It's simply amazing how much happened in just one season. This is, however, one of the many flaws of the series. While I found each episode to be fairly gripping and entertaining, I just couldn't really relate to realism of the problems that each character had. Throughout the entire fourth season, we're constantly bombarded with these life-altering and extremely melodramatic situations. I won't go into a direct play by play, but I'll comment amongst some of the various "issues" we get to see. The season opens with a lot of anger and misconception. In season three, Pacey and Joey broke Dawson the teeny-bopper-playboy's heart. They ran off together, leaving Dawson high and dry. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of unhappiness between the trio and their mutual friends. This becomes a running story that shows their friendships rebuilding. Another popular theme, college and the future become a center point of this season. It's the character's senior year of high school, so naturally there's some concern about the future. We get the college theme that trickles throughout the season. Everybody is trying to figure out what's going to happen, where they'll be, and who'll be with them. A tear formed in my eye when a couple of them realized they would actually have to pay for college.

Individually each character must tackle some sort of personal vendetta before they can move onto the future. Dawson is pissed at his so-called sucky life and has no passion for his past dreams of being a hot shot Hollywood film director. Pacey is still Pacey, a bit of a screw up. We get to watch him slowly realize his future won't be as grand as he'd like. Joey, who seems connected at the hip with Pacey, is destined for great things. However with Pacey around, can she really achieve greatness? Jen is troubled with her past and until she can overcome it, she's stuck there. Jack is a homosexual, who is open about it, but scared as hell to show it. In this season he gets to really learn about who he is. But really, by the end of the season, he really hasn't grown that much and starts to really feel like a whiner. His twin sister Andie starts to lose it again and can't cope with the present. There's also a story about a new kid, Drue Valentine, who is from Jen's dark past. He makes a few appearances, where his sole goal is to bring Jen back to the dark side and just wreck havoc. Then there's Pacey's older sister Gretchen, who turns out to be a college dropout and returns to Capeside for a little Dawson action. Quite frankly, I just felt that there were far too many of these "dramatic" issues. After a while, the problems the character went through just got old and I started to get annoyed. The truth is that it wasn't necessarily the issues they dealt with, but the manner in which the characters dealt with them that drove me towards the brink of insanity. Their approach to these issues lacked a tangent to reality.

Further upon the lack of realism, the characters in Dawson's Creek really do not feel like high school teenagers. In fact, their overly clever and witty banter blow most teenagers out the water. God only knows how diverse and experienced their lives are to be able to dictate given stimuli in every god forsaken situation. Whether they're plagued with issues of drugs, sex, relationships, or god forbid even the future, they tend to interact with this beautifully strung monotonous mannerism of communication, where you could have easily said the same thing in a few words. This somewhat witty and clever approach is supposed to enlighten this series, making it feel mature, but really, I think it harms it. God knows how I churn at the thought of having to hear Dawson or Pacey sum up a diluting live experience or highly dramatic life changing situation again. In that respect, I didn't feel that the characters fit very well as "high school" students. Their dialogue and manner of speech just seemed far too mature for their age. To make matters worse, it seems like we have one of these overly long winded speeches every ten minutes. It gets old.

On the other hand, I found that our characters did learn some valuable lessons regarding one of the most common themes, "love". For instance, there's a lot of focus on love and relationships in this season. In season four, we have a few couples who are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're destined to be together forever. First we have Pacey and Joey, who after a summer together have decided that he's ying to her yang. But for better or worse, they learn that love isn't quite as simple as they thought it was. The series does well to show that young love can be a mixture of adolescence and foolishness. We also have Dawson and Joey's older sister Gretchen. They fall in love with each other, despite the four year age gap. How taboo! Well it's not a big deal, because they really think they love each other. This was by far the most annoying thing about this season. These so-called "loving" relationships were clearly doomed to fail and all I could do is sit and wait for that crushing moment when they realized the truth.

However, despite that I have complained about various aspects of this season, they also happen to be the very things that kept me wanting to watch more, well some of them. My annoyance turned into intrigue. I really became enthralled with the overly melodramatic tone of this season. While it doesn't amount to the strongest season of dramatic television I've ever witnessed, I think it was entertaining and gripping enough for a single viewing. There were also some other interesting stories in the season that touched upon sex, death, drugs, and abortion. I felt that these other interesting stories were tied in well, but they were of course, way too dramatic. I think that this season release is probably best suited for the fans. So unless you're looking for a slice of teeny bopper heaven, Dawson's Creek: Season Four may not be for you. There are a lot better dramas out there that tend not to seem like too much. Still, if you're interested, season four won't make for a bad rental.

Episode Guide
1. Coming Home
2. Failing Down
3. Two Gentlemen of Capeside
4. Future Tense
5. A Family Way
6. Great Xpectations
7. You Had Me at Goodbye
8. The Unusual Suspects
9. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
10. Self-Reliance
11. The Tao of Dawson
12. The Te of Pacey
13. Hopeless
14. A Winter's Tale
15. Four Stories
16. Mind Games
17. Admissions
18. Eastern Standard Time
19. Late
20. Promicide
21. Separation Anxiety
22. The Graduate
23. Coda

The DVD

Video:
The video is given in its original television aspect ratio 1.33:1 full frame color. The picture quality probably could have been a little better. There's a noticeable grain in the picture. There are a total of 23 episodes that are spread across 4 DVD-9s, with six episodes crammed on the first three discs and the last disc had five episodes. As a result, the picture quality suffers slightly from problems associated with video compression. There are also some points during the episode that have low frame rates and slight color distortions. However, the problematic issues seem fairly rare, with the exception of the grain in the picture. In comparison to other TV on DVD releases, the quality looks fairly average and is easily viewable.

Audio:
The audio track in this DVD release comes in English 2.0 Dolby digital stereo sound. It's your basic TV on DVD release audio track. It's fairly flat, because it consists mostly of dialogue. The music comes off fairly rich. The sound quality is very clear, with no noticeable flaws. Overall, it sounds great for this release, much better than broadcast or cable television. However, at the end of the fifth episode, the music gets distorted, with an awful crackling noise. There are subtitles in the Portuguese and Spanish languages. As well, this release is closed captioned enabled for the hearing impaired.

Extras:
There are not a lot of special features with this DVD release. There are two major extras, two audio commentaries and an interactive trivia game. The audio commentaries are for the season premiere episode "Coming Home" and one of the concluding episodes of the season "The Graduate". Both audio commentaries were a little boring. They're not comical or even that interesting. I suppose not being a diehard Dawson fan is the major reason why I didn't care for them. It shouldn't be surprising that I thought the "Dawson's Creek Trivia Game" was a waste of time. Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the limited extras provided with this release. This was definitely not one of the stronger aspects of this box set.

Final Thoughts:
Despite the major tone of dissatisfaction and repressed boredom throughout the review, the experience of watching the fourth season of Dawson's Creek wasn't completely terrible. The season (and the series) just isn't what I would identify as truly gripping entertainment. The teenage melodrama works enough to keep you interested, but the overly dramatic approach of each episode tends to get a little old. I felt that this season is definitely worth watching, but I can't imagine wanting to ever revisit the experience. For that reason, Dawson's Creek: The Complete Fourth Season should make for a good rental. However, keep in mind that this teenage melodrama isn't for everyone. If you've never enjoyed a single episode of the series, this season doesn't have very much to change your opinion.

Be sure to check out DVD Talk's other reviews in the Dawson's Creek series.