Some Appreciation for Season 4!

[chum981]

In another thread "The Worst Episode?", there was a general consensus that Season 4 was the worst one. But I just wanted to show some appreciation for this season.IMO, there have been some good and some very good episodes. I would say this applies to at least half the episodes of season 4: - "Death and the Lady"- "Child's Play"- "God's Work"- "The Rising Sun of Death"- "Vote of Confidence" - decent enough- "Baseballs of Death" – I think underrated, see comment below - "Indian Wars" - great teaser, especially with Castillo undercover (See comment below)- "Honor Among Thieves" – really good I thought- "Badge of Dishonor"- "Blood and Roses"- "A Bullet for Crockett" – teaser is good, the rest is just recap- "Deliver Us From Evil: Part 1"- "Mirror Image: Part 2"Note that every episode from "Vote of Confidence" onwards (with the exception of "Hell Hath No Fury"), were all good and worth seeing. So MV really picked up again after some forgettable episodes.I would like to specifically mention "Baseballs of Death" as I think it is not talked about and is underrated (although the Episode Glossary gives it a 5/5 ). The scene near the end when Guerrera has a hostage and is boarding a plane is really memorable for me. Tubbs, Castillo and Switek all have their guns pointed at him, he is slowly moving backwards, the Vice cops are slowly moving forwards, with the wind blowing sideways – Fantastic!And "Indian Wars" also…especially since Castillo is undercover – that doesn’t happen much. He makes a comment in the teaser, something like, “I can kill 20 minutes in 6 minutes†– I really enjoyed that episode.And "Honor Among Thieves" – I really liked this one, although the ending was a bit silly. The acting all round was good, and the most memorable part for me was during Billy Idol’s Sweet Sixteen, where they show Delgado the Doll Killer at a fun fair looking for his next victim, and then Castillo and Lt. Jarell pulling up in their car, camera focussed on their legs below the knees, them walking towards the body of a girl, and then the camera slowly rising up to show a disgusted Castillo and Lt. Jarell. Again, fantastic and very memorable for me!

[Guest neworder]

I remember quite a long time ago on .org I defended Season 4 too.Trust me there are times that I too really enjoy this season, all the eps uve mentioned i think are great bar gods work (altho what a boat chase) and bullet for crockett because its just a clip show. You should add contempt of court, and i actually like the big thaw a bit, one comedy episode is fine, they just took it to the extreme in this season.Baseballs is fantastic, i rated it 9/10 on .org and it narrowly missed a 10 because of the stupid re-used stinger footage in the boat chase. This episode is a definate throwback to season 2 for me, in fact its the next episode in line that im gonna watch. There's lots of decent music in season 4 too, and the look of crockett is pretty decent in the first half of the season (when the stories are very mixed) and then extremely dull in the second half of the season (when the stories are much better).Season 4 never really got a decent balance, the viewer was thrown from one extreme to the other, awful episodes to fantastic episodes, see what i mean. Thats why i think its regarded the worst season.

[Shill]

and some of the music in season 4 was the best on vice, Gene Loves Jezebel, Echo and the Bunnymen and Yello

[chum981]

Yes, I should have added "Contempt of Court" - I like the Mosca character and Stanley Tucci is a very good actor. MV did well to bring him back in "Blood and Roses"

[Richie Rich]

Season 4 has Sheena. Nothing with Sheena can be bad,so 'nuf said. I'll enjoy S4 until I leave this earth.

[Tommy Vercetti]

Season 4 has two of the greatest episodes - Death & The Lady and Mirror Image. Two masterpieces and two of my favourite episodes.Child's Play is an excellent dramatic episode with a great performance by DJ.The Rising Sun of Death is excellent. Atmospheric, well written, R. Lee Ermey is a great guest star and there's awesome songs by The Smiths, Billy Idol and Yello.Indian Wars is a very good solid ep. Castillo did a great job working undercover, Joe Turkel was a cool guest star, there's some great scenery and action and the raid on Turkel's estate seemed to be homaging the raid on Tony Montana's estate in Scarface. Turkel's death is even almost identitical to Tony's. That was really cool.Honor Among Thieves is also very good. Well acted, an original story, nice locations, two great songs by Billy Idol and Aerosmith.Deliver Us From Evil is very good and has that amazing ending.A Bullet For Crockett is also a good ep but it's just a clip show.Those are the only episodes I like in S4. 8 out of 22. All the other eps in S4 apart from them suck IMO

[Viceman Cometh]

Looking over the list of S4 eps, I was surpised at how many I found good or tolerable. A little more than half. Badge of Dishonor is probably my favorite of the season.

[chum981]

Looking over the list of S4 eps' date=' I was surpised at how many I found good or tolerable. A little more than half. Badge of Dishonor is probably my favorite of the season.[/quote']That was the point I was trying to make...that when you look back at Season 4, its actually OK, with IMO a little more than half the episodes worth watching.

[MiamiCop123]

Well, I have to admit that Season 4 isn't that bad, but some are pure stinkers! Death and the Lady and Mirror Image were excellent, I agree with Tommy Vercetti.

[Lar]

No, S4 is not all bad, it's more hit-or-miss. Problem is, when it's bad, it's really bad, IMO dragging the entire season down. That said, there's plenty of episodes that make the season worthwhile. I've always like Contempt of Court and Blood & Roses, Daeth & The Lady is a classic, as is Child's Play. Baseballs of Death was also very good. And, against my better judgement, I've always found Like a Hurricane very enjoyable.Plus, S4 has Deliver Us From Evil, which IMO ranks up there with the best of them.

[Guest neworder]

Im going to be honest too, Season 4 has the best finale of any of the seasons...even better than freefall. Mirror Image was awesome and deliver us evil can easily be classed as part 1 of the finale, another pure genius episode.

[agent 47]

Season 4 is the first season I watched from start to finish (I started on season 3 with Knock,Knock, Who's There?), I don't understand people's distate for this season. It is to me way better than the lousy fifth season. Especially Indian Wars, Honor Among Thieves, and Bullet For Crockett, and I liked the episode about the whacko televangelist.

[chum981]

Season 4 is the first season I watched from start to finish (I started on season 3 with Knock' date='Knock, Who's There?), I don't understand people's distate for this season. It is to me way better than the lousy fifth season. Especially Indian Wars, Honor Among Thieves, and Bullet For Crockett, and I liked the episode about the whacko televangelist.[/quote']Yeah, I think its better than Season 5 as well. The main problem I had with Season 5 was the replacement of Hammer with Truman. Truman is good, but the whole feel of MV changed. It took me some episodes to get used to the change. Its while watching Season 5, that I truly started appreciating Jan Hammer.I also missed Crockett. He was absent too much during the first half of the season. And while watching Season 5, I realised why this was the last season...they seemed to be running out of ideas and the standard wasn't as high as previously.

[Tommy Vercetti]

Man I disagree. I love season 5. I'm a big fan of it. I think it's an awesome season. So many great episodes like Line of Fire, Fruit of the Poison Tree, The Lost Madonna, Freefall, World of Trouble, Hard Knocks, Too Much Too Late, Heart of Night. A vast improvement on season 4.

[chum981]

Man I disagree. I love season 5. I'm a big fan of it. I think it's an awesome season. So many great episodes like Line of Fire' date=' Fruit of the Poison Tree, The Lost Madonna, Freefall, World of Trouble, Hard Knocks, Too Much Too Late, Heart of Night. A vast improvement on season 4.[/quote']I thought there would be alot of disagreement. Even when I read reviews, the general consensus is that Season 5 picked up from Season 4, i.e. it was a vast improvement.But to me, it wasn't the MV that I fell in love with. Like I wrote, the feel of MV had changed with the loss of Jan Hammer.Maybe we can discuss Season 5 in another thread.

[rodriguezisdead]

Tommy Vercetti, the fans in general would seem to agree with you.For argument's sake if we take an 8 out of 10 score (per the old .org's ratings) as a very good score (and this isn't unreasonable - 8 out of 10 or more would put an ep in the Top 40 ranked eps according to the votes), then the following is a list of how many eps for each Season that score 8 out of 10 or more:Season 1: 16 epsSeason 2: 9 epsSeason 3: 6 epsSeason 4: 4 epsSeason 5: 6 epsThe eps that average 8 out of 10 or more for Season 5 are: Redemption in Blood, Fruit of the Poison Tree, Freefall, Hostile Takeover, World of Trouble, and The Lost Madonna.This is why Season 5 averages slightly higher (7.11) than Season 4 (6.89) - there are slightly more 'very good' eps than Season 4. They both have their fair share of 'stinkers' as we all agree, which brings both Seasons' averages down, so much so that they are both averaging significantly lower than Seasons 1 to 3.The paradox of Season 4 is that although it just scrapes the bottom in terms of average scores, it still holds the most popular MV ep from the show's entire run (according to the stats this was Mirror Image).And in fact the top 4 eps from Season 4 as mentioned above which score 8 out of 10 or more, in my personal opinion are all excellent eps: Mirror Image, Child's Play, Deliver Us From Evil, & Death and the Lady.I will try and collate .ws's scores at some point and do a comparison - I think there have been some changes - in particular I think .ws fans have stopped 'over-rating' certain Season 1 & 2 eps.

[MiamiCop123]

So the Top Eps. in Season 5 that are higher than 8/10 are Redemption in Blood, Fruit of the Poison Tree, Freefall, Hostile Takeover, World of Trouble, and The Lost Madonna. And then Season 4 top eps. are Mirror Image, Child's Play, Deliver Us From Evil, & Death and the Lady. Well, I think Seasons 4 and 5 are both weaker than Seasons 1 and 2, but Season 3 is a bit better than Seasons 4 and 5. There are good episodes in both seasons, but I didn't like Season 4 that much b/c of bad eps (The Big Thaw, Missing Hours, Cows of October) and I didn't like Season 5 eps. that much b/c of the loss of Jan Hammer and replacement of Tim Truman. But that's my opinion:rolleyes:

[Ferrariman]

I think that too many people were disappointed with the big changes in season 3 (which I loved) and because of it the "downward spiral" attitude continued. Season 4 (with the exception of Rico's beard) was a great season. "Death And The Lady" & "Love At First Sight" are among my all time favorites.

[agent 47]

Yeah' date=' I think its better than Season 5 as well. The main problem I had with Season 5 was the replacement of Hammer with Truman. Truman is good, but the whole feel of MV changed. It took me some episodes to get used to the change. Its while watching Season 5, that I truly started appreciating Jan Hammer.I also missed Crockett. He was absent too much during the first half of the season. And while watching Season 5, I realised why this was the last season...they seemed to be running out of ideas and the standard wasn't as high as previously.[/quote']Yeah, the series was getting a little rediculous, the terrible haircuts, bad clothes, it lost it's edge, Swaitek looked like he had a beaver strapped to his head. The opening was good, especially the shootout at the party, but you had crap like Miracle Man and, the finale was a little lousy, I have to say, it was way too over the top, and they uselessly throw away their badge. I liked them using Pink Floyd in Borrasca but there is practically no good episodes in this season except the opening. Season 4 had countless good episodes.

[Viceman Cometh]

I just did an informal review of the ep list from S5 and came up with nine eps that I find tolerable to good. For what it's worth, that is less than S4.

[Guest neworder]

I have a confession to make...lolYesterday I watched Hell Hath No Fury, an episode I absolutely slammed on the reviews on .org, im sure RID can testify to that. It still isnt an overly brilliant episode, still not 5 out of 10 or more material but I have to say the story is better that I once thought and it's quite deep in places. That said, there's still a horrific lack of music and style although some of the locations used in the episode were a nice change from usual, more suburban shots and nice ocean drive stuff. SO when we get round to season 4 again, HHNF will probably be getting an ok-ish review from me. Now ive got to go round all the threads and remove it from my bottom 5 eps of all time.......SJB

[Matt5]

No I agree about 5/6 out of 10 for that episode - and the different locations of Ocean Drive and Suburban shots were nice. This story though is a real popular one of 80s tv cop shows and done many times before - and the writers just jumped on the bandwagon with this episode imo with nothing new here .

[Charlie Glide]

I'm enjoying S4 again having bought the box set. Missing Hours isn't that bad actually having seen Twin Peaks and X-Files. Obviously it hasn't got the usual Vice story line and I can see that the producers were trying something a bit different. From the ending my take on it is that Trudy dream't it all.