The Shield (Season Four) (DVD)
First and foremost the casting on this show is superb. The cops that make up "the Barn" are all perfect especially Jay Karnes and CCH Pounder as Dutch and Claudettea. A partnership with enough differences and similarities you could make an entire show surrounding their fantastic dynamic. Then you move over to the now debunked Strike Team, which was led by Vic Mackey (Chiklis). The only difference this season from teh fourth is that instead of stolen drug money and serial rapists referred to as The Cuddler the Farmington police are taking on an even larger problem... gangs and drugs. At the head of the charge is Captain Rawling played by Glenn Close in a stellar performance that adds one more spice of reality to the seemingly all-to-realistic drama, but her efforts would be all for not had there not been an Antwon Mitchell.
Mitchell is played by none other than Anthony Anderson. Yup, that guy that ruined the first Barbershop and starred in his very own flop in the form of King's Ransom. It is safe to say my opinion of this guy as an actor was low, but some opinions are meant to be changed. Anderson went somewhere I would have never thought he could go and based on the special features on the fourth disc it didn't seem many others thought he could go that far either. He goes for real human emotion as he plays the fourth season's primary baddie, but it isn't until an emotionally charged scene toward the end of the season he shows his stuff in the interrogation room. A scene that has officially changed my position on Anderson. The boy can act!
As for the fourth season on a whole, I would say it is right on par with the third. I expect to have season one and two of "The Shield" in the coming weeks and will be previewing those so that I am ready for season five with a complete timeline in my mind, but before I go into the special features I do have one gripe.
There are only 13 episodes in season four!
"The Shield" like all of FX's dramas ("nip/tuck" and "Rescue Me") is half the length of most primetime dramas. I understand this and accept it, but only 13 episodes? At least season three had 15 episodes, this season is over in a minute and you are left on edge as we now have to wait for January to see where it goes, or if you are in my boat until next November considering I hardly have time for primetime television!
As for the DVD extras, they're a'ight. The one thing I enjoyed the most about the third season set was the massive making of doc as they explored the entire process of making the season finale. With the fourth season set there is once again a long featurette, but this time it encompasses the whole season, which just felt played. I have seen this type of thing before and while creator Shawn Ryan is always fun to listen to and the parts focusing on the casting of Glenn Close and Anthony Anderson were interesting I just didn't care about the things they were talking about. It just felt like every other making-of doc I had seen before.
Beyond those complaints, the rest of the features are fantastic. You get some excellent audio commentaries and 42 deleted scenes. Yeah, 42, that's a lot if you didn't know and these scenes do a bit of exploration, they are good.
I like this show, actually, I love this show. That said, I think $42 is too much to spend on only 13 episodes when you can buy complete seasons of almost every other show for the same price and get 24 episodes, it just doesn't make sense. The key to the whole thing is how much do you trust me and how much do you love this show? For my money I would wait until the price dropped to around $27 or so, there is enough TV to go around until then, plus it may help stop these inflated prices on the more popular, cult style television series.