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The Originals: The Complete Fourth Season
Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:
Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:
This part of the year is what I like to call “TV season”. If you’ve noticed pretty much every broadcast TV show from the CW and NBC and a few others are released in the span of about 6 weeks. During the year I like to watch many shows as they air, and it makes the reviews a bit easier (and hard in some ways), but there are shows that I like to just sit down and binge watch over the course of a few days with a glass of wine and a sloppy smile on my face. The Originals is one of those shows, and I looke forward to sitting down each year and binging each and every ooey gooey cheesy, guilty, episode. The show is one I never really expected to take off, but someone it has lasted 4 seasons and doing strong. I HATED, and I mean LOATHED The Vampire Diaries, so when I started the first season of it’s spin off, I was fully expecting to loathe the series worse than it’s predecessor. Interestingly enough, I actually had a lot of fun with it, as much of the melodrama of The Vampire Diaries is toned down and tweaked to have less romance, more blood guts and gore feel to it. Sure, there’s the CW angst, and some of the melodrama, but it has enough guts, blood, witches, werewolves, and fanged night creatures to make for an enjoyably good time.
Season three threw us a few curve balls. The show had started to become a bit bloated in regards to the characters, with each year giving us more family members to the Originals, and more villains and witches than you could shake a stick at. Last time we left off Elijah Mikaelson (Daniel Gillies), Kol (Nathaniel Buzolic) and Freya Riley Voelkil) had been put under a spell, while halfbreed brother Klause (Joseph Morgan) being stuck as a prisoner/slave to his prodigy, Marcel (Charles Michael Davis), who now runs New Orleans once more. 5 years have passed since this incident, and the city of New Orleans is having a small amount of peace now that the Mikaelson family is out of the picture, and none of their wars are disrupting the rest of the place. However, Klause’s ex-girlfriend (and mother of his daughter), Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) is going to upset all of this balance. She has been searching for a way to bring Freya out of the magical slumber that she, Kol and Elijah are in, and with the witch revived, can bring ALL of the Mikaelson clan back together, unleashing their wrath on the people who put them in there.
Season 4’s final 13 episodes are a bit of a change of pace from the standard 22 episode format. They finally decided to trim the fat, so to speak, and the results are actually quite nice. The shorter episode number allows for the filler to be trimmed down, and while there are some superfluous episodes, most of the time is spent wrapping up plot points, and dealing with Hollow instead of going through hours of interpersonal drama. Elijah and Hayley finally get some closure, as does Klause and his eternal torment, but still, there are many things that stay the same. The series ends with the option for season 5 and a HEAVY cliffhanger that actually had me raising an eyebrow or two. The endpoint of the show has a HUGE change that really rocks the format of the series, and allows two of the characters to end on a rather bittersweet exit from the series. The Mikaelson clan has always been slightly “out of normalcy” compared to other families, but this one really brings more chaos than you could possibly imagine, and has me eagerly awaiting the next year.
Rating:
Rated TV-14 by the MPAA
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
• Come Visit Georgia
• Unaired Scenes
• Gag Reel
Final Score:
I've said this for the last couple of seasons, but if you like the first couple of seasons of The Originals, then you're certain to like what comes next. As much as things twist and turn amidst the bloody CW drama, the more things stay generally the same. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, that all depends on how much you like the show. It has that CW angst that is so prevalent in most of their shows, with small dollops of that melodrama that comes from being a spinoff of The Vampire Diaries. The series keeps expanding, adding new characters, new family members, and sometimes it feels like it's going to burst. But I still have a solidly good time watching the show, despite it's slightly annoying flaws. Audio is still on par with the other DVD releases, and the video is decent, if not a bit weaker than previous years. the drop down to 13 episodes was a VERY nice feature, as it cut out a lot of the filler that made the middle section of each season every so slightly tedious. The show has maintained the same star rating over various seasons, and I continue to give it a solid
out of 
Technical Specifications:
Starring: Joseph Morgan, Daniel Gillies, Phoebe Tonkin
Created by: Julie Plec
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 MPEG 2
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese DD 5.1
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 547 Minutes
DVD Release Date: June 29th, 2017
Recommendation: Fun Watch
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