（美国有线电视新闻网）“眼镜蛇凯”可能不是电视上最好的节目，但似乎很少有人玩他们的格式更有趣，因为这个“空手道小子”的复兴——从其迁移到 Netflix 中获得了重大的商业推动——开始（字面意思）它的第四季。 新一轮的每一集都巧妙地建立在前一集的基础上，不断变化的联盟和来自原始三部曲的熟悉面孔，编织旧片段以增强联系。甚至音乐也得到了欢呼，丹尼尔·拉鲁索（拉尔夫·马奇奥饰）为芝加哥乐队唱赞歌——其彼得·塞特拉有一首歌在“空手道小子第二部分”中占有突出地位——他的一个年轻指控。
主要冲突再次涉及空手道道场 Cobra Kai，现在不仅由 John Kreese (Martin Kove) 管理，而且由他的老朋友 Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) 管理，他们都是“无怜悯”准则的热心践行者。
他们的参与也迫使丹尼尔和曾经的宿敌约翰尼·劳伦斯（威廉·扎布卡饰）试图将他们的分歧放在一边，但两人的个性和风格并不容易融合，而且他们很难在相互信任的地方工作。
该系列还巧妙地避免了愚蠢的青少年综合症，引入了涉及现有角色的新角色和意想不到的皱纹，基于理论，就像约翰尼的弧线一样，成为恶棍并不自动意味着永远保持一个人。
像往常一样，不可避免的山谷空手道锦标赛紧张局势加剧，但真正的力量在于到达那里，Zabka 提供了大量欢笑的时刻作为设置在他的方式恐龙，夹在他的前对手和一次性导师。
约翰尼在训练她的儿子米格尔（Xolo Maridueña）与卡门（凡妮莎·卢比奥饰）建立关系时同样感到不舒服（通常很搞笑）。
与此同时，丹尼尔和约翰尼继续与自己的孩子进行复杂的互动，同时充当他人的代理父亲。
坦率地说，一流的复兴是如此罕见，以至于“眼镜蛇凯”似乎不可避免地会遇到失误，或者干脆耗尽汽油。令人高兴的是，第四季绝对不是这种情况，它在流行文化上取得突破并获得艾美奖提名，从 YouTube 到 Netflix 毕业，为从老年人到青少年的每个人都提供了令人钦佩的服务。仅仅将 Kove 的 70 多岁的 Kreese 变成中央重量级，在一个花费一半时间看起来像“Dawson's Creek”的节目中就具有一定的大胆性。
尽管道场有熟悉的“永不死”的口号，但“眼镜蛇凯”不能永远活着。不过，就目前而言，它仍然是如何获得一个已知的头衔并为其注入活力的模型，而不会太认真。即使空手道动作变得有点乏味，就巧妙地构思一个概念而言，也很难不欣赏它的形式。
“眼镜蛇凯”第四季将于 12 月 31 日在 Netflix 上开播。
'Cobra Kai' delivers plenty of new kicks with its twisty fourth season
(CNN)"Cobra Kai" might not be the best show on TV, but few appear to have more fun playing with their formats, as this "Karate Kid" revival -- having received a major commercial boost from its migration to Netflix -- kicks off (literally) its fourth season.
Each new round of episodes has cleverly built on the one before, with shifting alliances and familiar faces from the original trilogy, weaving in old clips to enhance the connection. Even the music gets a shout out, with Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) singing the praises of the band Chicago -- whose Peter Cetera had a song prominently featured in "The Karate Kid Part II" -- to one of his young charges.
The main conflict again involves Cobra Kai, the karate dojo now under the stewardship of not only John Kreese (Martin Kove) but his old buddy Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), both ardent practitioners of the "No mercy" code.
Their involvement has also forced Daniel and one-time foe Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) to try setting their differences aside, but the pair's personalities and styles don't easily mesh, and they're hardly working from a place of mutual trust.
The series also neatly avoids dumb-teenager syndrome, introducing new characters and unexpected wrinkles involving the existing ones, predicated on the theory, much like Johnny's arc, that being a villain doesn't automatically mean staying one forever.
As usual, the tensions built toward the inevitable valley karate tournament, but the real strength lies in getting there, with Zabka delivering plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as the set-in-his-ways dinosaur, caught between his former opponent and one-time mentor.
Johnny is equally uncomfortable (often hilariously so) in pursuing a relationship with Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) while training her son Miguel (Xolo Maridueña).
At the same time, both Daniel and Johnny continue to have complicated interactions with their own kids, while functioning as surrogate fathers to others.
Frankly, topnotch revivals are so rare that it seemed inevitable "Cobra Kai" would experience a misstep, or simply run out of gas. Happily, that's definitely not the case with season four, which -- coming off a pop-culture breakthrough and Emmy nomination with its graduation from YouTube to Netflix -- admirably services everyone from its seniors to teens. Just turning Kove's 70-something Kreese into the central heavy has a certain audacity to it in a show that spends half its time looking like "Dawson's Creek."
Despite the dojo's familiar "Never die" slogan, "Cobra Kai" can't live forever. For now, though, it remains a model of how to take a known title and breathe life into it, without taking itself too seriously. Even when the karate action becomes a little tedious, in terms of deftly milking a concept, it's hard not to admire its form.
"Cobra Kai" begins its fourth season Dec. 31 on Netflix.
