: Season 4 was great!
Review: Some have said that Season 4 was one of the weakest Buffy seasons. I never felt that way. As far as I'm concerned, Buffy was consistently great from Season 1, Episode 1 clear through "Tabula Rasa" in Season 6, when the show suddenly, inexplicably took a dive from which it has never quite recovered. So Riley was a little dull and Adam wasn't the best Big Bad. So they might have done a little more exploring of college life. When you have episodes like "New Moon Rising," "Something Blue," "Hush," "A New Man," "Restless" and the Buffy/Faith two-parter, who cares? Willow's hilarious dorm-room encounter with a de-fanged Spike is practically reason enough all by itself to buy this set.
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