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14 episodes

SPECIAL FEATURES
1. Deleted scenes
2. Rabies: the more you know
3. Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin ad
4. Blooper reel
5. The Office convention: writer's block
6. Summer vacation promo
7. 4 episode commentaries

Total Viewing Time: 717 minutes

It seems to be standard procedure for fans to label season four of The Office the "worst" of the series (so far). Many state that this is because of the strike shortened season, and because of the number of hour long episodes, which work against the show's great pacing. I personally did find season four to be disappointing at times, and some episode seemed to come out of nowhere ("Did I Stutter?") and some major moments had no build up ("Goodbye, Toby" - I would've loved to see a scene where Toby tells Michael in his office that he's leaving) which kind of ruined the feel.

There are some classic episodes here however (most notably "Dinner Party") that bring the season back from some "okay" outings. The thing with The Office though is that even its "bad" episodes have some absolutely phenomenal writing and some terrific moments. Few shows have the ability to have greatness mixed in with some standard muck, but The Office has it.

The box set is short on special features. This disappointed me greatly. I thought, "maybe they'll load up on special features since there's only 14 episodes" but I was terribly wrong. Only four commentaries are here. Really? Four? Was everyone extremely busy? Maybe the writer's strike had something to do with this... I have no idea, but either way I was let down here.

The deleted scenes were great again, as was the blooper reel, but there's really nothing else to sink into. The "Writer's Block" discussion was pretty good, clocking in at 30 minutes and it offered some interesting tidbits about the show and whatnot, but I don't think a lot of people want to sit at home and watch people talk behind a table, but that's what we get. The rest of the special features are extremely short or seem to just be added to make it seem like there's a lot here to digest. The Rabies feature wasn't even two minutes! Overall the special features, weren't very special (zing!).

Season four certainly dropped the ball quite a bit from season three, but obviously that should mainly be blamed on the writer's strike. But still, starting the season off with four one-long episodes I think was a bad choice. It works against the show for the most part.

The packaging is the same as previous seasons. My two complaints here is how plain the packaging looks. There are still some pictures of the season, but the rest of the art layout is just "bleh" and very "serious" looking. My other complaint is the extremely cheesy (and useless) "Dinner Party" table draft that comes with the box set. Why? Because it comes packaged IN the slip cover case. Which means if you lose it, the slip cover case doesn't fit and is too big for the fold out disc set. Why couldn't they just put this behind the slip cover so I can throw it away? Granted, I keep my collections neat and orderly, not everyone does, and many people will lose this "extra" they gave us.

8.5 THE SHOW ITSELF
8.7 VISUALS
9.0 SOUND
7.0 PACKAGING
7.7 EXTRAS

8.7/10 FINAL VERDICTGet more detail about The Office: Season Four.

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