Samurai Jack: Season Four

Samurai Jack: Season Four, 2003-2004. An ancient samurai wanders the Earth in the distant future.

Created by Genndy Tartakovsky. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky (13 episodes), Robert Alvarez (6), Randy Myers (6) & Chris Savino (1). Written by Bryan Andrews (7 episodes), Brian Larsen (5), Jim Smith (3), Paul Rudish (3), Genndy Tartakovsky (3), Erik Wiese (2), Aaron Springer (2), Charlie Bean (1) & Mark Andrews (1). Starring Phil LaMarr.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 4/4 (Great)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 9/10 (One of my favorites, 4/4 5/4). With the exception of a couple great episodes, this season is distinctly not as good as the other three. (It's still a lot better than most other TV shows, though.)  There's a lot of experimenting for ways to break the usual Jack-fights-badguys-and-saves-the-day formula. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but it's always a little frustrating; you can tell they're grasping for new ways to stall. It's a little sad to think how great it would have been if they'd done something to develop the character instead of just come up with novel ways to avoid him.
Objective Rating (Average): 3.2/4 3.3/4 (Very good)