Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 4

The fourth season of Buffy had some stand-alone episodes among the very best the show's had so far, though it didn't feel quite as strong overall as it did previously. I'm still interested in the characters for the most part, though some of their problems weren't as good and the main story arc was... I don't want to say silly, because the show's always had a sense of humor about what it is. I guess it was just hokey in comparison to the last couple seasons. One character who did improve was Spike, who's always more entertaining when he's not antagonizing the heroes, and he couldn't for the bulk of the duration here. Someone who I definitely thought took a step back was Giles, who is still and will forever be awesome, but he's just slightly less awesome when the show goes out of it's way to let you know he's awesome.

Anyway, the main thing that's going on is Buffy and Willow arrive at their college, and before long realize that there's a secret government facility beneath it that's the base for a military project called The Initiative, and some people they've met and grown to like happen to be part of it. There's a bit of conflict as we're not sure what everyone's true motivations are and eventually the main villain presents itself, an interesting if goofy experiment gone wrong. It's hard to say what exactly made it weaker than earlier stories, other than it simply was. Still though, the season is worth watching for those standout episodes. Both of the early holiday-themed ones, the dream-sequence heavy finale and especially "Hush" are all fantastic hours of television. We're reaching the point where maybe Whedon's being stretched a little thin thanks to Angel and eventually Firefly, but Buffy's still a very watchable series.