So I just finished my season 4 Angel re-watch and here and my thoughts on the topic:
Season 4 Angel was originally set to be the best season of the series yet.
By the end of season 3, all our favourite heroes had progress through their character arcs significantly, bar potentially Lorne. The end of season 3 left on a peak in terms of character development and the start of season 4 did not disappoint in holding up to that quality of character writing. Complications in romantic relationships, Wesleys darkest hours, Cordelia's higher purpose and Angel's newfound fatherhood. I feel like the season was the best material the tv series had right up to and including Angelus' return. What followed was unorganised, rushed and lazy writing (although we the circumstances around this).
Cordelia should have been left with the PtB.
Sure, we all love the spunky, 'I say whats on my mind' Cordelia, but let's face it, by the end of season 3, her arc had rounded out nicely. She did her part of the good fight, she went through her own trials and tribulations and she came out the other end a hero. She deserved her position (even though it felt a tad quick) in the higher plane. I was happy for her. When she came back, it seemed her entire legacy was ruined. Maybe the writers had a great arc planned for her before they had to improvise, who knows, but in the end she should have stayed with the PtB.
Jasmine was a great big bad.
I originally hated this season because of Cordelia/Jasmine when I was young, but with more mature eyes, I really enjoyed Jasmines presence on screen. The heroes of the series always talk about fighting the good fight, even though they know it will never end. Jasmine showed a glimpse of what reality could be like without evil (when she wasn't feeding ofc) and it was fresh and interesting. How she came to be was rushed and felt intrusive to an extent however, although this is explained away by the circumstances off-screen. I feel if she had additional episodes to flesh out her arrival she would have done the show justice.
The end of the hotel and the start of W&H was a good thing.
As much as we all love to get nostalgic about our favourite things, the hotel needed to go. It had been around for three seasons, the same length of time Buffy remained in high school. Why does this matter? People need to move on with their lives to bigger and better (or worse) things for people to relate to the characters. I felt that the hotel was causing stagnation in the show towards the end of season 3. The majority of scenes were shot here, yet we see no guests for the majority of the show. This makes the hotel seem lifeless, empty and without purpose (bar the one-off episode). Moving to W&H at the end of the season was needed to progress the characters to a new stage of development in the same way Buffy goes to college or becomes a pseudo-mother.