BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

SEASON FOUR

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: witchcraft, violence, sensuality, homosexuality

Rated:

Most television shows seem to hit a slump after three consecutive seasons, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer was an epistle that just kept on improving throughout the years. While not as smoothly aligned with a single villain in the fourth season, it nevertheless introduced us to key characters and after the second half, propelled us toward a dynamic ultimate conclusion. College is something that Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Geller) hasn't given a lot of thought toward. There's a kind of energy on campus that has affected her best friend Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and made her eager to crack open the books. Stuck with a pop-loving mega-hyper roommate, and after being thrown out of media class by an arrogant, rude professor, Buffy is confronted with a prep-school full of vampires determined to bring her down.

After the destruction of Sunnydale High, consequently ending his job as Librarian, Watcher Giles (Anthony Head) has been feeling somewhat displaced and neglected. Learning to cope with full-time retirement is much more challenging than taking on the occasional demon. Fortunately, there is more than enough to keep him occupied. Running amuck in town is a group of army-clad secret agents on a sub-terrestrial warpath. Snatching vampires and other creatures that go boo in the dark for experimentation, primarily through means of domesticating them, they constantly run afoul with Buffy's nighttime slaying adventures. One of their unhappy captured fiends is Spike (James Marsters), who has been de-fanged via a charming little chip in the back of his head. Whenever he attempts to harm humans in any way, an electrical current surges through his brain. Escaping lock down in his prison cell, Spike turns to the "Scooby Gang" for concealment. As much as he hates Buffy and her "Slayer-ettes," they're all he's got left.

Xander (Nicholas Brendon) has spent the summer washing dishes in an attempt to replace broken car parts, and returns home to find his parents have shifted him into the basement. His troubles are only beginning, when possessive Anya (Emma Caulfield), a pagan goddess trapped in human form, decides that he should be her everlasting honey. Caught up in the middle of all of this is Buffy's interest in Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), her psychology professor's assistant. Little does she know of his involvement in the underground movement to capture and tag the many non-human creatures rampant on the hell mouth. What results is a sometimes chaotic but fascinating sequence of little events that play into a much larger plan. There are the odd episodes where individuals experience problems of varying degrees (everything from Buffy getting drunk on cursed ale, to Giles waking up one morning with horns and a tail, to a haunted house where everyone's worst nightmares come true) but mid-season, things make a dramatic shift. The central villain of the season is introduced, and from there on everything is very streamlined.

Familiar faces from past seasons return for brief cameos. Angel comes to town for Thanksgiving after being warned that Buffy was in danger. Ethan Hunt, a face from Giles' past, makes an appearance to bring turmoil to their lives. More importantly, Faith wakes up. Her body-switching episode with Buffy becomes one of the finer events of the season that also proudly boasts the Emmy-nominated "Hush," an episode in which the voice of Sunnydale falls silent. Robbed of all speech, Buffy and her friends are confronted with deadly adversaries who make the most of silence. Full of the wry humor we've come to expect, and also the high level of intensity, Buffy remains one of the most intriguing shows of all time. But this season also goes further into exploring the darker side of the characters. Willow is now a practicing witch, casting spells and experimenting with dark forces. Most of it appears harmless, but the danger in it is how cool it makes magic seem. The key toward luring audiences into the occult lies in its factor of power without physical strength.

Numerous spells are cast and practiced. Occult signs often bring evil into the world. Willow, Xander, and Giles channel their powers into Buffy in order to help her defeat a monster. Our gang encounters the usual crowd of vampires, demons, and other creatures of darkness. Christians may rightly be offended by the only religious character being a child-suppressing, sadistic fiend. She's an old woman responsible for jinxing a house through repressing the sexual instincts of the children in her care: "baptizing" them by holding them underwater in the tub, and inflicting other forms of mental and physical abuse. This results in the house becoming sexually-charged. It's implied that touching a particular part of the wall gives drunk teens orgasms. In the meantime, Buffy and Riley cannot stop making love upstairs (they're inadvertently "powering the battery" that keeps this haunting going). Some audiences may take offense at the tongue--in-cheek humor over Halloween. Willow dresses as Joan of Arc, "because she was close to God." Her boyfriend wears a name tag that says "God" on it.

Sexual content is also more thoroughly explored. Anya is always referencing sex, and her experimentations with Xander. She drops her drawers on their first meeting, and asks him to sleep with her so she can get over him. They become a couple. Buffy sleeps with a college boy, then faces the rejection of being immediately dumped (for him, it was just a one-night stand). Eventually, she and Riley become intimate, and are shown in the throes of passion on several occasions. Even Giles has a girlfriend that stays the night. A female werewolf aggressively pursues Oz. They wake up together naked in the woods, and again in a cage (he locked her in to prevent her from harming anyone). Nudity is just barely avoided on this, and a later occasion when he's locked in a prison cell. She has a long conversation with him while in her underwear. Spike behaves suggestively toward Harmony, his most recent girlfriend. When the teens encounter a series of strange nightmares, Xander dreams that Buffy's mom propositions him. Willow's relationship with Tara is reveled as being intimate, although nothing is ever shown. (There are discussions on being gay, and the girls spend a lot of time together.)

Language is consistent with British profanities and vulgarities (bugger, sod, bloody) and some coarse American terms (a**, b*tch, p*ssed off), and the violence is standardized for the series. Lots of vampires being staked through the heart, and demons hunted down. People are hit with electrical currents and knocked unconscious. A part-demon-part-man-part-machine stabs people through the heart with a giant claw. The most brutal showdown comes between two slayers going at it. They pummel one another to a pulp and destroy the house in the process. The ultimate conclusion is that the show has spirit and talent for making its audience care what happens to the characters. For fans already into the series, it's another step in the evolution that was Buffy: from slightly deranged but lighthearted to ultimately dark and edgy.