Product details: - Product group: Video
- Edition: VHS Tape
- Publisher: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
- Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Dolby, PAL, Surround Sound
- Release Date: 2000-10-30
- Number of discs: 3
- Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan, James Marsters, Anthony Stewart Head
- Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
- Run Time: 468 minutes
- Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
- Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
- Package Dimensions: 8.27 x 42 x 75 inches
In Season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sunnydale high school is left behind in smoking ruins and Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) becomes a college freshman at the (fictitious) University of California Sunnydale campus. The major arc of the season involves a semi-sinister Man from U.N.C.L.E.-type government agency known as The Initiative which has its Bond-style HQ under the campus. Their nefarious plans involve capturing vampires and demons, including the now-regular character Spike (James Marsters), and hacking them to pieces for assembly into a Frankensteinian supermonster or fitting them with chips that mute their killing urges. Buffy's plank-like new boyfriend Riley (Mark Blucas) is deadweight, Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) is shoved into new corners of irrelevance (and turns folkie!), Willow (Alyson Hannigan) breaks up with the werewolf (Seth Green) and comes out, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) whines about not being a student but starts dating a former demon (the amusing Emma Caulfield), Angel (David Boreanaz) has his own series but drops in for crossovers (you'll need to buy the Angel box set to find out how some key plotlines pay off) and previously killed or comatose semi-regulars pop in for dreams or revivals. A run of shaky episodes starts off this season, with the show seemingly uncomfortable with the new setting as it treads water with the same old monsters. This set starts to pick up with a few well-above-average episodes, the stand-out being "hush"!. This is a rare attempt for the show at being truly scary, featuring Nosferatu-like demons who glide around robbing people of their voices and force all the characters who have been evading the truth to open up to each other through non-verbal communication. The big plot, spread over the bulk of the episodes, is less interesting than the major arcs of the last two seasons, perhaps because Buffy's new love interest and new nemesis both fail to make much of an impression. This also tends to leave Sarah Michelle Gellar in the shadows of the show she is supposed to be starring in--her best 42 minutes in this series ("Who Are You", not included in this set) comes when she is possessed by bad girl Faith and can cut loose a bit. Mildly wobbly after the last two years, Buffy is still hanging in there and making its absurd premise pay off. --Kim NewmanCustomer reviews:  good but not as good as in school, 2002-05-01
In the first 2 episodes it concentrates on Buffy settling down in college. These are two of the best because it shows Buffy in a different way. Then after that is Faith there are the episodes that dont concentrate on the story this time being the initiative. Fear itself is good and beer bad and hush. There is a couple characters gone from last time and have been replaced. All in all it is a good season. It just doesnt have the same thing anymore when in college for one thing there is no library.
 Uh-oh...not exactly at her best in this one, 2002-01-03
Season One of Buffy was a very good start for the show; Seasons Two and Three were excellent. It's just a shame that everything fell apart here.
Season 4 Set 1 is probably the worst Buffy boxset, featuring the poorest episodes from the show's five season run. The stories feel stale, the plot's going nowhere, Riley is the most unlikeable character possible and don't even get me started on the Initiative! Trying to squeeze in an X-Files style Government conspiracy involving genetic experiments just didn't fit into the good old spiritual/mythology themed seasons, and it let the show down. Thankfully, Joss Whedon has redeemed himself with Season Five.
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