Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Complete Fourth Season

Story

Having battled a hellish vampire master, an evil boyfriend, a rogue slayer, a giant man-eating demon-snake thing, and a particularly nasty high school principal, Buffy Summers embarked on one of her biggest challenges in the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: college. With boyfriend Angel out of the picture (and on his own show) and Sunnydale High destroyed, new horizons were to be tackled for Buffy and the rest of the Scooby gang. There were cute guys (Buffy's new boyfriend Riley), cute girls (Willow's new girlfriend Tara--yes, Willow's gay!), frat parties, irritating roommates, harsh professors, and, oh yes, a secret military initiative that was experimenting on the demon population (Riley's part of it).

Buffy truly hit its golden years in the fourth season--just when you thought this show couldn't get any better, Joss Whedon and his creative team pulled out all the stops and took Buffy and co. into rich new territory. By far, the highlight of the season (and the entire series) was the Emmy-nominated "Hush," a nearly dialogue-free episode in which the creepy "Gentlemen" rob Sunnydale of its collective voice, and Buffy and Riley finally come face to face with each other's hidden identities. While Frankenstein-esque monster Adam wasn't the show's best villain (you'll have to wait until next season's Glory for that), he was a worthy adversary for the biotech age, and the military milieu was a nice contrast to Buffy's previous gothic outings. Season 4 also marked the return of blond vampire Spike (who developed a crush on Buffy), the ascension of vengeance demon Anya to full-time cast status, and the brief return of bad slayer Faith (in a fab two-part body-switching episode). Throughout, the entire cast, headed by the unparalleled Sarah Michelle Gellar, worked television magic of the kind rarely seen on the small screen. This is Buffy at its best. --Mark Englehart

DVD Features

• Available subtitles: English, Spanish
  
• Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
  
• Commentary by Joss Whedon on Hush' and Restless'
  
• Commentary by Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon, and Seth Greenon on Wild at Heart'
  
• Commentary by writer Doug Petrie on The Initiative' and This Year's Girl'
  
• Commentary by Jane Espenson on Superstar'
  
• 22 episodes on six discs: The Freshman, Living Conditions, The Harsh Light of Day, Fear Itself, Beer Bad, Wild at Heart, The Initiative, Pangs, Something Blue, Hush, Doomed, A New Man, The I in Team, Goodbye Iowa, This Year's Girl, Who Are You?, Superstar, Where the Wild Things Are, New Moon Rising, The Yoko Factor, Primeval, Restless
  
• Season 4 Overview
  
• Featurettes: Hush, Spike Me, Oz Revelations: A Full Moon, Buffy Inside the Music, The Sets of Sunnydale
  
• Original scripts for 'Fear Itself,' 'Hush,' 'Who Are You?,' and 'Restless'
  
• Cast bios
  
• Still gallery
  
• Number of discs: 6

Cast

Sarah Michelle Gellar	Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon	Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan	Willow Rosenberg
Anthony Head	Rupert Giles
Emma Caulfield	Anya
Amber Benson	Tara Maclay
Marc Blucas	Riley Finn
James Marsters	Spike
Seth Green	Oz
Kristine Sutherland	Joyce Summers