"Oh dear...I'm afraid I zigged when I should have zagged." - Aunt Clara (Marian Lorne) after landing in a tree
Bewitched: The Complete Fourth Season DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
In the fourth season of the supernatural sitcom Bewitched, harried ad exec Darrin Stephens (Dick York) finally begins to accept that his gorgeous wife Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) is an immortal witch who do anything she wants with a simple twitch of her nose. Well, he sort of begins to accept it. When Samantha is coronated Queen of the Witches, he protests at first, but comes to realize that he'd rather let Sam practice witchcraft than risk losing his family ("Long Live the Queen"). Of course, he still has to deal with Sam's mother, Endora (Agnes Moorehead), who tries to outsmart "Durwood" by having Samantha's lookalike cousin Serena try to drive him off by pretending to be Samantha ("Double, Double...Toil and Trouble"). Not to mention the fact that his daughter Tabitha (played by twins Erin and Diane Murphy) continues to develop powers of her own, bringing hobgoblins to life straight from a book about Halloween ("A Safe and Sane Halloween") and conjuring a group of "living" toys to serve as babysitters ("Toys in Babeland").
Endora continues to doubt the strength and longevity of her daughter's marriage to a mortal. In the classic episode "My, What Big Ears You Have," she becomes suspicious that Darrin is having an affair. To try to prove her case, she casts a spell that causes his ears to grow each time he tells a lie. In the process, she ruins Darrin's surprise - he was secretly buying a bentwood rocking chair that Samantha saw at an antique show. The visual gag of Darrin with ever-growing ears is extraordinarily funny.
Endora even manages to infect Samantha with doubt in "Snob in the Grass." Darrin's boss, Larry Tate (David White), wants the firm to land a new client. He even knows how to nab the account - through the company's owner daughter Sheila (Nancy Kovak), who just so happens to be Darrin's ex fiancé. Sheila was first seen in Bewitched's pilot episode where she tortured the newlywed Stephens at a dinner party until getting a comeuppance from Sam. Here she throws another party...and guess who wins again? In "If They Never Met," Endora decides to show Samantha what Darrin's life would have been like had they never met. It turns out that Darrin would have married Sheila and lived the life of a millionaire. He would have been rich and, for the most part, happy, but his life would have lacked love. It seems that the mortal and the witch really were meant to be together.
Fans of dotty old Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne) will be happy to know that in season four she still tries - and fails - to be the competent witch she once was. While babysitting Tabitha, she becomes befuddled (or more befuddled than usual) when her young charge turns a stuffed monkey into an actual chimp ("That Was No Chick, That Was My Wife"). She accidentally casts a spell that causes Samantha's voice to become out of sync with her mouth like a poorly dubbed foreign movie ("Out of Sync, Out of Mind"). She even sends the entire family - and nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz (Sandra Gould) - back in time to the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth ("Samantha's Thanksgiving to Remember"). This leads to Darrin being accused of witchcraft and to Gladys' observation that "I don't like this dream...it's too much work."
Several other episodes involve Aunt Clara, including ones in which she falls in love with one of Darrin's clients ("A Majority of Two") and brings alien beings to Earth ("Samantha's Secret Saucer"). Her best episode, however, is "Allergic to Ancient Macedonian Dodo Birds." Exposed to a dreaded Macedonian Dodo, Endora's powers are transferred to Aunt Clara. While Endora mopes around with unkempt hair and wrinkled clothes (well, as wrinkled as polyester can get), Clara enjoys the highlife with her newfound abilities. It is great fun to see the two characters basically exchange roles with Endora as the incompetent sad-sack and Clara as the confident sorceress. This is especially touching since season four marks the final appearances of Aunt Clara. Marion Lorne, who never struck a wrong note in her brilliant portrayal of Clara, died after filming the fourth season. Needless to say, we'll miss her...and her vast collection of door knobs.
Many of the plotlines in season four seem derivative - how many times can we watch Tabitha bring her toys to life? - but the series is, as usual, saved by great performances from pros like Lorne. Montgomery is extremely likeable, and the subtle contrasts between Samantha and Serena in episodes like "Double, Double..." are a hoot. York knows how to stop just short of going over the top in a role that is often a walking contradiction. (Darrin seems to alternately accept and reject Samantha's abilities simply based on a whim.) Moorehead continues to make larger-than-life seem perfectly natural. Even the Murphy twins manage to be cute without crossing over into saccharine.
Familiar faces popping up in the fourth season include Dick "Don't Squeeze the Charmin" Wilson, MacDonald Carey (Days of Our Lives), Jerry Maren (Lidsville), Felix Silla (The Addams Family), Richard Bull (Little House on the Prairie), Joan Hotchkis (The Odd Couple), Hermione Baddeley (Maude), Charles Lane (The Lucy Show), Stuart Margolin (The Rockford Files), and Bill Quinn (Archie Bunker's Place).
The thirty-three episodes that make up the fourth season are divided onto four discs. The discs are housed in two slim, clear plastic keepcases, both of which hold two discs apiece. The fronts of the cases are decorated with production and publicity stills of Montgomery, York, Moorehead, and other members of the supporting cast. The backs of the cases include titles and brief synopses for each episode. The interiors of the cases and the discs themselves also include production and publicity photos along with the cityscape over which Samantha flies in the show's opening credits. The DVDs continue the cityscape theme. Each disc also spotlights one of the cast members - Montgomery on disc one, York on disc two, Moorehead on disc three, and Gould on disc four. The keepcases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve.
The DVD menus, which start off full-motion before freezing on a static image, mimic the series' animated opening credits. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose them individually. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
