Film: 
DVD: 
Series Created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt
Starring David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Andy Hallett, Vincent Kartheiser, Stephanie Romanov, and Gina Torres
Features:
- Running audio commentary on seven episodes by various participants, including Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Alexis Denisof, Andy Hallett, David Fury, Vern Gillum, Steven DeKnight, Terrence O’Hara, and Jeffery Bell
- Season 4 Overview with Cast and Crew interviews
- Season 4 Outtakes
- “Angel and the Apocalypse,” “Last Looks: The Hyperion Hotel,” “Fatal Beauty and the Beast,” and “Malice in Wonderland: Wolfram and Hart” featurettes
Released by: Fox Home Entertainment
Rating: NR (some imagery might not be good for little ones)
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes
My Advice: It’s worth checking out…
[ad#longpost]Angel (Boreanaz) and Cordelia (Carpenter) are missing. Fred (Acker), Gunn (Richards), and Connor (Kartheiser) have been searching far and wide to find them. But wait, it gets more complicated. Connor is Angel’s son, and, in that, he’s a bit of a miracle. See, vampires are not supposed to be able to breed. There’s a bit of father/son rivalry going on, miracle or no. Anyway, Wesley (Denisof) is the one who finds Angel, which is ironic, since he’s the one that helped send him away in the first place. They discover that Cordelia has actually transcended to a higher plane and is actually a higher being, and she’s been helping them “from above.” Anyway, they are all reunited and back to fighting evil in Los Angeles, but there’s something bigger looming on the horizon. They are literally helpless to stop the oncoming apocalypse, but somehow, they’ve got to find a way to stop the beautiful Jasmine (Torres) from bringing on the end.
If you’ve never seen this show, be warned: it’s easy to get sucked into. It’s very well written in that each episode ends with a cliffhanger. This makes it one of those series that is better watched on DVD rather than when you were waiting for each weekly episode to play on TV. Boreanaz created an intricately troubled and hauntingly charismatic character. This is one of the reasons why this series survived as long as it did. He’s a vampire with a soul, and as such, he now fights for the forces of good in the universe(s). He kills other vampires.
There is one other character that stands out for me, and that’s Lorne, played by Andy Hartlett. He’s actually a demon who can “read” people by hearing them sing for him. He’s part drag queen, part demon, part hero, and part comic relief and Hartlett manages to balance all of that exquisitely in his portrayal of the character.
This DVD set is filled with some pretty common stuff for a Fox release. There are a smattering of commentary tracks with some of the cast and crew spread out across the six discs, but most of these are just not worth it. In fact there were several points during these recordings where the folks involved just stopped talking and started watching the episode with you. If I wanted people to come over and watch the show with me, I’d invite some, okay?
There’s a gag reel that’s a bit hard to follow at times mostly because of the difficulty with hearing the audio track over the music track. The featurettes start out as a waste of time, but then get better. The first is a series of interviews with the cast and crew that is nothing more than an overview of the entire season–nearly episode by episode. So, if you skip that one and move on to the others, you’ll actually get to some of the meat of the set. Next up you get a tour of the set for the show, which is okay–there’s only so much you can do with looking at the set of a show you’ve just finished watching hours of.
The last two are where you begin to get some decent interviews with Whedon and his crew. There is a look at the character of Jamine and her minions, and also the fact that there is not a real antagonist character, but rather a legion of them in the form of the law firm Wolfram and Hart. If you are a fan of the show or just want to learn more about it, there is something here for everyone.
Overall, the show is worth watching at least once. I suggest renting it to try it out. Add it to your collection if you get as addicted as I did.
