DVDs in Review - #9: The Shield - Season 4

I watched this a while ago now, but I decided not to review it because I was busy pushing through the top 50 and didn't want to interrupt the list with other posts.

This is (obviously) the fourth season of The Shield, which is the season that guest stars Glenn Close as Captain Monica Rawlings.

Show:

Season four of The Shield continues the utter excellence that you'll come to expect from this show. Glenn Close joins the cast as the new Captain and she has an immediate and obvious chemistry with the entire cast, especially Michael Chiklis. The show has also taken a slight change in dynamic with the addition of a new major player. The head of the One Niners, Antwon Mitchell, portrayed par exellence by Anthony Anderson.

Things, as always. Aren't going smoothly for Vic and the boys, Shane is causing them no end of problems and David Acevada has a major bug up his ass about Captain Rawling's new "seizures policy" where any property purchased with gang related gains can be taken by the police and auctioned off. The cast is excellent and the dialog is as witty and sharp as ever. The first episodes "dog shooting incident" is brilliant in the darkness of it's humour.

Season Four is every bit as good as Season 3 was, the show has really found its stride by this point and is pushing on well.

10/10

Packaging:

The packaging continues to keep the same style as the previous seasons, it matches up well and doesn't take up too much space. The box art is also excellent (as you can see) and the whole thing ticks all the boxes.

9/10

Extras:

Season 4's Extras are strong, but not the best. Ultimately it depends how much you like extras, I can take or leave them but I do enjoy good commentaries. Of course; no-one has yet managed to provide commentaries that beat the Futurama ones, but some of the ones on The Shield are excellent. Overall, it's a mixed bunch as some commentary groups are more interesting than others and they managed 8 out of ther 13 shows.
Of the other Extras the most interesting is "Under the Skin", which is an hour long look at the show with cast interviews and the like. Overall the Extras are good, but I have seen better.

8/10

Price:

Season 4 can be had for £13.89 from Sendit.com and it stands at 585 mins. This works out as 2.4p per min. Which is darn impressive as very few DVDs have passed the 2.5 mark. Considering the quality of this show and the previous standards set there is only one score possible here.

10/10

Overall:

Show: 10
Packaging: 9
Extras: 8
Price: 10
Final Score: 92.5%

A solid, but not unexpected score. Unfortunately it's likely to be the last high score I give the region 2 versions of The Shield because Sony butchered season 5 and 6... More on that later.