what do Python fans REALLY think of Series 4?

Personally, I think it is under-appreciated - despite half the episodes focusing on a single story, instead of being in the more popular multi-sketch format, each of them raise more laughs than the second half of Series 3 (where the team did begin to run out of ideas, and many ideas were more bizarre than funny), and the fact that John Cleese is mostly absent seems to have little effect on the material overall.

Regarding Series 4 itself, praise has been levelled at Episodes 3 and 6 ("Party Political Broadcast"), the latter of which (in addition to being the last ever episode) was selected by Terry Gilliam as his personal favourite, in 1999. But there is so very little appreciation for Episode 1 (whose hilarious moments include the King of France turning out to be an impostor), Episode 2 (the poetry recital), Episode 4 (where a famous sports broadcaster sends himself up), and Episode 5 (the post-credits sequence), despite the fact that these are far less fragmented or bland, and far more memorable, than Episodes 8-13 of Series 3.

What if Cleese had left Python halfway through Series 3, and all of Series 4 became the second half of Series 3, instead? That way, a deterioration in quality might have been less noticeable.